Body modification, social networks, and the normalization of everything.

"The internet: where the men are men, the women are also men, and the children are FBI agents"

-Anonymous-

That quote doesn't really have a whole lot to do with this post, I just really liked it.

Anyway, body modifications and social networks; how can we bring these two together in any meaningful way? By looking at how social networks influence sub-cultural groups.

Body modification, generally speaking, is very much a niche thing in the U.S. Sure a lot of people get a tattoo here and there, but only a minority see body modification as a primary means of artistic/self expression. This means that, generally speaking, those who engage in large-scale body modifications might be seen as unusual, or in some regions "socially deviant". Suffice to say that one of the things that makes body modification so interesting is how unusual it is.

What exactly do social networks have to do with this? By providing a means through which people who engage in body modification, or any other activity which is embraced by a relatively small portion of the population, a place to congregate on a large scale.

Type in an interest that you have, and I guarantee you will find at least one group on Facebook (by the way, the auto-spell check just chastised me for not capitalizing "Facebook") with hundreds, if not thousands of members.

This is what I mean when I say "normalization". Not only can people who are already involved in a niche activity form an online community very easily, it also serves as a springboard for communicating that groups ideals and philosophies. Activities that would, in the past, be dismissed as strange, if not outright socially deviant, can gain legitimacy through numbers thanks to sites like Facebook.

I don't think this is inherently a good or bad thing. It can be used to communicate philosophies of body modifications (whatever floats your boat), gay equality (Good), and anti-science religious fundamentalism (bad). How many of us would even understand what the term "body modification" refers to without these social tools?

Overall, the fact that we can even talk about body modification, and what its practitioners believe, is all thanks to these online communication tools. And in the future, I believe this will extend towards many sub-cultures who work to have their ideas, for better or worse, recognized as legitimate schools of thought and behavior.