Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from half
Speaker 1: stuff dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: and we have a question for you. Are you ready
Speaker 1: to rock? I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren vocal Bomb. That
Speaker 1: refers to something that happened off Mike during our warm ups. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So we wanted to talk today about the topic of
Speaker 1: body modification and text role in that some of the
Speaker 1: body modification topics will be talking about do not directly
Speaker 1: tie into a lot of tech, but it's still interesting
Speaker 1: because it leads into the discussion of the next generation
Speaker 1: of high tech body modification. Sure, and also you know
Speaker 1: some of the technology that people are using on current
Speaker 1: body modifications, even just regular old tattoos. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, speaking of regular old tattoos. In the
Speaker 1: interest of full disclosure, I've got two of them, so
Speaker 1: I can actually talk about the physical experience of receiving
Speaker 1: a tattoo as well as the actual science and technology
Speaker 1: that goes into producing a tattoo. I have zero tattoos
Speaker 1: while we're while we're talking about it, but my ears
Speaker 1: are pierced. Does that Does that help that that's body modification?
Speaker 1: I'm actually also interest of all disclosure, debating getting into
Speaker 1: your pierced just just one, just one, Okay, just one.
Speaker 1: I don't know that's going to happen too, because I
Speaker 1: keep thinking I might be too old for that. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about tattoos. That's a good starting point, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, your piercing is probably the lowest on the
Speaker 1: scale because it's the most socially accepted form of body
Speaker 1: modification in our culture. You know, it's one in in
Speaker 1: the United States that you're piercing. Is that's that's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty pretty yeah, very common. So it's no one would
Speaker 1: blink an eye really, depending upon the type of piercing.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are more extreme piercings that that some
Speaker 1: people would look at and go, wow, that's pretty extreme,
Speaker 1: but it's still kind of on the the and yeah,
Speaker 1: at least as far as our society is concerned. Right,
Speaker 1: But tattoos. Tattoos are one of those things that we
Speaker 1: have a lot of information about about how they happen. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: and they are getting more common. According to a Harris
Speaker 1: Pole of American adults have one UM, including thirty eight
Speaker 1: percent of people between the ages of thirty and thirty nine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I fall into that category. Yeah, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: actually I'm always thinking about what my next one's going
Speaker 1: to be. By the way, there's a common saying that
Speaker 1: tattoos are addictive. That is kind of well, it's not
Speaker 1: physiologically true, but psychologically it is kind of true, because
Speaker 1: after you take the plunge the first time, you think,
Speaker 1: I kind of want more. So clearly, when we're talking
Speaker 1: about tattoos in this podcast, we're really going to be
Speaker 1: focusing on the way that modern tattoos happened. But it,
Speaker 1: you know, it beholds us to talk about tattooing has
Speaker 1: a pretty long history. Yeah. Recent documentation from the Siberian
Speaker 1: Times reported that some of the permafrost preserved uh, like
Speaker 1: like ice princesses and stuff like that have shown, um
Speaker 1: from you know, fifth century BC have have shown tattoos
Speaker 1: much like modern ones. That particular article strangely enough didn't
Speaker 1: link out to any scholarly institutions or or reporting, so
Speaker 1: salt yeah, but still well yeah, and then there have
Speaker 1: been reports of you know, tattoos being found on ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptian mummies from about two thousand BC. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: of course the word tattoo we get from a Tahitian
Speaker 1: word which essentially means to mark, which makes sense, and
Speaker 1: that that word started to appear in English writing right
Speaker 1: around the time that old James Cook was exploring the
Speaker 1: South Pacific, so about seventeen sixty nine. Now, tattoos are
Speaker 1: all done in essentially the same way, which involves piercing
Speaker 1: the skin and inserting the mak. But the tattoo machine
Speaker 1: is a little more recent. That comes to us from
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds. It's a late nineteenth century and
Speaker 1: that was a improvement by one Samuel O'Reilly on a
Speaker 1: machine patented by Thomas Edison. Yes, Thomas Essen's machine was
Speaker 1: not meant to tattoo. It was meant to engrave metal,
Speaker 1: and it was meant to create stencils, and it was
Speaker 1: called an electric pen, also known as the autographic printer,
Speaker 1: and that was something that was invented right around eight
Speaker 1: or so. But what O'Reilly said was, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a tattoo artist. He actually had been a tattoo artist
Speaker 1: in New York. He was an Irish immigrant, came to
Speaker 1: New York sometime in the eighteen seventies, set up shop,
Speaker 1: saw the electric pin by Thomas Edison and It's interesting
Speaker 1: because that device that Thomas Esson made never really became
Speaker 1: popular for what it was designed to do. There were
Speaker 1: other technologies that came along shortly thereafter that made it
Speaker 1: more or less obsolete. Right. And also you know, for
Speaker 1: for for hand engraving. Yeah, it's a lot um more
Speaker 1: efficient to in machine engrave than it is to handingrain. Right.
