Posts tagged Jef Saunders

Point 87: The President’s Corner

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by Jef Saunders

Nate Janke, Derek Lowe, Westin M. Fryar, William Wood Jr., Courtney Jane Maxwell of Saint Sabrina’s

To you readers of The Point, it has been a humbling experience being the President of the Association of Professional Piercers. What I’ve learned in the past three years is that there is an enormous team of committed piercers, jewelry manufacturers, Sponsors, employees, Volunteers, Officers, committee members and Board members who make the effort every day to make piercing safer and spread the word about this wonderful organization.

We are on the precipice of the 24th annual APP Conference & Exposition, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve spoken with instructors, vendors, volunteers and attendees, and we all share a renewed enthusiasm for the learning that takes place at our Conference. One of the most exciting parts of teaching and attending classes is the zeal with which our attendees participate. Make no mistake, even if you are not a volunteer, instructor, vendor, or conference worker, you are a crucial part of this Conference if you are attending classes, asking questions, and coming home a better educated piercer than you left.

So much is new about this 24th annual Conference: our venue is the spectacular Planet Hollywood Resort Casino! We have a revamped and exciting Golden Ticket raffle. We also have a completely new Silent Auction! We even completely overhauled the Banquet into a new Closing Party! Considering our new venue, this year was a great opportunity to innovate, and the Conference Committee and Board have done just that.

Perhaps the conference event dearest to my heart is the celebration of the life and work of Fakir Musafar. Fakir was a mentor, boss, spiritual guru, and friend of mine, and I am looking forward to sharing memories and hearing new stories in the classes devoted to Fakir. The Body Piercing Archive has been working for well over a year to present the largest exposition of Fakir’s work ever. This exhibit will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before, and I cannot wait for our conference attendees to experience it.

As I leave the office of President, I want to say thank you to everyone who has helped me throughout my term; there are not enough pages in The Point to list everyone. Thank you to our Members, Corporate Sponsors, Volunteers, Board Members past and present, and our conference attendees. Thank you Marina. Thank you Caitlin. Thank you to the staff of The Point, who do an exemplary job (and deal with my penchant for missing deadlines). Thanks to everyone who puts work into promoting safe piercing, and supports sharing and education in our community. You inspire us all. Excelsior!

Point 86: The President’s Corner

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by Jef Saunders

In this issue celebrating the organization’s 25th anniversary, we ponder the future of the body piercing industry, our community, and the Association of Professional Piercers. As President, considering the future of our organization and industry is one of my highest priorities. The opportunity to help establish policies and safeguards which help our organization flourish, and our industry to become safer and better-educated, has been one of the greatest honors of my career. As such, I’m excited to discuss how we hope to aid in the growth and success of our industry.

It is the goal of the APP, and hopefully the goal of everyone in our community, to foster inclusivity and diversity. With that goal in mind, the

APP has added several new classes, roundtables, and TalkAPP sessions to our 2019 Conference. These courses are intended to highlight diverse perspectives and ideas, provide education about the challenges faced by people of color in our industry, and discuss actionable steps we can take to minimize those challenges.

In addition, the APP has added the following language to our Member’s Code of Conduct:

“I agree to provide a work environment that is free from harassment, bigotry, and discrimination. I will not discriminate or harass employees or clientele based upon an individual’s sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, size, race, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, age (except where legally required), religion, ability, or any other legally protected characteristic(s).

“Declining to perform a piercing on an individual (who has provided legally required valid identification) based on  minimum  age requirements, anatomy viability assessment, or potential health complications is not considered a violation of the APP Code of Conduct, unless it is done to explicitly discriminate against a legally protected characteristic. Refraining from piercing when there is a reasonable risk that the piercing will fail or result in complications is considered appropriate, safe, and ethical piercing practice.”

The APP will continue to expand our educational offerings and improve pre-existing classes at our annual Conference. In addition, we will continue to broaden the scope of our online courses; it is imperative that we offer a wide variety of options for education, so that all individuals looking to learn are able to do so regardless of distance or financial concerns. Furthermore, as sister organizations spring up around the globe, we will do everything we can to assist these colleagues in nurturing their organizations and developing educational materials.

