Navel-piercing as navel gazing.

Sticking bits of metal into one's skin goes utterly mainstream, as people try to stand out as individuals by doing exactly the same thing everybody else is doing. The fifteen minute timer is ticking on the coolometer, kiddies.

One girl, who had just had her tongue pierced, writes: 'I've always been kind of quiet in school and very predictable…. I wanted to think of myself as original and creative, so I decided I wanted something pierced…

How original. How creative.

'Now people don't think of me as shy and predictable, they respect me and the person I've become and call me crazily spontaneous.'

Then again, one man's "crazily spontaneous" is another man's "dangerously unstable".