One Way to Get Cool X-Rays

We've all heard the jokes about emo kids and how they cut themselves, my favorite being, "I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself!" I've known a few cutters in my day and must say that I still don't really understand the concept. I can somewhat understand the need to invoke physical pain to try and releive emotional issues, but actually cutting yourself just doesn't sound fun. Maybe that's because when I was all emo-y, which came late in life for me (college years), instead of doing something ridiculous like slicing up my arms with a pocket knife, I just went to the gym and beat myself up on the track or in the weight room.

I don't think the concept of cutting oneself is going to go away with kids any time soon, but I didn't see kids upping the ante as much as they supposedly have either. A new phenomenon, now referred to as "self embedding", is proliferating amongst the cutting crowd. This is definitely a new concept to me.

It's hard to understand why people cut themselves to begin with, but what the hell drives a kid to take paperclips, staples, wood splinters, crayons (from the article, not my imagination), or other things and find a way to get them inside your body under your skin? Yes, piercing has taken on new life in the emo/goth/metal/hardcore scenes with lots of interesting new piercing places (lips, cheeks, the back of the neck, etc.), which I can understand because it is a way to change your image that others see. However, with embedding kids aren't changing what's visible to others in a lame attempt to garner attention or artificially boost their self esteem. No, instead all they do is succeed in putting an object into their body outside of the usual ingestion methods.

This is really proof that we're only a few years or decades away from transhumanism becoming a mainstream thing. Body modification has exploded in the past few decades and we're really not that far away from openly grafting technology onto or into our bodies. RFID embedding, artificial organs, mechanical enhancements... by the time I'm 80 it probably won't even be controversial to be a cyborg. Oddly, I'm sort of looking forward to see how we can mesh technology and the human body together to make life longer, fuller, and more interesting.

That being said, self-embedding is just ridiculous. Don't be dumb, kids.