I am truly excited to see what our industry’s jewelry manufacturers and other suppliers deliver in the coming years. I am in awe of the high-quality, innovative creations our sponsors have produced in the past 25 years, and I think we are all looking forward to seeing what they have in store in the next quarter century.

Finally, as the APP’s educational mission continues to succeed, I expect to see further growth in our membership. In the last three years alone, we have seen membership increase by more than double. Our next big benchmark will be one thousand APP Members from all over the world!

The future has some big things in store for our community, and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish! Excelsior!

Point 81: Piercing – “El Presidente” Jef Saunders

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Interview by Sean Dowdell

Sean Dowdell: Why did you want to learn to do body piercing?

Jef Saunders: This is kind of a long story, but I’ll be as brief as I can be. I graduated high school in small town Connecticut in 1996. There was very little going on in the way of body piercing where I was, but a few piercings had become popular in the punk/hardcore scene by then. My girlfriend at the time had wanted to get her tragus pierced, so on her birthday (Halloween 1996) I drove from my college dorm at the University of Connecticut to Providence, Rhode Island to get her tragus pierced, and my ear lobes pierced. It was like lightning struck me when I watched the piercing get done. Keep in mind, there was no YouTube, so when there was a curved needle, and a cork, and all these glove changes… It was so incredibly fascinating to me! It made no sense and I desperately wanted to make sense of it. By spring of the following year, I was apprenticing in Connecticut, and by fall, I was apprenticing at the shop I had been pierced at.

Sean Dowdell: When did you start body piercing, who taught you, and where?

Jef Saunders: I started piercing professionally at a shop called LunaSea, which was a combination skate shop and piercing shop in Providence. I apprenticed under the piercers at that shop, and I also attended the Fakir Intensives in San Francisco, California. Fakir and his instructors are the reason I am still a piercer today. They really instilled in me a passion for the work of piercing that still burns in me to this day. I can’t emphasize enough how big an impression Fakir, Dustin Allor, Tod Almighty, Ian Bishop, and Ken Coyote had on me. They changed piercing from a business or a hobby to something transcendental and good for the world around me. It was truly life changing.

Ryan Ouellette, Oscar Sandoval, Erika Gomez, Luis Garcia, Jef Saunders, & Ed Chavarria

Sean Dowdell: What piercers do you look up to and why?

Jef Saunders: I think first and foremost, when I think of pure, raw, piercing talent: Luis Garcia. Luis has some kind of extra sensory perception when it comes to placement. Luis is playing chess when other piercers (including myself) are playing checkers.

I am really inspired by younger, newer piercers. I think a lot of my experienced peers look at newer piercers and see entitled Tumblr users who didn’t have to work for anything. I think of it differently. I had the benefit of piercing before it was easy to put pictures on the internet. I had a running start with my portfolio before other piercers had a chance to tear it apart. Nowadays? You need to be good, and you need to get good fast. Sure, you may not have had to go to the library to research skin preps, but you had better get the length on that industrial right or the internet will tear you apart! It’s a ton of pressure on these newer piercers, and most of them are doing a fantastic job of absorbing that pressure and putting out remarkable work.

Finally, there’s no small list of piercers I think are spectacular. I couldn’t list them all but a few include Cody Vaughn, Courtney Jane Maxwell, Aaron Pollack, Kelly Carvara, Kellan Smith, and Ken Coyote.

Sean Dowdell: What are your thoughts about the internet and its role in the piercing industry?

Jef Saunders: I can’t really say enough about how much I enjoy the free exchange of ideas. The internet is a wonderful resource for piercers, and I can’t imagine being where we are today in terms of health and safety, as well as technique if the internet wasn’t a big part of our industry.

I have really enjoyed being a blogger. I was caught off guard when my piercing blog (www.piercingnerd.com) started to develop a following. In the years since I started it, I’ve developed classes on the entries I’ve posted and met literally hundreds of piercers through it. It’s been a wonderful personal learning experience, as well as a fun way to give back to our community.

