the piercing subreddit has given me endless entertainment and also a god complex
hole-ier than thou, if you will
One thing about me? I’m just a few steps away from being a full-blown iPad baby. I need that sweet sweet dopamine release that i can only get from Scrolling On My Phone or from re-watching Vanderpump Rules for the millionth time.
One of my favorite Scrolling On My Phone activities was swiping on dating apps— namely Bumble and Tinder. It was fun at first, but then I dated a man for a few months who turned out to be an awful person and who harassed me after I broke things off with him. It was extremely stressful and turned me off to dating of any kind. The reason I was even on dating apps was because my fiance of eight years cheated on me (like, a lot), and after the Bumble Man situation I did some reflecting and decided I needed to take a break from dating for til college.
ANYWAYS. After I banned myself from dating apps, I needed something new and fun to do so I could really maximize my screen time. My thumbs and my brain were bored!!!!
Enter: the piercing subreddit. I don’t remember how I found this subreddit—I was mostly on Reddit because I wanted to see people talk about Vanderpump Rules. I assume it was probably recommended to me and then when I started scrolling I couldn’t stop.
Here’s everything I’ve learned about piercings from mindlessly scrolling this subreddit.
Piercing Aftercare: The ONLY acceptable aftercare for a healing piercing is to use a sterile saline spray twice a day and maybe run your piercing under warm water in the shower. After you do these things, you should dry your piercing in some way: either air dry, or you can use a blow dryer with the cool air/low setting to carefully dry it. Other than that, you need to LITHA (leave it the hell alone).
Do NOT:Use antibacterial soap to clean a piercing.
Use hydrogen peroxide to clean a piercing.
Use tea tree oil on a piercing.
Use Q-tips on your piercing.
Go swimming while your piercing is healing. You WILL get an infection and will probably die.
Make your own salt water solution.
“Soak” your piercing in any kind of salt water or saline solution. Soaking is for Mormons only.
Tug on or intentionally mess with your piercing in any way.
Pick off the piercing crusties. I know they’re gross, but they come off naturally with saline spray and you will do more harm than good by picking at them.
Take out the jewelry for a piercing you suspect is infected. If you do this, you’re at risk of trapping the infection inside your body, which is genuinely very dangerous. If you think your piercing is infected, see a doctor so they can prescribe you antibiotics. Don’t put off doing this, especially for any piercings that are near your eyes and brain.
Swap out your jewelry too soon, or swap to the wrong kind of jewelry.
A lot of the times, piercings are pierced with very long jewelry—this is to accomodate for any swelling that will likely occur.
Additionally, you should only be pierced with titanium jewelry as most people are allergic/sensitive to most types of metals that aren’t titanium.
FURTHERMORE: I know a hoop in your healing helix piercing looks cuter. BUT: don’t fucking do it if your piercing isn’t fully healed yet. You’re basically asking for some irritation bumps and a longer healing time.
Most piercing jewelry should be a flatback labret for the duration of the healing time. The only exceptions to that are rule daiths (needs a CBR or horseshoe ring), navel piercings (needs a curved barbell), and rook piercings (needs a curved barbell).
Anatomy and Piercing Rejection: There are some piercings that are anatomy dependent, meaning if you lack the proper anatomy for that piercing, you should not get it — your body will quite literally spit it out (a process known as rejection). However, some piercers are not properly educated OR they’re just assholes who will take your money from you and pierce you anyways. If you are in the unfortunate position of having a piercing you don’t have the anatomy for, there is technically a small chance that it will heal just fine and you’ll have no problems. However, most of the time that is extremely not the case. The piercings I see done most frequently that reject are: navel piercings, industrial piercings, and surface piercings.
Navel piercings. The 2000s did give me a raging eating disorder in high school, but they also gave us fun Y2K fashion and the beloved bellybutton piercing, so it kind of evens out. I think there’s this misconception that you have to be skinny to have a navel piercing, but actually that’s not the truth, Ellen. It actually doesn’t have much to do with weight and is only about your bellybutton anatomy. To get your bellybutton pierced and have it heal properly, you need an upper “lip” to your bellybutton, as well as a bellybutton that does not collapse while you sit or bend over. If you do not have either of those things, then you unfortunately cannot get one done, sweet angel. If you have the required upper “lip” (or ridge), but you have a bellybutton that collapses, talk to your piercer about a floating navel piercing. The biggest difference in these piercings is the jewelry style. A traditional navel piercing has a big ‘ole ball that exits in your bellybutton and rests there. If your bellybutton collapses and you have that style of jewelry in, your bellybutton presses on the ball, which will irritate your piercing and ultimately result in rejection. A floating navel piercing has a flat disc instead of a big ‘ole ball. That way when you bend over or sit in any way, you’re not putting any pressure on your piercing.
example of a floating navel 
example of a traditional navel piercing. (this is my tummy) Like I mentioned, some piercers are the absolute worst and will give anyone any piercing, regardless of anatomy. Or, they’re just complete idiots and will pierce someone incorrectly. I’ve seen so many “navel piercings” that aren’t actually navel piercings—they’re stomach piercings. What’s the difference? A stomach piercing is pierced too high and will reject. A proper navel piercing, either floating navel or traditional, should have the jewelry exit through the bellybutton, not sit above it.
example of a stomach piercing trying to pass off as a bellybutton piercing If you want to get your bellybutton pierced, you should get assessed by an accredited piercer who has experience doing all types of bellybutton piercing. If your piercer tells you you do not have the proper anatomy for any type of piercing—listen to them. They’re trying to save you money and from having a scar around your bellybutton.
