The conversation around self-expression in the workplace has come a long way. Tattoos are mainstream, piercings are attached to more eyebrows than they raise, and hair dye is practically a personality type at this point. But some folks are still trying to push that conversation so far past its current boundaries that the whole debate has to start over from scratch.
Anthony Loffredo is one of those people. The 33-year-old Frenchman has spent years working toward a very specific vision of himself, and the employment market has reacted accordingly.
Some slight body modifications have become more mainstream, with the average office worker looking much more colorful these days
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
But one French man is seeking to become a black alien, something that is proving a big no-no in the job market
Anthony Loffredo's transformation is not a collection of tattoos and a bold haircut. It is something considerably more committed than that. His skin is almost entirely tattooed black, including his eyeballs. His nose has been removed, and both ears are gone. Two fingers have been amputated, and his upper lip has been almost completely removed, which has made speaking difficult.
We aren't done... Countless implants sit beneath the surface of his skin, reshaping the silhouette of his body in ways that nature never intended. He posts regularly to his 1.2 million Instagram followers, often poking his forked tongue through the gap where his upper lip used to be.
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
His whole body is covered in black ink, his fingers have been removed, his upper lip cut off, and he has multiple subdermal implants
In his most recent social media update, he noted cryptically that the "black alien project" is currently 78% complete, and he is currently in the "re-evolution" phase. He has even discussed amputating one leg from the knee down, and he has hinted at further facial modifications coming next.
He has also floated the idea of integrating technology into his body as part of future plans. "Do you like futuristic chips?" he has said. "I like everything surrounding this — it draws my attention, technology and the future." He is, by any definition, a work in progress. A very deliberate and entirely self-directed work in progress.
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
He is also only two-thirds of the way through his transformation, seeking even more modifications in the future
A 2023 documentary followed Loffredo through the daily reality of living inside his transformation was a story about a man who has been quietly shut out of ordinary life in ways most people never have to think about. Uber drivers won't stop, and restaurants turn him away. He tried to verify his identity to open an OnlyFans account, and the facial recognition software could not identify him as a person.
The face had simply moved too far from what the algorithm was expecting. On the employment front, the situation is no better. "I can't find a job," he said on the Club 113 podcast. "There's lots of negative stuff. It could be positive because you feel better, but you have to know there's also a dark side."
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
He has subsequently found out that he is basically unemployable, and even gets turned away from taxis and restaurants
He is philosophical about the judgment he encounters, though. "It's a fight every day, because every day you find new people who don't understand, who want to judge," he says, but the cumulative weight of it is hard to miss. This is not someone struggling to get a foot in the door of a competitive industry. This is someone struggling to sit on a café terrace and order a drink.
Before the black skin, before the removals, before the implants, he was a regular-looking young man working as a security guard at a nightclub. Ordinary job, ordinary appearance, ordinary life. He began his transformation at 26 with something relatively modest in the world of body modification: a forked tongue, split like that of a snake.
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
Anthony can't recall a moment when he decided to start, but his first procedure was his tongue splitting
And then, without any specific epiphany or defining moment that he has ever pointed to in interviews, things escalated. The nose. The ears. The fingers. The lip. Each step described in his own words, "a personal evolution and an aesthetic improvement." In a 2021 interview with Spanish newspaper El Periódico, Loffredo explained that the transformations had made him feel genuinely better about himself and his body.
He was more comfortable, more aligned with who he felt himself to be on the inside. There was no dramatic backstory. No single event that flipped a switch. Just a young man who looked at himself one day and began, methodically and deliberately, the long process of becoming something else entirely. Something that, by his own reckoning, is still only 78% finished.
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
Many of his procedures couldn't even be done in France, sending him as far as Mexico
France has strict regulations around certain body modification procedures, strict enough that several of the more extreme alterations he wanted were simply illegal to perform there. His rhinectomy required him to travel to Spain, and other modifications took him further afield. Ear removal, tongue splitting, subdermal skull implants and finger amputations were even done as far as Mexico.
The early stages of the project were done locally in France and Spain. But as the vision escalated, so did the geography. At a certain point, achieving what he wanted required an international itinerary and a willingness to operate in spaces that exist well outside the boundaries of conventional medicine. Which, if anything, makes you want to commend his commitment.
Image credits: the_black_alien_project / Instagram
Body modification has been around for thousands of years, but what has changed in the 21st century is the motivation. Modern body modification has shifted almost entirely toward self-expression; in other words, people are no longer doing it to belong to a group. They are doing it to belong to themselves.
Research suggests that body modification can trigger the release of endorphins, the same chemicals released during exercise, laughter, and, yes, certain substances. Which means the compulsion to keep going, to keep modifying, to add the next thing before the current thing has even healed, is not entirely a matter of willpower or artistic vision. It is, at least in part, a neurological feedback loop.
The medical community now broadly recognises body modification fixation as a genuinely complex condition. The compulsion tends to emerge gradually, shaped by a complex mix of the desire for control, sensation-seeking, identity formation and the ongoing need to push further than wherever the current boundary sits.
What is perhaps most striking about all of this is that the research is increasingly detailed on one thing: people who undergo significant body modification are not, as a rule, trying to destroy themselves. They are trying, often desperately, to build a version of themselves that feels true. Loffredo might not know what the 100% looks like for him, but whatever that is, he seems entirely certain it is the right direction.
Would you employ someone who had extreme body modifications done, or is this simply too far? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
People in the comments didn't seem surprised, many suggesting he should find an alternative line of work