Speaker 1: So O'Reilly takes a look at this and says, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, though, this thing that maybe isn't so great
Speaker 1: for what it was meant to do might do something
Speaker 1: else if I just make a few modifications. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: I just changed the tube system to to accommodate inc
Speaker 1: and um uh, modified the oscillating unit to drive a
Speaker 1: needle rather than a Yeah, I suppose it was a
Speaker 1: needle to begin with, right, right, but there's a different
Speaker 1: style needle like the needle that was in the electric pin.
Speaker 1: You would not want to touch your skin because it
Speaker 1: was enormous. It was huge and a little bit scary.
Speaker 1: It was, yes, certainly, and it's funny if you want
Speaker 1: to actually take a look at the patent. The patent
Speaker 1: was issued on December eight. Because it's on the patent application,
Speaker 1: you can actually look up patents for free online. Google
Speaker 1: has a very good patent searching. This one comes right
Speaker 1: up if you do a patent searching Google. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: patent number four six for eight oh one and the
Speaker 1: name of it is tattooing machine. Both yes, both both
Speaker 1: that and Edison's machine. UM. The patents for them still exists.
Speaker 1: In The illustrations are very fancy and pretty yes, and
Speaker 1: that's I've seen some really slap dash patent tellstrations to
Speaker 1: my day, but these are top notch. There's some there's
Speaker 1: some ones for some particularly high tech gadgets that when
Speaker 1: you look at the you think it was someone drunk
Speaker 1: when they drew this, and it just shows that, you know,
Speaker 1: engineers and artists don't always combine into one person right
Speaker 1: at anything rate. So you look at this pattern, it's
Speaker 1: very interesting it It does have that ink reservoir and
Speaker 1: it's got the ability to channel inc down to this needle.
Speaker 1: The needle, by the way, is solid. It's not like
Speaker 1: a hollow needle or anything, right. I think the idea
Speaker 1: is that, um, the needle is contained within a small
Speaker 1: chamber that holds the ink, and then when the needle
Speaker 1: pushes down out through that chamber, it takes takes the
Speaker 1: drop off then right, and it pierces the skin and
Speaker 1: deposits the ink underneath, specifically in the dermist, because you're
Speaker 1: going underneath the epidermis, which which sheds and cycles so
Speaker 1: frequently that if you put it in the epidermis, it
Speaker 1: would stick around for not very long at all, certainly
Speaker 1: not a lifetime. Like if you have you have ever
Speaker 1: had either, you know, well, temporary tattoo will just wash
Speaker 1: off eventually. But if you were to get like a
Speaker 1: henna tattoo, something that stains the skin, then you know
Speaker 1: that eventually that skin, no matter how careful you are,
Speaker 1: that design is gonna go away because you will shed
Speaker 1: that skin. You know, that skin will end up flaking
Speaker 1: off of you. It becomes dust. Actually, that's what a
Speaker 1: lot of the dust in our world is. It's that
Speaker 1: skin scale. Yeah, I mean a lot of the dust
Speaker 1: that you encounter on a day to day basis. That's
Speaker 1: pretty much from your body, happy thought anyway. Uh So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the tattoo is permanent because it is actually staining the dermists,
Speaker 1: as you said, not the epidermist. So we were actually
Speaker 1: looking at a tattoo through the epidermists think of the
Speaker 1: epidermist is kind of like a window, and the dermist
Speaker 1: is where you're actually seeing the design imprinted. And your
Speaker 1: typical tattoo needle. According to our article on how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, there's you know how tattoos work? We
Speaker 1: actually have this article. Uh, the needle can move between
Speaker 1: fifty and three thousand times per minute. Now that's actually
Speaker 1: the same frequency as the electric pen that Thomas Edison created.
