I don’t know at what point I began to realize that I didn’t love corporate America as much as I thought I would. It was like saving to get to some legendary vacation destination (Jersey Shore!) only to get robbed of all of your money the very first evening of your vacation.

The bloated and loopy rules, the blind value placed on tradition, the cold personalities coupled with the repetitive pattern of dress and speech and experiences maintained by each and every person who lived in Corporate America frightened me. Are you competent or is this what “competent ” looks like? Are you efficient? Or do you just give off the impression of ‘efficiency’ because you look like a librarian.

One day while leaving from an interview at a financial giant prior to 9/11 and the death of what was once a lucrative industry I was walking down Wall St. I was lost gazing at the crowds of people crossing the streets on this grey, chilly January afternoon. The light turned green and then a strange thing hit me.

I noticed every man and woman wore identical suits. Like a uniform, the colors and cuts of the clothes on each person was almost exactly the same as the person before and after them.  I stopped and actually looked around; up and down the street. I must be buggin!

Charcoal gray or navy blue suits; blue button down shirts, a black or navy blue wool coat; black or oxblood wingtips surrounded me something like that scene from the Matrix right before Neo sees the woman in the red dress. Everything slowed down when I became conscious of the fact that I was the woman in the red dress. Only I had on a blue wrap around dress, ash gray fishnets and matching gray ankle booties. My wool coat was a burnt orange, my umbrella was polka dot and I wore my hair in a high Princess Leia bun. This was my version of the “Corporate Blues”; I’ll wear any color you insist but I never dressed to look like everybody else.  Doing my own thing is an integral part of my personality, conformity felt like dredging through life in tar. So this was my work around (and for rules, I ALWAYS have a work around), I thought I was conforming just fine while being a stand out individual, thank you.

The first thing I did when I exited the financial tower that day was to step aside and fish my nose ring out of my purse and place it back in it’s rightful place; on the left side of my nose where it’s been since I was 18. I left my tongue ring soaking in cleaning solution and would replace it just as soon as I got back in the house.

A very strange thing is happening in our society and also in the cultures of other societies around the world. Body modification has been around for hundreds of thousands of years for various reasons. Most body modification has cultural significance, but there are those who have adopted the practice for simple reasons of vanity. There has never been a time in which humans have not made changes to their physical appearance, and there has never been a shortage of people willing to go to great lengths to do what in their mind has always been seen as ‘an improvement’ to their physical form. Being set apart from the ‘norm’ has always been seen as a good thing; at what point in time did it become fashionable for us all to look exactly the same?

The concept of beauty is not the same all over the world; beauty is not even standard from person to person. There are cultures that value women with long necks. The women who achieve this beauty feat do so by donning rings to give the illusion of an elongated neck. At one point, small feet were considered beautiful and a very important attribute for a Japanese woman to have. It was considered so important that Japanese women would bound their feet in narrow bands to prevent their feet from growing.

One of the most universally common types of body modification is the tattoo. The tattoo has been with humans throughout time and is now starting to be viewed as a social norm rather than a representation of a specific social group. People from all walks of life are now tattooed and so there is less of a negative class association when a person has body art. Tattoos are now viewed as a legitimate art form and less as a rebellious act against society. Although I think tattooing is still a rebellion against society; Corporate America may care but fuck um anyway and that’s a beautiful thing.

The most severe forms of body modification includes branding. Which is simply the act of taking a very hot device and applying it to the skin until a pattern like burn is created. This particular type of body modification is very dangerous because the burns can easily become infected. Your fraternity brothers would know about this type of modification; any man carrying this type of badge of honor has earned his ‘big balls’ medal for being crazy enough or bold enough to having chosen to be branded.

Teflon implants are becoming very popular within urban pop culture. Metal rings or bars are placed under the skin causing dents and ripples to appear under the skin. Some people go as far as to create the illusion of a spine or protruding forehead by using an intricate combination of  implants, tattoos and flesh cuts. Although once quite rare, this form of modification is becoming more prevalent.

Humans are using extreme body modification to permanently change their appearance. Their exodus to live on the fringes of what is socially acceptable within our society is becoming a movement. With less and less people wanting to play along with a game that’s broken and leaves it’s players feeling sold out and unfulfilled; living authentically and surviving in society by your own rules is the new American pass time. People are finding freedom in Corporate America’s rejection of them and in doing so a new way of living is being born. Simple, communal, ethical and efficient..the staples of the Hippie Movement.

Another kind of body modification involving the flesh itself and not the outside layer is a process called “gauging”. A pierced ear is certainly nothing new, but this particular spin on the ear piercing is. It starts with an individual pierced ear in which a larger device is gradually inserted over time in order to stretch the pierced hole. Sometimes jewelry is then hung from the open ear hole or items can be displayed within the hole. The hole can be repaired through surgery similar to that one would get with a ripped earlobe but having an ear gauge isn’t something that can easily be concealed.

The wearer of what used to be considered ‘extreme‘  body modification is becoming common place and it’s apparent that they have no intentions of becoming ‘you’; whatever that used to mean. I believe the increased popularity of face tattoos is directly related to popular cultures growing distaste and disbelief in the value of the “American Dream”.

Body modification is a very personal choice, indeed. Each person has their own reasons for changing the way they are perceived. Each person that dons body modification of any kind forges their own existence in skin determined by them alone and not the promise of a payoff in exchange of denial of their personal self.  Their skin represents what the individual wants you to notice about them; their individuality. Conformity is becoming synonymous with selling ones soul (for an increasingly lower and lower payout) rather than a right of passage a responsible adult makes in order to earn a living.

Body modification embodies what effective branding should be; individuality, expression, and art. I predict as time goes on the ‘individual’ person will become more valued for who they are and not how much of themselves they are willing to give up in order to satisfy that pesky hunger pang.

© 2011, Tracy Renee Jones. All rights reserved.