In September 2013 I turned up on The Modified World, the weekly web show run out of Pangea Piercing in Ann Arbor, Michigan and hosted by its senior piercer, J.C. Potts. The occasion was practical: I had stopped by to install some RFID readers in his car, and while I was at it I sat down to talk about the world of implantable RFID chips.
The professional piercing community mattered to me well beyond one afternoon of car wiring. Piercers are the people I'd been pointing implant seekers toward since the ToorCamp days; "I recommend you contact your local piercing artist" was my standing advice for anyone who hadn't been through it before. A show made by piercers to put correct information in front of people curious about body modification was the right room for an honest conversation about what implants can and can't do, without the breathless cyborg framing: one modified community talking to another.