Speaker 1: So I suspect that most needles probably move significantly faster
Speaker 1: than fifty times per minute because that would be um, well,
Speaker 1: you'd have essentially one us once a second. So think
Speaker 1: about that one one to one. You'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: oh stop it. I I suppose, depending upon the type
Speaker 1: of work being done. Yes, I am not a tattooed professional.
Speaker 1: That would be a really interesting question to ask a
Speaker 1: tattooed professional. Outlining versus shading is very different. I can
Speaker 1: save you from experience both on the performance end. Not
Speaker 1: I can't say that from experience, but from the recipient,
Speaker 1: and I as sure as heck can tell you there's
Speaker 1: a world of difference in the pain levels that you
Speaker 1: experience from outlining versus shading. Um. Now, it's also interesting.
Speaker 1: You know your your your experience of pain will depend
Speaker 1: upon several things, like your own threshold of pain. Obviously
Speaker 1: mind's staying pretty high. But it also depends on where
Speaker 1: you get the tattoo. Now, there's certain surfaces where you
Speaker 1: know it's nice and fleshy and you're not gonna you
Speaker 1: might feel like kind of a buzzing sensation and maybe
Speaker 1: some tingling, but it's not terribly painful. And then there
Speaker 1: are other areas where it feels like someone's really pinching
Speaker 1: you pretty hard, or maybe you're getting like a bit
Speaker 1: of a beasting. I've heard that anything close to it
Speaker 1: close to the bond. I've got one on my left
Speaker 1: shoulder blade, and anytime it got to the point where
Speaker 1: it was close to the actual bone was significantly more
Speaker 1: painful than the rest of the tattoo. And I've also
Speaker 1: got one on my left arm, and anything on the
Speaker 1: inside of the arm was more painful than the outside.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you've got with your basic tattoo gun,
Speaker 1: your tattoo machine. You've got the the unit that the
Speaker 1: tattoo artist holds in his or her hand, which has
Speaker 1: a tube that houses the needle. It's got the ink
Speaker 1: uh the ink chamber or a little ink thing will
Speaker 1: will actually screw into it. And then there's usually a
Speaker 1: foot pedal control that controls the depth of the needle
Speaker 1: so that the tattoo artists can be very precise when
Speaker 1: actually putting the tattoo onto your skin. It'll be more
Speaker 1: or less a millimeter, depending on you know who you
Speaker 1: are and where it is. Yeah, but about a millimeters
Speaker 1: is that's that's a pretty good estimation. And uh it's
Speaker 1: the machine itself is is brilliantly simple. It's based on
Speaker 1: um or. It's kind of similar to to what a
Speaker 1: sewing machine is. If that metaphor doesn't completely I'm actually
Speaker 1: perfectly fine with that, but I guess it's because I've
Speaker 1: had a couple of tattoos and needles don't typically bother me.
Speaker 1: But I do understand there are people who have real
Speaker 1: psychological issues with anything that has to do with needles.
Speaker 1: With needles to understand that. But but so so the gun.
Speaker 1: The gun contains a circuit that runs through an electromagnet,
Speaker 1: and that circuit is opened and closed via the vibrations
Speaker 1: of a spring loaded a read or um uh stick
Speaker 1: panel UM and and those vibrations are controlled by a
Speaker 1: weight like a pendulum that's placed along that that flaunged
Speaker 1: inter um and now the vibrations are caused by cycling
Speaker 1: power through the electromagnet, so they have the fluctuating electric
Speaker 1: magnetic field and that's going to start causing some vibration.
Speaker 1: And the read is connected at the top um uh
Speaker 1: to to the to the base of the needle, and
Speaker 1: therefore the vibrations of it pushed the needle up and down,
Speaker 1: and it makes it very very simple to use. Very
Speaker 1: I mean, the the cycle is is self perpetuating until
Speaker 1: you cut off the electricity supply entirely and we have
Speaker 1: a simple reciprocating motion that yeah, it's it is so
Speaker 1: really the the complexity here comes in the actual execution
Speaker 1: of making a tattoo, and that's where the artistry and
Speaker 1: skill really comes in. Because operating the machinery is pretty simple.