Sean Dowdell: If you could give 1 piece of advice to the piercers out there, what would it be (pertaining specifically to procedures)?

Jef Saunders: You are allowed to practice on an inanimate object before you do a piercing on a paying customer. I think, for a lot of piercers, they never consider trying a piercing technique on a piece of foam board or one of those silicone body bits. The muscle memory, and figuring out problems before they arise, is totally worth the small amount of time or money you may need to invest.

Sean Dowdell: What do you think are (if any) problems within the piercing industry?

Jef Saunders: Less a problem, more an opportunity for improvement: it’s very important to me that we continue to innovate tools and supplies that are designed to be single use. I would love to see the piercing community embrace less tool reprocessing as a way of making piercing safer for our clients, and exposing piercers and shop employees to less bioburden. There are lots of jewelry and supply companies that can seize that opportunity and make us disposable, inexpensive, high quality piercing tools.

Sean Dowdell: Where would you like to be in 5 years (pertaining to life and business)?

Jef Saunders: That’s a difficult question! I sold my shops last year to my good friend, Peter Jett. I’m hoping within five years, I have found a good place to continue to pierce, whether I own the shop or not. My son will be six years old by then, so I’m betting I’ll be coaching basketball by then too!

Sean Dowdell: What is your favorite piercing to perform and why?

Jef Saunders: I really love the basics, especially nostrils and navels. I have to admit a daith piercing is a pretty special one to me, though. I like performing them because they are a great mix of challenging, and have an important history to me. I have my daith pierced by Ken Coyote, who apprenticed under Erik Dakota, the first person to perform one. That lineage means a lot to me.

Sean Dowdell: How does it feel to be the newly elected President of APP?

Jef Saunders: It feels like a great responsibility, but also an enormous opportunity. I am standing on the shoulders of giants, though. The presidents, board members, officers, and volunteers who preceded me have put me in an amazing place, enabling the APP to continue to grow and be successful.

Sean Dowdell: What changes would you like to see in the APP?

Jef Saunders: I have been working with the Board and the Membership Committee to make our application process more streamlined and efficient. I am looking forward to making compliance with APP membership requirements easier for our members as well. There are more plans in the works, but I would rather let the people whose hard work is making these amazing changes happen introduce them!

Sean Dowdell: Tell us something positive that you feel comes from the piercing industry.

Jef Saunders: I genuinely believe in the power of body piercing as self-expression. I think this art form speaks to certain people, and I’m passionate about making it as safe as possible for those people.

Sean Dowdell: What would you like other piercers to know that they might not know about you?

Jef Saunders: I took a few months off of piercing last year to work at a craft brewery. It was very hard work but I developed a newfound respect for the work and craftsmanship that goes into making a consistently good quality product.

Sean Dowdell: Being a veteran piercer, what advice do you think that most new piercers should be aware of as they climb into this industry?

Jef Saunders: We were all the newbie at some point. No one happened upon this piercing community a fully formed excellent piercer. You’ll get there with hard work and assistance from the good people of this amazing piercing family.

Sean Dowdell: Is there anything you wish to learn or get better at in the piercing industry?

Jef Saunders: I want to be a better piercer in every regard, whether it be bedside manner, health and safety, technique, or even something like jewelry color combinations. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by good examples and resourceful friends. I will continue learning from and being inspired by these amazing piercers throughout our community

Point 80: The President’s Corner

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Jef Saunders
APP President

Again and again I heard the same sentiments echoed throughout this year’s APP Conference. “This year  has  a  great vibe.” “There are so many new people, and they are all about the classes.” “Everyone being so focused is making this my favorite Conference ever.” It really was remarkable.

I have to say, as President of an organization, going into something like our annual Conference comes with no small amount of nervous energy. You want it to be successful, but what I really want is for the attendees heading home to have that infectious energy that makes them want to improve their piercing techniques and health and safety. I want our attendees to be overjoyed about the goodies they are bringing home to their shops from our incredible Expo, and most of all I want them to leave excited to come back again.

