We have sad news today, which I am now going to exploit to make a point. The artist and model known as Zombie Boy died yesterday of an apparent suicide. RIP Rick Genest.
Montreal model and artist Rick Genest, also known as Zombie Boy, has died, police sources have told Radio-Canada. Genest was 32.
Genest came to the public's attention after tattooing his body from head to toe, including images of a skull and brain on his head. He holds a Guinness World Record for most insect tattoos (176) and another for most human bone tattoos (139).
His body-art attracted fashion designers and he modelled at high-end shows in Paris and Berlin. In 2011, he appeared in Lady Gaga's music video for the song Born This Way.
Police sources told Radio-Canada that Genest died in Montreal's Plateau–Mont Royal borough around 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday. They are classifying his death as a suicide.
When an otherwise healthy man commits suicide at age 32, that is a very sad thing. It is, apart from being a tragedy, a failure of the mental health establishment as well, to help this man find his way through his illness. That's their job, and they didn't get it done. This is not to sit in harsh judgement of the individuals involved in this man's care, if he was even getting any care. It is merely a statement of fact. Whatever measures were taken, it didn't work.
But for the greater community, it is also a failure. When a handsome man has every inch of his body covered in -painful- tattooing, furthermore depicting images of rot and death, it is a sign that he's having a problem. This man had a biohazard emblem a foot tall on his chest and a skull tattooed on his face, that's not something a healthy, well-adjusted person does. They get "Mom" on a shoulder, or a tribal arm band. Maybe a heart on their butt or something.
Yes, I'm actually saying that his body art was a manifestation of a dangerous illness. Which killed him by the way, making it a -fatal- illness.
Again, I'm not sitting in harsh judgement on the individuals involved in that art. They didn't make him that way, it isn't their fault. But, the bald facts are: fatal mental illness.
Again, I'm not sitting in harsh judgement on the individuals involved in that art. They didn't make him that way, it isn't their fault. But, the bald facts are: fatal mental illness.
My harsh judgement is reserved for the people screaming at their computers right now because I dared mention excessive tattoos and mental illness in the same sentence. Radical body modification is strongly correlated with suicide, and y'all need to pull your heads out of your asses. There's some guy out there getting surgical modifications to make him look like a Ken doll. He's got a problem, which might very well kill him.
It isn't cosplay, people.
It isn't cosplay, people.
The Phantom
Update: Welcome Instapundid, and thanks for the comments!
Update: Welcome Instapundid, and thanks for the comments!
8 comments:
This is one of many mental illnesses being publicized and applauded in modern society - it is as if the people talking about them WANT there to be more problems in society.
I suspect that is exactly the point - some people are manipulating society to become so messed up that we will accept a dictatorship, poverty, and destruction of our liberties as the price of normality and a relief from weirdness.
First thing that I thought about when I heard the news. A healthy person doesn't get that many tattoos and still have healthy self-esteem.
I saw a video of an interview of Amy Winehouse in front of a large audience. The interviewer repeatedly offered Amy a drink (alcoholic, of course). After several refusals, Amy finally accepted. The audience cheered wildly.
what about men -- or boys -- that want to have vaginas?
the only trans I know killed himself did years after his "transition".
Severe body modification is a serious manifestation of body dysmorphia. These people do really hate their bodies. That's never normal.
There are people who want a perfectly healthy limb cut off because they say that it doesn't belong to them. Nobody (actually, a few) agrees that this is the right thing to do to make them feel better. Yet, somehow transgenderism is not treaty as a mental issue but as a right that trumps, even those of the parents of children who exhibit those feelings of hating their natural body.
I once saw an interview with Amy Winehouse in front of a live audience. The interviewer offered Amy an alcoholic drink several times. Amy refused several times and then accepted. The audience cheered wildly.
Exactly. Here in California, the only thing common is everyone tries to be different. It all ends up looking rather bland.
As commenters have noted above, there are people, almost always men, getting cheered on for seeking serious body modifications. Everyone from the government to their psychiatrist these days is telling them how brave they are, and how progressive and wonderful their choice is.
We, the rest of us out here in SHUTUP!-Land, are not allowed to comment or mention it even in passing. Because we're all a bunch of Haterz. That's why they keep yelling Shut Up!!! at us.
Meanwhile, these brave body modification pioneers have a double-digit suicide rate, and I'm not talking a measly 10% here. That's one in ten. The real number is getting up closer to 4/10.
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