Speaker 1: It's the handling it properly and making sure you're doing
Speaker 1: not only a wonderful artistic job, but that you're doing
Speaker 1: it safely right, And the safety issue is one of
Speaker 1: those One of the things that I do know very
Speaker 1: very well about tattoo parlors is that if it does
Speaker 1: not smell like a hospital, like a really good clean hospital.
Speaker 1: Gone get out. Yeah, because yeah. So so for any
Speaker 1: of you is out there who are considering tattoos, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure you do your research check and
Speaker 1: it makes certain that all the different whatever tattoo parlor
Speaker 1: you're looking at, is on the up and up, that
Speaker 1: they follow very strict uh sterilization processes, that they are
Speaker 1: very careful to have one use items and then they
Speaker 1: discard them and they don't ever use them again. Some
Speaker 1: some parts of the tattoo machine are reusable, and that's
Speaker 1: perfectly fine, and we'll talk about those, but even those
Speaker 1: make sure they have like an autoclave, autoclave they are
Speaker 1: they are sterilizing their equipment because you want to heat
Speaker 1: things to either two or two hundred and seventy degrees
Speaker 1: depending on the pressure and the time length that you're using. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk a little bit about the autoclave
Speaker 1: specifically in just a second to kind of explain what
Speaker 1: that is for those of you who don't know. But
Speaker 1: the whole purpose here is to kill off any kind
Speaker 1: of bacteria or other organism that could cause infection or disease.
Speaker 1: And because like we said, you're what a tattoo is
Speaker 1: is a you know, a whole bunch of little puncture
Speaker 1: is in your skin. Punctures can get infected. It's it's
Speaker 1: an open wound. Yeah. Yeah, any kind of heals up right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, any kind of wound has the potential to
Speaker 1: get infected. So it's very important that you find a
Speaker 1: place that is reputable and clean. So the basic parts
Speaker 1: of this tattoo that you've got, the sterilized needle and
Speaker 1: those are one use. That's that should just every time
Speaker 1: you go to a tattoo parlor, if you're getting a tattoo,
Speaker 1: the needles they have should be one use needles and
Speaker 1: sterilized packets that they should open right in front in
Speaker 1: front of you, right before they start their work. Right,
Speaker 1: those packets should remain sealed until they're ready to do work.
Speaker 1: So they open it up and they put in the
Speaker 1: needle into the machine which has already been cleaned in
Speaker 1: the autoclave. And I'll get to that in a second. Ah.
Speaker 1: Other things that need to be single use include ink, ink, cups, gloves.
Speaker 1: All of this kind of stuff needs to be one
Speaker 1: use in sterile packaging to minimize the risk of any
Speaker 1: kind of contamination. So make sure. And it's perfectly fine
Speaker 1: to ask questions any reputable tattoo artists because it shows
Speaker 1: that you have done your research and that you're serious
Speaker 1: about it. And again, if they're reputable, they'll have no
Speaker 1: problem answering your questions, being able to show you what
Speaker 1: what it is they do to stay. If they give
Speaker 1: you a grief about it, get out of here. Don't
Speaker 1: don't go there, go somewhere else. Um. So uh. The
Speaker 1: autoclave is actually think of it as like a machine
Speaker 1: that generates lots of heat, pressure, and steam. Those are
Speaker 1: essentially the three components there, and it's often used in
Speaker 1: Autoclaves are used in medical facilities to clean medical uh equipment.
Speaker 1: So you the way it works is you would put
Speaker 1: stuff in a little pouch, each one with each piece
Speaker 1: of the equipment would get its own little pouch. Uh.