In my humble opinion, this year’s APP Conference truly delivered. This was a top to bottom group effort, and really speaks to how well our community works together when focused on a common goal. I was blown away by the size of the Expo and the continued ingenuity of our Vendors. In addition to our vendors’ commitment to improving and innovating their products, the APP receives awe-inspiring support from sponsorships of our Conference activities and our raffle prizes. My deepest thanks goes out to our Vendors for all of their support. The Mentor Program continues to grow and continues to support our new attendees. This year I was able to see Mentors meet their Mentees, and watch how that system works. I was very impressed to see how it was managed, but I was also stunned by the size of the undertaking! It is a genuine pleasure to see so many new faces in classrooms and in the halls. The volunteers, no doubt, have established themselves as the glue that holds Conference together. I tried to say it as much as I could in person, but my gratitude to them for all their hard work knows no bounds.

There were several times that I ran into Caitlin’s office, panicked, asking if something was done. On every single occasion, not  only was everything handled, it was handled months previous and I left her office thinking “how does she do it?” Thank you Caitlin, and thanks for making me look prepared even when I wasn’t!

A lot of this year’s success can also be credited to Kendra Jane, our new Vice President. It is a pleasure to serve with her on the Board, and I’m sure she is as thrilled as anyone at how well this Conference went.

Of course, when we look back at each Conference we also do so with a critical eye, imagining what we can do better. It has been this constructive criticism, from within the organization and from our attendees and vendors, that have made each Conference work a bit better than the one that preceded it. We will continue to develop, innovate, improve, and experiment, and I’m excited for what we have to come.

Which brings me to Camp APP 2017! As a camper in 2016, I can’t heap enough praise upon Bethrah Szumski and the Camp APP volunteers and instructors for the quality of experience they are able to deliver. It is absolutely one of my most treasured moments in my piercing career. I strongly recommend it to all of our Members.

There is a lot of wonderful activity happening within the organization, and I am very much looking forward to discussing it in the next President’s Corner. Enjoy Issue 80 and thank you for supporting safe piercing!

Point 79: The 90s

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…FORGET THE REST THERE’S NOTHING ELSE BEYOND THE BODY…
Brian Skellie

THE NINETIES
COMPILATION BY KENDRA JANE B
The Point Editor

“What can I say about the nineties? Those ten years shaped and influenced the rest of my life more than any other decade I have experienced. I graduated high school, had my first serious boyfriend, went to university, lost my virginity, found my fem- inist voice and became a regis- tered voter, lived on my own for the first time, and got my first body piercings.” —Kendra Jane B.  

“The early 90s were the golden years of ‘celebrity piercer.‘ Recognized piercers were treated like rock stars. These ‘good ol’ days’ weren’t ‘better times,’ but they were certainly more wild.”—Paul King

“The 90s were my coming of age in several ways; both as a young man and as a piercer.”—Luis Garcia

“The 90s was when I first discovered music, sex, and body piercing (in that order). I saw pierced nipples on MTV in 1995, and here I am now.”—Cody Vaughn

“My formative years were in the 90s. In 7th grade I heard “Smells like Teen Spirit,” and it’s impossible to explain how much influence that one song had on the rest of my life. By 1999 I had graduated high school and begun my career as a body piercer.”—Jef Saunders

“It was anarchy really? No rules, just putting needles anywhere you could grab. It was equal parts awesome and ridiculous.”-Ryan Ouellette

Whether showing off by the pool or volunteering for the APP, Brian Skellie’s passion for our industry hasn’t changed since the 90s.

Conference has come along way since the 90s but if you look hard enough you might see some familiar faces, ones that still make our Conference great, decades later.

Point 79: The President’s Corner – Jef Saunders

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Jef Saunders
APP President

I vividly remember my first APP Conference experience. I had about $300 to my name, and I was waiting on a check to clear when I landed in Las Vegas. When I arrived I had no money at all to get to the Conference hotel; this was in the Riviera days. I actually looked through my junk mail, activated a credit card, and took a $20 cash advance to catch a cab to the hotel. When I arrived I was intimidated and excited, but before long I wasn’t amongst strangers, I was with friends.

