A guest at Marc Jacobs’s Arabian Nights party in December

Stephen Remington, a video and performance artist in New York, spent part of last summer applying, and reapplying, a string of bold Chinese characters just under his chin, like a necklace.
“That tag, when I wore it, made me feel a little more rough I guess,” Mr. Remington recalled.
His friends were amused. His mother? “She was about to slit my throat,” he said.
Adverse reactions, maternal and otherwise, are rarely a deterrent to champions of the fakes. Some reason that if you can customize your cellphone or computer, why not a stretch of virgin flesh?