Welcome back to preschool! It is time to make friends!
Whole, real, human shaped friends! The proper noun kind of Friends!
The Body Modification Industry was, and still is, highly competitive, may it be over state lines, town lines, across the street, or in the shop with the person in the next room over. Depending on where you are, sharing anything from clients to information can be frowned upon, causing a hindrance for newer practitioners to learn, make friends, and support each other, and leaving others a target for mistreatment. And, in older practitioners, it creates stagnation.
One of the very first things my mentor drilled into me was the importance of meeting piercers outside of her circle, to make friends with my peers, to ask questions, and, most importantly, to learn from piercers other than her whenever the opportunity arose. This advice was later repeated to me almost verbatim by a close friend in the industry, the one who originally walked me into it just about seven years ago.
When they, my mentor and my friend, had been apprenticing, they were advised to look at other shops, piercers, and artists as rivals, and were told that sharing information amongst others would cause a loss in income and clientele. Why would you help someone do better when their clients could come to you instead? Why would you help them fix their mistakes when it benefited you? Why be friendly when it would look like you were planning to hop ship and cause resentment? Etc., etc…Or so the logic went. They, of course, disagreed, but this thought was ingrained in the fabric of the world they were entering and still is ingrained in the one I am entering.
But, now, many are attempting to foster the opposite in the next generation and promote it to those who have been in it for years. How can we grow as practitioners if we are not communicating with each other?
Because it has to change. It is changing.
Social media has allowed for an influx of educational, resource heavy, and supportive online forums. I spend hours there between lurking, asking for advice, and playing a game of guessing the answers to other people’s questions. These forums are how we make friends, how we plan rooming for events, where we go when we second guess ourselves and even the people we are learning under. We go there to help find places to shadow, guest spot, and work, and crowd source learning opportunities outside of the industry. These forums are also where we promote safe work environments and offer resources for those who are not in one, and where we help raise funds for those in tough spaces.
(Cheyenne and Eury, within one day of knowing eachother)
There are also forums for help with equipment, such as the one run by our wonderful STATIM dealer Brian Skellie, who answers as often as possible. My mentor has used it several times and I am convinced that I cursed something by accident.
Our community is full of learning opportunities, as well. There are constantly new classes being taught online by prominent piercers through Patreon, like Ryan Ouellette and Jef Saunders , informative videos on youtube from piercers like Lynn Loheide, and assorted educational experiences in person and at events like the APP Conference, with multiple scholarship opportunities run by the APP and individual programs alike.
We go to learn, we leave with friends. Preschool mechanics actually work when you try.
I just recently won a scholarship for the APP Core Essentials Courses and I would not have even known about it without these resources.
The world is HUGE, this industry spans continents, and the people you meet along the way fundamentally change you. Remember to MAKE FRIENDS, the proper noun kind of friends, and take every opportunity to do so. I now know so many people from the shops around me, people from other states, and people from other countries. I appreciate and look up to all of them, and I know all of them will answer if I have a question.
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