Speaker 1: This equipment would be things like the needle bar and
Speaker 1: the tube of the machine. So these would be the
Speaker 1: bits that would be used again and again they go
Speaker 1: into their little pouches. Each pouch has a little indicator
Speaker 1: strip on the outside for when everything is has been
Speaker 1: heated to the correct temperature. Yeah, exactly, It says essentially
Speaker 1: that that sticker changes color and it tells you what's
Speaker 1: not sticker, But the indicator changes color and it tells
Speaker 1: you everything in here is dead you and so. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like you said, it can heat depending upon
Speaker 1: the settings. The general rule of thumb is two or
Speaker 1: fifty degrees fahrenheight or a hundred twenty one degrees celsius
Speaker 1: for ten pounds of pressure for thirty minutes, or to
Speaker 1: seventy degrees fahrenheit or one thirty two celsius at fifteen
Speaker 1: pounds of pressure for fifteen minutes. Uh. That is the
Speaker 1: standard operating procedure. The tattoo parlors should be following one
Speaker 1: of those two with its autoclave. And uh, there you go.
Speaker 1: That is your standard approach to sterilize the reusable equipment.
Speaker 1: So remember ask those questions, make sure you know, you
Speaker 1: do your research and uh and if everything's on the
Speaker 1: up and up, then enjoy your painful experience. It's really
Speaker 1: not that bad, depending upon where you get it, and
Speaker 1: how big the tattoo is, and and and yoursonal tolerance
Speaker 1: and the skill of the of the artists. I had
Speaker 1: an incredible tattoo artist who did both the same guy
Speaker 1: did both my tattoos, and uh, and he was just
Speaker 1: he was not only really skilled at creating beautiful designs,
Speaker 1: he also really minimized all the discomfort. I mean there
Speaker 1: was some, especially around the shoulder blade area, but it
Speaker 1: was it was nothing too intense. Like, it was nothing
Speaker 1: more intense than you know, a minor beasting. So assuming
Speaker 1: you're not allergic to bees and you've experienced a beasting
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a big deal, that's pretty much the
Speaker 1: worst it got for me personally. Right, I happened to
Speaker 1: be allergic to be you compared to a beasting, and
Speaker 1: you'd say I would die, That's not what I mean. Um.
Speaker 1: Other fun questions to ask your tattoo artists are what
Speaker 1: kind of inks they use? Um, Just as an interesting note,
Speaker 1: sometimes inks contain metallic pigments, and um, if you ever
Speaker 1: have to go in for an m r I after
Speaker 1: getting a tattoo with the metallic pigment, it's an not
Speaker 1: gonna fly out of your body magneto style or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, and uh, it's also good just to
Speaker 1: make sure that you know if you have any known allergies,
Speaker 1: that's obviously something else you need to discuss. Because there's
Speaker 1: a possibility that either the ink itself could contain something
Speaker 1: that you are allergic to, which could be a problem,
Speaker 1: or that some of the other materials, like they're supposed
Speaker 1: to the whole process before they tattoo you, they have
Speaker 1: to uh areas infected, right, So any anything like that,
Speaker 1: you just want to make sure that you're not going
Speaker 1: to come into contact something with something that's going to
Speaker 1: give you a bad reaction. And I had one other
Speaker 1: kind of cool thing. Well, first of all, if you're
Speaker 1: feeling in a goofy mood, we do have a we
Speaker 1: do have a fake article and How Stuff Works about tattoos, uh,
Speaker 1: one of our few, so we haven't we haven't done
Speaker 1: it every year, but occasionally How Stuff Works has made
Speaker 1: an April Fool's article on how stuff works. And we
Speaker 1: have one about how animated tattoos work, which is all
Speaker 1: about electronic tattoos that are it's like electronic devices, right right.