Industrial piercings. These look cool as hell, but if you don’t have the right anatomy for them then you’re going to have a bad time babe! Your ears have to have enough of a fold, and you also cannot have the flat of your ear protrude or touch the bar in any way. I’m not going to link any gross photos, but if you get an industrial done and the bar is digging into your ear or tourching it at all, it WILL eventually wear down to the cartilage of your ear (saur gross).
industrial piercings on people with the right anatomy 
industrial piercing done on someone who does not have the proper ear fold 
industrial piercing that is pressing into the flat of an ear Again, a competent piercer will assess your anatomy and let you know if you can get an industrial piercing done. If you can’t get a traditional industrial done, you could always get two piercings done in the same spot an industrial would be, and then (once healed) you could connect the two piercings with a chain.
Surface piercings. I’m so sorry, I must speak my truth, but these upset me a little and freak me out. I’m not going to say too too much about these, but generally speaking they are what they sound like: they’re piercings that hang out on the surface of your body in some fashion. There’s dermals, which are just like these little dots, and then there’s some others that have a longer bar.
From what I know, surface piercings are intended to be temporary piercings and they will eventually reject, even if you do everything right.
example of a surface piercing
DO NOT GET MORE THAN THREE TO FOUR PIERCINGS AT ANY GIVEN TIME OR HAVE MORE THAN THREE TO FOUR PIERCINGS HEALING AT ANY GIVEN TIME. Piercings are basically just open wounds, and your body has a limited supply of white blood cells to heal you. It will lengthen the overall healing process and make you feel like shit.
Different piercings have different healing times, and it also depends on your aftercare and the location of the piercing. And if you traumatize the piercing at all, it can feel like the healing process is back at square one. For example, I whacked my helix piercing really hard at like 6 am today, and it’s still sore now at 1 pm. (please help). Additionally, some people just heal really quick, and some people take forever to heal and have a lot of problems. Every body is different.Types of piercings and how long they can take to heal (on average):
Earlobe: six to eight weeks
Cartilage: six months to 18 months
Eyebrow: two to three months
Bridge: four to six months
Nostril: two to six months
Septum: six to eight weeks
Lip: two to three months
Tongue: six to eight weeks
Navel: six months to a year
Nipple: six months to a year
Surface: six months to a year
At this point you might be asking yourself: where’s the entertainment in all of this? Where’s the god complex Amanda was talking about? To which I would say: would you chill, I’m literally going to explain both these things…
For me, the entertaining part is seeing the most botched fucked up piercing job you’ve ever seen in your damn life. Poor innocent souls walk in to a piercing studio wanting a bellybutton piercing, or an industrial, or some other piercing, and they walk out with a fucked up piercing job and laughably bad aftercare advice. Me? I’m better than these losers. I scroll the piercing subreddit and I literally know everything. They log on to reddit dot com and ask if anything looks off with their piercing, and to me, a seasoned r/piercing scroller, I have to laugh. You absolute fool, how can you not know this is pierced wrong? Yes I know it’s literally not your job to know that and you probably got it on a whim, but how can you not know this?
To be clear, I’m (sort of) joking in the above, but this is where part of the god complex manifests for me. It’s really not their fault they don’t know, and I myself was only taught this information in like, late 2023 when I got my rook pierced. I’ve been lucky that none of my piercings have been done wrong and that the aftercare advice I followed didn’t do long-term damage to any of my piercings.
My second favorite kind of person who posts on the piercing subreddit is someone who seems to know a little more about piercings and piercing anatomy, but is posting to the subreddit hoping to be told something different than what they know. For example, someone might post a picture of their existing bellybutton piercing and ask for help assessing what the problem is, only to be swiftly told that they don’t have the anatomy for it, it’s pierced wrong, and/or they should take it out. And then upon receiving that advice, the person who posted asking for help will start arguing with people in the comments!!!!! It’s so fucking funny to me, like why would you post here asking for help if you are going to argue and not listen?
My favorite category on the piercing subreddit is anything that’s tagged as “troubleshooting an existing piercing”. That’s where you’ll see all the fucked up piercings.
The god complex I’ve developed manifests in different ways. For one, as you can see above, I obviously know literally everything ever about piercings. Additionally, I have been blessed with the proper anatomy for a traditional navel piercing, and so my stomach is bedazzled and cute. (I do not have the anatomy for an industrial, but that doesn’t bother me as much as it’s not really a piercing I wanted.) I’ve also started commenting on the troubleshooting posts in the piercing subreddit and advising people on aftercare and if they have the right anatomy for a certain piercing. I’m NAP (not a piercer), but I have an internet connection and an opinion!!!!!!!!
Anyways. That’s everything I have to say about my obsession with scrolling the piercing subreddit. It’s definitely healthier for me mentally in comparison to meeting dudes at bars, and also since I have an entire ear piercing plan I’m working on it’s genuinely very good that I have a grasp on piercings and how to take care of them.
One last thing, actually — there’s the piercing subreddit, but then there’s also the self piercing subreddit. The self piercing subreddit is exactly what it fucking sounds like. People buy piercing kits off Amazon and hole punch their bodies with abandon. It’s also a great time and another place I love to scroll. Some people in there genuinely do know what they’re doing, but there are some people in there who use a sewing needle and a potato to pierce their ears, which is hilarious but awful. The funniest thing to me though is that the people from the self piercing subreddit and the people from the piercing subreddit do not like each other. Like I am pretty sure the piercing subreddit has a rule that if you have posted any work in the self piercing subreddit, you are then banned from the piercing subreddit. That’s so fucking funny to me!!! And I’ve also seen some people in the self piercing subreddit complain about the folks over at the piercing subreddit, calling them stuck up and rude. Again, absolutely hilarious to me.
Um yeah okay that’s all I’ve got! Check out the piercing subreddits or else
I appreciate a good pun and I agree with you a small god complex is fine especially when you know so so much and these people can't even google something to find out an answer