I image that many attendees have similar experiences their first year. I know that many arrive at our Conference for the first time, low on money, but with an abundance of nerves. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been there. Everyone has had a first  Conference.  I say it like that, because very few attendees have just one Conference. There is a special kind of magic that surrounds the entire event. We all end up making relationships that last a lifetime. We are learning together. We are buying jewelry and supplies from our hardworking vendors. A lucky few of us will even win raffle prizes that will alter the course of our careers. It is hard to put into words how special our Conference really is.

Until my involvement with the Board, I didn’t have an understanding of all the work that goes into the magic that is our collective learning, sharing, and growing experience. Since Conference continues to grow, more and more thought is required in addition to a tremendous amount of work and cooperation. Our volunteers, instructors, vendors, sponsors, mentors, board, officers and employees put in so much all year for this one week. They have my thanks for all the good times I have had over the years.

I’d love to be able to point to one moment in particular that cemented my love of Conference, but how could I? I was there when Rob Hill proposed to Stephanie Hill during the banquet (I mean right there, sitting next to them!) I was in the 20 years of APP roundtable listening to my heroes talk about the behind the scenes history of the APP. I got to teach a class about nostril piercing with Alicia Cardenas to a room about twice as full as I was counting on. I saw one of my closest friends, Cody Vaughn, win a huge raffle prize within months of opening his new shop. The list goes on and on.

If you’ve attended before, I’m sure you have your own moments like these. If this is your first Conference, I’m sure you’ll make your own memories that will stay with you a lifetime. If you ask me what my absolute favorite experience at Conference is, my answer is: the next one. The next time I get goosebumps. The next time I learn something that changes the way I pierce forever. The next time I cry because Caitlin is crying. That’s my favorite.

Point #65: The Piercing Password, Daith

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 Jef Saunder headshotBy Jef Saunders
Rockstar Body Piercing

Few people are aware of what a shibboleth is, but they are familiar with one very famous one: Lollapalooza. Lollapalooza, made famous by the Perry Farrell’s traveling music fest, is familiar to us. It is relevant on several levels to the piercing industry, as Lollapalooza was, for many people across the United States, their first exposure to body piercing. Whether it be through traveling piercers like Eve Zamora, Gadhi, Cricket Keene, Allen Falkner, and Ken Coyote, or the modified Jim Rose Circus Sideshow: the Lollapalooza tour was essential to early 1990’s body piercing culture.

But the Lollapalooza I am referring to is the shibboleth “lollapalooza.” A shibboleth is a word that one culture can pronounce easily, but another cannot. U.S. Forces in the Pacific theater of World War II would hear other soldiers walking in the woods, or in the dark. If they were unsure as to whether they were American or not, they would yell, “Say Lollapalooza!” An American can say this word easily. Japanese soldiers could not. This shibboleth protected American soldiers from ambush, and the mispronunciation potentially cost Japanese soldiers their lives. [1]

The word shibboleth, and the first recorded concept of this kind of password, is from the bible. Specifically Judges 12:5-6 (King James version quoted) “And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now shibboleth: and he said sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.” [2]

The two previous mentions of a shibboleth are primarily a racial/cultural mispronunciation, but if we get to the heart of the matter, a shibboleth is a password into a culture. Arguably, body piercing has several of these: “plugs” versus “gauges,” “philtrum” versus some sort of “bite.” Some piercers still mispronounce “labret!” (For the record, it’s a hard “T” sound). But none is as nonsensical as the pronunciation of the daith piercing (doth, like “goth” with a “d”). The uninformed cannot wrap their heads around that pronunciation, and this makes it a shibboleth.

I had heard several versions of how the daith received its name, but I decided to go straight to the

Example of a daith piercing, by Jef Saunders.
Example of a daith piercing, by Ken Coyote.

source.  I called Erik Dakota, the first person to do the daith, and asked him how his client came up with the name.  Erik explained to me that he had a wonderful, intelligent and creative client named Theresa, who was “a good Catholic girl” (which hopefully dispels some of the inaccurate versions of the story).  She asked Erik if he could perform a unique piercing, what we now call the daith.  Erik assessed her anatomy.  Yes indeed; her tissue could support the piercing, but the cartilage was too rigid to put a straight needle through.  Erik had lots of experience curving needles to perform another piercing he originated, the rook, so he curved the needle, performed the piercing, and asked Theresa to name it.  Theresa had been teaching herself Hebrew, and decided it took quite a bit of intelligence to perform this piercing.  She elected to name her new piercing the “daith,” which she said was the Hebrew word for intelligence. The name, pronunciation, and spelling stuck.