Speaker 1: The story goes is that and there's an actual patent
Speaker 1: for a subdermal l c D screen out there that
Speaker 1: exists in the real world. Um that has never nothing
Speaker 1: ever really came of it, I think, but but but
Speaker 1: but yeah, the article talks about a little subdermal l
Speaker 1: c D that's connected to a little magnetic battery and
Speaker 1: a small controller, and so that you would be able
Speaker 1: to have a tattoo that would actually be like showing
Speaker 1: video and stuff, or have an animation on it that
Speaker 1: we could run in a loop. Now, there are obviously
Speaker 1: some some barriers to that, the big one being that
Speaker 1: the body tends to not like stuff introduced to it,
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk more about that when we
Speaker 1: get into the second half, and we start talking about
Speaker 1: some interesting implants that there are dangers of a body
Speaker 1: rejecting certain materials, and you can't really predict which ones
Speaker 1: it's going to reject, which ones it's not. There's some
Speaker 1: that have a lower percentage of rejection, and even some
Speaker 1: people's immune systems work differently, right, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: a tossing and they can change depending upon your activity
Speaker 1: level too. I mean, if you get a if you
Speaker 1: get an implant in an area that gets a lot
Speaker 1: of like a lot of agitation, then that can increase
Speaker 1: the odds of a rejection that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: we'll get into that in the second half. However, there
Speaker 1: is a different kind of animated tattoo. It's not really
Speaker 1: the tattoo itself is not animated, so it's a misnomer. Really,
Speaker 1: But there was a guy who goes by the handle,
Speaker 1: the tattoo handle of Carl K A R L. Each
Speaker 1: of those letters is capitalized with a period after it. Sure,
Speaker 1: but Carl in Paris, uh American as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, or maybe maybe Canadian North American. At any rate,
Speaker 1: he's a tattoo artist working in Paris, created what he
Speaker 1: calls the first animated tattoo. And I even have a
Speaker 1: date for you June. The first animated tattoo not really
Speaker 1: an animated tattoo. It's a tattoo that has what what
Speaker 1: was it like a flipbook? Yeah, you actually got forty
Speaker 1: guys and tattooed to stick figure on each of them
Speaker 1: doing something slightly different than how to run in a
Speaker 1: circle and then pertin. No, it's not that would also
Speaker 1: be awesome. I don't know where you could be able
Speaker 1: to convince forty guys to do that. I am sure
Speaker 1: that you could, though I've seen a lot of crazy
Speaker 1: tattoos out there. Know. What it was was a QR code.
Speaker 1: So he had a guy have a tattoo with a
Speaker 1: QR code incorporated in it. Now QR codes for those
Speaker 1: of you who don't remember, haven't seen one in a while. Um,
Speaker 1: they were big for a little bit, but then they
Speaker 1: kind of like they kind of fell out of favor
Speaker 1: that it was a marketing gimmick. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: feel like it was overpromoted as the problem. It was
Speaker 1: a fine technology, but but the way that that WiFi
Speaker 1: wound up happening, I I don't think that it was
Speaker 1: as necessary as people thought that it was going. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot a lot more work and image recognition
Speaker 1: like things that like there's a there's a lot more
Speaker 1: work now where software can recognize things without there having
Speaker 1: to be some sort of established pattern. Rare, but essentially
Speaker 1: it's it is kind of like the next generation of
Speaker 1: the bar code. It was those those blocky pictures you've
Speaker 1: ever if you've ever seen them, they're they're a square
Speaker 1: that have a little black except it's all block it's
Speaker 1: all hard edges but pixelated R shack test. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: you go, exactly. And so this was incorporated in the
Speaker 1: tattoo and in fact, they didn't know if it was
Speaker 1: gonna work. While they're this guy is getting tattooed, and
Speaker 1: they have no idea if it's gonna work or not
Speaker 1: because they don't know. You know, it takes precision again,
Speaker 1: because the digital camera sensor has to take a image
Speaker 1: of this and then the software has to analyze it
Speaker 1: and interpret that as uh information in some way. And
Speaker 1: if the tattoo artist had made a block a little
Speaker 1: too big or a little too small, it wouldn't it
Speaker 1: wouldn't it when it wouldn't coordinate with that information, right,
Speaker 1: So in this case, what the QR code did was
Speaker 1: it prompted the smartphone to then go to YouTube and
Speaker 1: pull up a video of an animated version of the
Speaker 1: tattoo design singing opera. Yeah, it's a little bit a
Speaker 1: round headed guy with like a little top hat and
Speaker 1: a big handlebar mustache singing opera in the middle of
Speaker 1: this tattoo. And then that's that's what the tattoo was.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I've seen some some esthetic barcodes
Speaker 1: on people that you know, I hit Man style, like
Speaker 1: basically skull hit Man or you know. I I think
Speaker 1: there's a probably a lot of science fiction that I'm
Speaker 1: forgetting that includes some something like this, But there's probably
Speaker 1: like some sort of twelve Monkeys type thing. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: totally an episode of reboot, but uh yeah, yeah that show.
