Meet the 'vapers': E-cigarette craze inspires bizarre new sub-culture

A radical new group of smokers have no intention of quitting. Instead, they believe their their addiction can save the lives of millions who puff away at cigarettes every day.

'Vapers' - dedicated enthusiasts of electronic cigarettes - say the vapors they inhale, along with nicotine, are far safer than the tar and raft of chemicals in tobacco cigarettes, while still supplying the same nicotine buzz.



This emerging subculture of smokers is obsessed with the customizable wizz-bang technology of electronic cigarettes. Some 'vapers' spend thousands to trick out their smoking pieces with the newest upgrades.

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New fad: Electronic cigarettes have spawned a subculture of smokers who are addicted to customizing and upgrading their own personal vaporizers

Customized: An entire industry has spawned offered upgrades and new components for PVs - personal vaporizers

Fanboys: Vapers who gathered at a recent convention of e-cigarette enthusiasts showed off their favorite new pieces

'You’re not downgrading from a cigarette. You’re getting something more,' Chris Mikovits, the owner of an e-cigarette store, told the technology website Digital Trends .

'You’re getting accessories, you’re getting colors, you’re getting flavors. You’re able to tune the experience – fine-tune it to you.'

At a recent convention of 'vapers,' tobacco was banned. Anyone who entered with 'analog cigarettes' was commanded to take out the pack and stomp on them.

But 'vapers' are also tech geeks. No one at a recent convention of 'vapers' would have been caught dead with the any of the widely-available e-cigarettes made by Blu or NJoy, which are sold at supermarkets and gas stations across the country.

Those cigarettes don't have rechargeable batteries and don't have refillable container holding the flavored e-juice.



The craze among the 'vaper' community is the PV - personal vaporizer, also called a mod.



Simple: Some of the PVs are simple. This one is sleek stainless steel and offers clean metal lines

Elaborate: Others PVs are much more elaborate. This model was make out of a joystick from an Atari video game

Steam punk: Vapers say the draw of their hobby is being able to customize their smoking pieces to suit their personalities than their preferences

Dozens of companies have sprung up offering a cornucopia of e-cigarettes accessories that allow enthusiasts to build and customize their own PVs.



'The last thing you want to do when you’re a new vaper is to be ignorant,' Rich Gavina told Digital Trends. 'If you’re a casual vaper, that’s cool. If you want to be considered an enthusiast, you’ve got to know your stuff.'

An electronic cigarette has five basic parts - the housing, the tip that is sucked on by the smoker, the battery that runs the device, an atomizer that heats up the liquid and vaporizes it and a tank that holds the e-juice and the atomizer called a cartomizer or clearomizer.

Trendy: The latest craze at a recent convention of vapers was the MoFaux, a plastic mustache attached to the tip of custom vaporizers

Personality: This vaporizer has a custom-made metal tip that looks like a skull. E-cigarette makers offer countless custom tips

R2D2? A Digital Trends tech writer described many of the e-cigarettes as looking like 'robot sex toys'

The e-juice is usually a mix of two main ingredients - propylene glycol, the main ingredient in non-toxic antifreeze, which the U.S. government has also deemed safe as a food preservative, and vegetable glycerin, also used as a synthetic sweetener and preservative in food. It also usually contains nicotine and food flavors to give the vapor a taste.



At a recent convention of 'vapors' on Long Island, New York, Digital Trends writer Andrew Couts observed that many of the custom vaporizers looked more like 'robot sex toys' than cigarettes.



One enthusiast built his piece out out of an old Atari video game controller. Most are long, sleek metal cylinders.



Certain kind of person: Joe Petner, a New Jersey native, runs a website that caters to e-cigarette smokers, in addition to his main business of running several porn sites

This vaper, Tyler, goes by the online persona 'Gothic Vash.' The e-cigarette community has a vibrant online presence

Costly: Rich Gavina, a new convert to electronic cigarettes, has spent $4,000 on his hobby in the last year

Tips can be wooden, plastic or metal and come in a variety of colors, depending on the preference of the smoker.

Legally, the U.S. government forbids e-cigarette makers from claiming that the devices will help smokers quit. The Food and Drug Administration still classifies inhaling the odorless vapor of an e-cigarette to be smoking.

Still, 'vapers' say the mix of food-additive chemicals in e-juice is far safer than inhaling the concoction of chemicals in modern tobacco cigarettes.