I’ve had a bit of trouble confirming this spelling and/or the meaning for the word “daith.”  Internet searches and talks with friends who speak Hebrew have pointed me toward the word daath, or da’at, or da’as, meaning knowledge. [3] (For example, someone who is knowledgeable in Jewish law is “da’as torah.”)  I have also found reference to “daath” on the Tree of Life on Kabbalistic websites. [4] The spelling “daith” remains elusive to me.

I think it is important to note that neither Erik Dakota nor his client Theresa had any intention of this piercing having spiritual overtones; it was simply a good name that fit a piercing that had to be performed by a knowledgeable, intelligent piercer.

I have heard several piercers suggest we change the spelling to “daath” or just make it as easy as possible for our clients, and spell it “doth.”  Our industry seems to get particularly bothered by clients and piercers mispronouncing terms.  I am of a slightly different opinion.

We have been given a gift, in this unique spelling and counterintuitive pronunciation. I say: Let’s keep this our password. One of the joys of my job is meeting other informed, active piercers, and the rarer, but much appreciated, educated client. To hear “daith” pronounced correctly is music to my ears.  Only someone knowledgeable about our culture (at least a little) will pronounce “daith” correctly, and this uniquely confirms Theresa’s initial intention.  It is a nod of respect to Erik and his client.  Daith is our shibboleth; it is our pass into our culture, and we are well served to preserve it.

References:

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
2 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+12%3A5-6&version=KJV
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da’at
4 http://www.mirach.org.uk/basic/daath.html

											
																					

									

																	

										

											

												Point #65: APHA Conference 2013 – Boston, Massachusetts
											

											

												
													
												
												
												
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Jef Saunder headshotBy Jef Saunders

Rockstar Body Piercing


The 141st American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting was held in Boston, running November 2-6, 2013. More than 12,000 people attended the meeting, and once again the Association of Professional Piercers was among those present (this year represented by Nicholas Adams, Brian Moeller, Laura Jane Leonard, and myself—Jef Saunders).


This meeting is a decidedly different form of outreach than many of us are used to.  Instead of working with clients or piercers, we deal directly with public health workers. From doctors, regulators, and students we were blown away by our reception. So many people stopped and said, “Thank you for being here.  This is definitely a great public health topic!”


One of the questions we got again and again was “Do you have information on the dangers of APHA 2013piercing and tattoo parties?”  And after fielding the question several times I got to thinking that an informational pamphlet (written by our members) would be an excellent addition to our existing literature.  (In it we can outline everything from the dangers of piercing outside a well-equipped facility to what one should look for in a piercing studio.)


One of the joys of this expo was meeting with folks from state and local health departments and discussing things that they hadn’t considered health and safety issues.  Many of these health department officials were completely in the dark about things like jewelry standards, and it turns out  these were things that the officials were very interested in!


The difference between APHA and other types of outreach, like the Philadelphia Tattoo Convention, was tremendous. A tattoo convention is similar to the same type of “outreach” that we do in our own shops every day.  Educating the public one at a time is important, but is it a good investment of our resources? (I’m not saying it is or isn’t, just posing an important question.) What I can say is that the APHA meeting convinced me that efforts can, and should, be spent working with public health officials.


Think about it: Consider how influential our organization might be on public policy!  Getting jewelry standards, health and safety standards, and even our procedure manual directly into the hands of policy makers and legislators has been of tremendous value to our members and to the public at large.  It is for that reason I would strongly encourage the APP to continue attending APHA meetings;  I can’t imagine a better investment of our time and resources to reach more influential public health leaders.