Speaker 1: I don't watch that. Right. However, now we've kind of
Speaker 1: reached a point where we can take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Well that that's like the big tattoo thing, right. We
Speaker 1: wanted to cover that pretty extensively because that's one of
Speaker 1: those that has the really cool toy, if you want
Speaker 1: to put it that way, the piece of technology. But
Speaker 1: there are other things we can talk about. Obviously. The
Speaker 1: other basic one we've already mentioned piercing. So whether it's
Speaker 1: your ear or some other part of your body, piercing
Speaker 1: and all of course that involves creating a whole which
Speaker 1: jewelry will then pass through. So piercing usually means that
Speaker 1: you're seeing the ends of a piece of jewelry, right,
Speaker 1: whether it's like a barbell or if it's a stud
Speaker 1: or a hoop or whatever, you're seeing the exterior part.
Speaker 1: That's that's the part that's on display. Yes, there there's
Speaker 1: another form of piercing. Um, what's it called pocketing? Oh yeah, pocketing,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a little bit, but pocketings
Speaker 1: pocketing is kind of they call it anti piercing, And
Speaker 1: the reason why they call it anti piercing is that
Speaker 1: pocketing involves creating pockets of skin. This is where I
Speaker 1: start getting a little creepy. Crawley uh Beca said, my
Speaker 1: my tolerance level is probably fairly normal when it comes
Speaker 1: to body modification, normal in the sense of what the
Speaker 1: society norms are. I don't judge anyone who's gone through
Speaker 1: and gotten body modification, because whatever you want to do
Speaker 1: to to assert your identity, as long as you're not
Speaker 1: hurting anyone else, I'm totally for it. It's just that
Speaker 1: if I look at it, I might go, oh, that
Speaker 1: that looks like that must be uncomfortable. But pocketing, essentially,
Speaker 1: what that means is you create these pockets in the
Speaker 1: skin surgically, you actually cut open and create surgical pockets,
Speaker 1: which I'm guessing at some point need to be lined
Speaker 1: with something to keep it from being just an open wound.
Speaker 1: But the jewelry is inserted. The ends of the jewelry
Speaker 1: are inserted in either pockets. So think of two pockets
Speaker 1: that are facing one another, and then the jewelry the
Speaker 1: end of it fits in one and the other end
Speaker 1: fits in the other, and so the the middle of
Speaker 1: the jewelry is exposed as opposed to the ends. The
Speaker 1: ends of the jelry are inside the pockets, so they're
Speaker 1: out of you. And this can be done in lots
Speaker 1: of ways, Like if you make really deep pockets, you
Speaker 1: can make this kind of super cool but very creepy
Speaker 1: effect of the skin being pulled apart because you're seeing
Speaker 1: these like ribs of metal. I saw it in one
Speaker 1: guy's arm where he had done the inside of his
Speaker 1: forearm where he had these deep pockets. So you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the last I don't know, a quarter inch or
Speaker 1: so of the jewelry was under the skin and the
Speaker 1: rest was exposed. In the middle part was exposed. Now piercing,
Speaker 1: of course, that that's where you just have the hole
Speaker 1: that the metal or whatever the jewelry fits through and
Speaker 1: the ends are on display. And that's again and not
Speaker 1: at all a new thing. I know that records of
Speaker 1: nostril piercing go back as far as four thousand years
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, and that both ear and nostril
Speaker 1: piercing are mentioned in the Bible. Yeah, these are ancient
Speaker 1: forms of of expression identity, sometimes religion. Sometimes it's religious,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a tribal identification. I mean this is something
Speaker 1: you know, the way of adorning ourselves. I mean that
Speaker 1: that's something that goes back to prehistoric times. So now
Speaker 1: obviously with piercing you have several of the same concerns
Speaker 1: that you do with tattooing. You're talking about creating essential,
Speaker 1: creating a wound in yourself, and so you want all
Speaker 1: the equipment and the person delivering the equipment unto you
Speaker 1: to be um as sterile as possible, ak A tots sterile. Yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: like I know there are a lot of uh piercing
Speaker 1: like key or there used to be. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there still are, but when I remember when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, there are a lot of the little
Speaker 1: places in the mall like piercing. Look at the Claire's
Speaker 1: or whatever, like a little kiosk and they would have
Speaker 1: the little piercing gun and stuff. Totally not not a
Speaker 1: good idea because that's that's a recipe for disaster. If
Speaker 1: you don't know how they are sterilizing their equipment. Again,
Speaker 1: if if if you know, if anything that's coming into
Speaker 1: contact with you, um, if they have an auto clave
Speaker 1: in the back and anything that's coming into contact with
Speaker 1: you has is just being opened in front of your face.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's a pretty good sign. Pretty good sign.
