As much as I really do appreciate a referral to a great artist. At this point I will never have stranger touch me again, I’m tired of paying people to do what I want and getting an massive disappointment. I’m the guy who wants a tattoo of a 13 but gets a thirty one (lyric). I’m hoping I can talk the remover to put it in the right place. If I can’t convince them to, I’ll get another needle, put the NeXT in it and try myself. The way I look at it, if I mess up, it’s on me. And I will only continue to be angry at
Charlie of Diversity Tattoo Las Vegas for SCREWING UP MY IMPLANT.
(as a side note, I’m also upset we changed the name of my blog title), it was accurate.
I’ve watch my wife get many tattoos, I had an idea of how this should probably have gone.
as a side note, were there any follow up care I should have known about? Or just the obvious, keep the injection site clean.
That’s one of the things to take care of, obviously… the other stuff differs slightly from artist to artist, everyone has his / her own recommendations. Keeping stuff clean and not poking on it and such is the baseline, so to say. But since you were a first time customer and didn’t have any bodmods at all, even if it is common sense, he should have told you. As well as what kind of pain and swelling is just normal, and at which point you might need to visit a doc (or the artist). There is no need to freak out because of nerve pain for some weeks after the installation, so if he told you that, you might have been a bit more relaxed when experiencing it, for example.
As much as I can understand your frustration, I seriously doubt you have enough experience and medical knowledge to do a self-install. It’s not really recommended, but yeah, several people here do it - but usually, those people have some experience with mods in general and things like avoiding cross-contamination and such. Bodmod artists know what they do. Yes, you met a “bad” one this time, okay. Happens with doctors as well, and I would surely not visit a doc again who did bad stuff to me, but I would still visit a different doc and not try to take out my appendix myself.
Like I said, I get it - but this is pretty pointless. You chose him, he did bad work (obviously), and you never talked to him again. You can be angry at him for the next thirty years, the only person who’s affected by that will be yourself. You made an experience (not a happy one, I get that), and it’s up to you what you make of it, but being angry at someone without any chance to actually change something won’t bring you ahead. 
The problem was, you came out guns blazing and shitting on a business / individual publicly with your thread title.
It was changed whilst the community tried to help you problem solve, get some facts, eliminate “user error” and try to get some resolution for you.
If you start shitting on an installer ( Especially one that is listed on the DT partner map ) is not a great look, and if you are potentially wanting to come to some sort of amiable agreement ( Refund etc. ) your approach was not a great one to support that.
Also we had only heard your side of the story, you were a new user, you have only contributed in one thread ( Your own )
Hopefully @amal has / will contact Charlie to have a discussion about your install.
If you want to change the Thread title, feel free, maybe just a little less aggression ( remember, this is also somebody’s business you will be affecting, reputation in such a small community is a BIG deal )
Yes you had a VERY bad experience, and it is great you shared / forewarned other community members, but remember If all experiences were like yours then Charlie wouldn’t still be in business.
If you are not aware of Survivorship bias - we only hear about the bad stuff, because people generally find it easier to complain than compliment.
I had some really bad experiences with doctors, who mistreated me, oversaw stuff and so on.
I also had the impulse to just not visit a doctor again, but thats not the right conclusion.
I just avoid the ones that have been bad, and maybe get some recommendations of good doctors before going to one.
it always can happen, but not going to the doctor anymore is really not the right decision. (in my opinion)
it created a huuuge disliking feeling to doctors for me, which i need to fight every time but i still go there if it is urgent.
some weeks ago i got the diagnosis borilliosis and im glad i went there, so i could get early antibiotics therapy.
i player with the thought of not going, but in the end others from my community helped me going there. it was a fucking great decision.
Story behind that picture is pretty interesting, and it did change how I try to look at things
Is it bad that I instantly recognized it and knew what it was talking about.
No it’s a fantastic example and teachable moment
To be fair, it was only one person. One bad install doesn’t mean that all installers are just as terrible. If you feel that you’re up for a self install and know what you’re doing, then go for it, it just seems unfair to distrust everyone because of one bad experience.
That gave me a weird sense of deja vu. I heard that song earlier today, and it was just fresh enough in my mind to where I forgot a heard it and made me do a double take.