											
																					

									

																	

										

											

												Point #60: Social Media for Piercers
											

											

												
													
												
												
												
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By Jef Saunders


As moderator for one of this year’s Conference roundtable discussions, my focus was on a topic that fascinates me: social media. We’ve all seen examples of piercers advancing their careers and representing the industry very well by utilizing social media outlets effectively (see Bethra Szumski’s article in The Point #58 “Pinterest and the Triple Forward Helix”); unfortunately, there have been equally viral social media gaffes, such as videos of piercers using biopsy punches and referring to surface anchors as “implants.” With all of the possibilities for both meteoric success and horrifying blunders, a larger than-expected group of piercers met to discuss this topic.


My approach as moderator was simple: I’d bring up the name of a social media website and allow the roundtable participants to take the dialogue where they wanted. A brief synopsis of our discussion is below. 


Yelp

It seems as though there was very little middle ground with Yelp and the attendees; they’d either had spectacular success, or Yelp and its reviewers have seemingly gone out of their way to make life more complicated for them. Of particular interest was the amount of genuine, positive reviews that seemed to disappear, while suspicious negative reviews stayed posted. Many of the attendees felt that Yelp was so inaccurate and biased toward negative reviews that they didn’t like participating on that website at all. Others found Yelp to be one of the best weapons in their online arsenal. When good reviews were posted there, they had clients visit on a regular basis because of them. 


Facebook Personal Pages

This was a particularly interesting discussion for piercers and also for any other professionals who work with the public. I posed the question: “Do you add clients as ‘friends’ on your personal page?” For some piercers, Facebook became solely a marketing tool and any illusion of privacy quickly disappeared. Some went so far as to delete family members and friends to focus on Facebook only for professional networking.


On the other hand, legitimate safety concerns were raised. Could having such a public persona result in a piercer being harassed or stalked? Some attendees felt that was definitely a possibility, and kept a very private Facebook page for this exact reason. Still others tried to have the best of both worlds, having a “piercer” Facebook page and also a private, “friends and family” page.


Facebook Fan Pages

Interestingly enough, the way Facebook charges and promotes posts changed just before the 2012 APP Conference, so our discussion focused on two things: The first was how to moderate discussions and comments on a business (Fan) page; the second was the frustrating changes in policies that have just made maintaining a Fan page more expensive. The new “Promoted Post” feature, in particular seems to have struck Fan page owners as gouging them for something they had been getting for free. 


The Body Modification Learning Forum (BMLF)

Rick Frueh’s creation has undoubtedly served to introduce more piercers (and other body modifiers) to the importance of minimum standards in health and safety, jewelry quality, and proper techniques. It has also left a lot of forum members smarting from the online tongue lashings they have received. For both reasons, we may all be in Rick’s debt. Essentially, this discussion was less about the BMLF in particular but rather how piercers interact with other professionals in online forums.


Rec.arts.bodyart, BME, and Tribalectic forums were all brought up during this discussion. The dialogue diverged in many directions, but the upshot was, when posting or commenting in a forum with other professionals, have thick skin and an open mind. If you make a mistake, you will hear about it!


Of potential concern is the number of piercers, especially new piercers, who use online forums as a substitute for a hands-on apprenticeship. While the forum is a valuable tool and resource, the roundtable attendees voiced unanimous concern that using the BMLF in place of an apprenticeship is ill-advised and potentially dangerous.


YouTube

Is it a good idea to post videos of piercings being performed? Is it a good idea to allow a client to videotape you while you work? This topic alone could have filled an hour or two. What was very clear is that, at this point, YouTube is brimming with bad piercing videos. In many cases, poor health and safety practices and techniques end up being on display on this huge social media powerhouse. One question that remained unanswered is whether or not it is important to stem the tide and be larger participants, showcasing our safe piercing for the world?


Unfortunately, the roundtable was only able to briefly discuss Tumblr, and was unable to cover other social networking tools like Pinterest, Instagram, and older sites like Myspace. The piercers that participated brought an amazing amount of insight, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I left with changed attitudes and a better understanding of how to use social media and networking websites to my benefit. These are a permanent part of our industry, and those who utilize the internet well are giving themselves an excellent opportunity to be representatives for safe, healthy, beautiful body piercing.