Speaker 1: But I would always, I mean, like every person I've
Speaker 1: ever talked to who is in to any level of
Speaker 1: body modification, whether it's someone who just enjoys piercings or
Speaker 1: someone who enjoys some of the things that again that
Speaker 1: I would I would think of as more extreme. They
Speaker 1: all say, go to a go to a professional parlor,
Speaker 1: piercing parlor, a place where that's what they do. And
Speaker 1: in fact, there's one near my home, which is where
Speaker 1: I would go and go on if I go into it.
Speaker 1: But I did. I did get my ears pierced when
Speaker 1: I was like twelve or something like that, at like
Speaker 1: a Claire's. I'm all but and and I have never
Speaker 1: they've never been infected. It's always been fine. But no,
Speaker 1: it's and it's not like, yeah, we don't want to
Speaker 1: say that if you if you have had this done,
Speaker 1: that you're living on borrowed doun, which just mean that
Speaker 1: the the you know, if you're considering this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: these are the places that are going to be traditionally, yes,
Speaker 1: the most safe. So again again the same thing. You
Speaker 1: ask questions when you get there. You ask them how
Speaker 1: they how they handle their equipment, Which pieces that our
Speaker 1: equipment are reusable versus one use only. How do they
Speaker 1: take care of things after it's all done, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's good to ask questions. It's whenever your safety
Speaker 1: and health are concerned, ask questions. So, yeah, the piercing
Speaker 1: gun is essentially a little thing that just shoots forward
Speaker 1: and punctures whatever it's pointing at. But most piercers don't
Speaker 1: use piercing guns. They're they're they're very imprecise because the
Speaker 1: action of the gun can can significantly move the point
Speaker 1: of contact. So so a needle is the preferred a
Speaker 1: handheld needle. And that's the way most That's every piercer
Speaker 1: I've talked to you, that's what they use. They don't
Speaker 1: you know, they if you ask them about piercing guns,
Speaker 1: you might have to endure a little bit of a
Speaker 1: lecture and earful so to speak. Hey guys, we've got
Speaker 1: a lot more to say, but as it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's way more we did expect it to be as
Speaker 1: long as it ended up being. And did you know
Speaker 1: we talk a lot. Yeah, I thought that this was
Speaker 1: going to be pretty short, but as it turns out,
Speaker 1: it's this is a fascinating subject. So we've got another
Speaker 1: episode coming literally that will be the next one that
Speaker 1: is all about body modification, focusing more on some of
Speaker 1: the more outlandish and interesting kind of things beyond tattooing
Speaker 1: and piercing. We're going into implants really, and so join
Speaker 1: us because we're going to talk about some of the
Speaker 1: more kind of a fringe body modification stuff, that stuff
Speaker 1: that you might end up seeing and you wonder how
Speaker 1: the heck did that happen. We're going to explain what
Speaker 1: the processes are and also a couple of very strange
Speaker 1: technological wonders. Yep. Not to mention, we're also going to
Speaker 1: tell you what you need to consider if you're ever
Speaker 1: going to think about having something like this done, because
Speaker 1: we want you to be safe, guys. So in the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: let us know. Maybe you want to know I don't
Speaker 1: know how roller coasters work. I'd be happy to do
Speaker 1: another episode on that. We've already done one, but I
Speaker 1: am never tired of roller coasters. Send us an email.
Speaker 1: Let's know Tech stuff at Discovery dot com or drop
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Speaker 1: at both of those with the handled text stuff hs
Speaker 1: W and Lauren and I will talk to you again.
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