It’s 2019, and while we’ve still got a little way to go in terms of accepting the weird and wonderful, for the most part people can pretty much look however they want to look.
Whether it’s a bit of Botox to make yourself feel better, a breast lift to improve your confidence, or spider implants under your skin… you do you, hun.
Well, that’s exactly what Ethan Bramble has done, the 22-year-old who currently holds the title for being the most modified youth, and fair play, it hasn’t just happened over night.
As reported by Inked, the Australian millennial has undergone 40 body modifications and 150 tattoos to achieve his title, including getting a split tongue, having his belly button removed, and most recently, spider implants underneath his skin.
Bramble first became interested in modifying his body when he began stretching his ears at the tender age of 13, but unlike the vast the majority of us, it absolutely wasn’t ‘just a phase, mom.’ At the same age he started spending time at a tattoo parlour and by 17 he’d had his tongue split.
The dad-of-one recently appeared on Studio 10, where he showed off the silicone spiders he’d had put underneath the skin on his hands.
He told the panel:
I have always enjoyed how it looks. Growing up I was interested in Aztec design like nose poles and then as I got older I realised, wow, you can get more intense stuff done…you can get all kinds of weird and wacky stuff done.
Despite the fact his brave body-mod decisions might lead people to believe he’s super confident, the Australian revealed he has crippling anxiety over what people might think of him.
He said:
I have terrible social anxiety so when you are out in public and so many people are…asking questions and wanting to take photos with you and it can get a bit overwhelming and when it is an everyday occurrence, that’s when it can get a bit frustrating.
Out of all the modifications he’s had done, Bramble said getting his tongue split was by far the most difficult because of the ramifications that followed.
He explained:
It’s excruciating when you’ve just had your tongue cut in half, then it [the anaesthetic] goes away and it all hits you at once.
As the father of a young girl, the panel asked whether he’d be happy for his daughter to undergo the same modifications.
He said:
Once she turns 18, she’s allowed to do whatever she likes. I might let her get her ears pierced earlier, but that’s it.
Fair play.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to stories@unilad.co.uk.
Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.