In addition to what @Coma said, just try not to move around or use your hand a ton. The x series chips will migrate all over the place, and ideally you want to minimize that. As long as the implant isn’t touching bone though, you should be fine. (My xM1 for example is parallel to my thumb pretty close to the bone because I wasn’t as good as I should have been about preventing migration.)
You also don’t want to poke at/mess with your implant too much while it’s healing… but I guarantee you that no one here is good at doing that! There’s no temptation greater then having a new implant lmao.
Link? You got me interested.
The gist is that planes kept returning with holes in those places and the military’s first thought was that they should reinforce those parts of the planes since they’re getting shot there so much. But then they realized that those are the planes that make it home. They should reinforce the OTHER parts since those are the planes that get shot down.
It was a statistician who pointed that out. The military was going to reinforce those areas because based on the planes that got shot up and made it home that was where they got shot.
The point is that if they made it home then you have already selected for the areas that aren’t critical. The areas that had no hits are the ones that need to be reinforced because the ones that were hit there didn’t make it home in the first place. See the Wikipedia article under Examples “In the military”
NORMALLY I would link something like that.
This time I thought I would just “throw it out there” I was curious as to the response.
The cat is out of the bag.
This video also explains Survivorship bias quite well.
Another Cognitive Bias that is important here is Anchoring Bias.
Anchoring Bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to believe the first piece of information we are given about a topic is true.
My fear here is, If people research Charlie at Diversity Tattoo and this is the first information they find on him and his practice, this will set an Anchor and it is difficult to dissuade people once they have “decided.”
As this will directly affect Charlie and his business, I thought I should at least highlight that there may be alternatives to what they have read here.
That’s why I think it was a good decision to change the thread’s title. And like you said, we only hear one story, and only one side of it. That’s why I’m seriously interested if @amal has reached out to Charlie, and what he says about that very incident (if he remembers it).
I am sometimes sitting in the waiting area of my piercing studio for some time (like I said, I’m always there too early^^), and I experience a lot of different customers - some of them get turned down, because they have bad ideas, some of them expect unrealistic things (especially considering healing time or placement), some others are really impolite. I can definitely imagine some of those ranting somewhere on a forum, and I know the other side of that story, so I can definitely tell the customer is not always right.
Not saying that’s the case here, but let’s say an arrogant customer comes in, tells the piercer what to do, basically stating something like “I could even do that myself” and behaves overall unfriendly… well, that should still not lead to a bad install, but it could definitely shorten down the aftercare instructions.
What I’d like to know: Has anyone else here some experiences with Charlie? I don’t know him at all, nor his reputation, but I know that some piercers and bodmod artists are quite special - that’s why I always recommend to get to know each other first, sometimes, the chemistry is just not right.
That’s totally true, so I’ll take a moment to leave a compliment. Pineapple over at Shaman Modifications was fantastic! He was friendly, quick, accommodating, and did some absolutely quality work. When I get an Apex installed, I’ll definitely be going back. I’d recommend Pineapple to anyone!
I second all of that about Pineapple. I just had my second implant session with him and it was a double implant into the same area which is healing very well. He is who i recommended earlier in the thread.
as a tattoo artist, he’s pretty good, but to be honest, I feel Charlie should never pick up another needle that doesn’t vibrate. I paid him to do a job, and he failed miserably. I would like to talk to just a couple of the “hundreds” of people he has put a chip in. I kind of expected markings on my hand or something before the procedure was done. wish I was closer to Austin, Tx. that would have put me at Pineapple’s place and life would be different.
in the mean time, if they migrate all over the place, what are the chances I could use a high power magnet, and move it that way? is the migration something that happens over night, or are we talking weeks?
Can you tell where it is? If you can you might be able to move it, but I am not going to swear to it. Particularly not if you are trying to move it out of the pocket that it is in.
It might be easier to have it removed and reinserted.
I can’t really tell, but I have a general idea of where. I’m considering getting another NeXT and just putting it in the other hand. Then just call the left hand implant a dud, but that’s not my favorite option.
Pineapple also comes to Dallas every 2-3ish weeks if that’s closer to you.
I believe it was @Satur9 that tested magnetizing the core of an x-series implant and found that while it did become magnetic, the read range was also made almost half of what it was before. I’m sure they can give you some more info on that. Of course, having an implant that’s weak but in the correct spot is better then having one in a terrible location.
Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/lwbSxRXbfxg