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When Will This Fad End?
This topic has been bouncing around my head for a while, but I’ve never gotten around to writing it. Someone on Ricochet will mention something, Jay Nordlinger months ago on a podcast complained about tattoos or a user whose name I forget recently said he was up for a good tattoo rant. Other times I see someone and think why?
I noticed markings on Dana Loesch’s arm in a Parkland CNN screenshot or a cross on a pastor’s back at a church swim party. Tattoos seem to be everywhere and there is no demographic that is exempt. This will come across as a get-off-my-lawn rant, but here we go.
I guess I’m a Generation X person. I still remember that about the only people who had tattoos were military veterans or criminals and they might only have one or two, no sleeves or multiple ones covering a lot of the body. Others might have had them, but they were in a private location. Maybe it was just where I grew up.
Some point along the way, tattoos became more mainstream. In the ’90s a lot of girls were getting lower back tattoos, but they were derided as “tramp stamps”. Then it seemed as though they exploded on the scene and everyone had one. Yes it’s me, but I have yet to see a tattoo that improves a woman’s appearance. As G. Gordon Liddy used to say, putting a tattoo on a woman is like putting a bumper sticker on a BMW. I will be glad when I don’t see ink everywhere I look.
Maybe things are changing. I saw this on Twitter. I don’t know what drove it, but we might be on the downward side of the trend. I can hope.
We have reached full mainstream tattoo saturation, it is now far edgier to not have tattoos. So it flipped on me and now I’m the dork. Crap.
— Chris Loesch (@ChrisLoesch) May 30, 2018
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Published in Culture
When I see a nose ring, I can’t help imagining a horrible mishap when removing a turtleneck sweater.
Granted, it is weak sauce, but young women should be made aware that lots of people find their tattoos, nose piercings, and-worst of all, in my opinion-very thick eyebrows, unattractive. Not that I have ever been the most attractive person, but I didn’t go out of my way to make myself less attractive :) I see these beautiful young women, and most women would give their eye teeth to have the natural beauty some of these girls have, but the tattoos and the piercings and the eyebrows just totally ruin them, and if a young woman isn’t a great beauty, the tattoos and the piercings and the eyebrows are only going to make life more difficult for her.
When I was younger, I often dressed immodestly; the men in my relatively conservative family and other relatively conservative men I knew had no problem with women dressing immodestly. They actually encouraged it: they totally acknowledged that some very conservative men wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t want very conservative men marrying into the family anyway, so it was all part of a plan. But I was made aware that the way I presented myself would draw some men in and drive others away: virtually all of the men I dated were very nice, and there was never a problem, but it is wrong to give young women the impression that everyone can and should accept them no matter what.
In theater, they have a saying, “Never break a rule unless you know exactly what you are doing.” A few years ago, I worked with a young woman who liked to brag about her ability to beat other women up; I wanted so badly to tell her that she was making a huge mistake, behaving in a very unfeminine way, making herself unattractive, but she didn’t care what I thought about anything, and there was no point in trying to advise her. Every single man she dated-and there were several of them in the time I knew her-turned out to be a certified weirdo. I am certain that there were men around who would have wanted to date her if it weren’t for the strange persona she adopted of the girl who could beat everybody up.
Telling these young women that what they are doing is unattractive may seem mean, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
Of course it depends on the personal choice. But of course I do. So do you.
If someone wears pants that fall off their rear, so as to look like they are in prison, I also prejudge them. I similarly prejudge people based on the effort they make to look decent. I think this is mere common sense.
You CHOSE to look like a hippy. Why shouldn’t people judge you by your choices, especially the ones you choose to flaunt?
Its not like I am super upset about it. But I use it as an example of a cultural blind spot of many in North America. Its just unnecessary and if one is to consider consenting to a tattoo as primitive and ugly and yet think the forceful surgical removal of part of a newborn is ok? Well I think it shows that a person isn’t thinking very critically about it.
Not so.
If a person is overweight or ugly then that is not necessarily a reflection of who they are.
But if a person chooses to get a tattoo in a visible place, then they are trying to tell me who they are. Why do you think “Tamp Stamps” work so well?
In other words, a runner’s body floods his system with endorphins to keep him from noticing the plantar fasciitis, shin splints, knee stress, and bloody nipples that running is giving him, and he keeps running despite the damage he is doing to his body because he loves getting that endorphin high.
The first guy who ran a marathon died. You’d think that’d be a warning flag that it’s not good for you.
It might be a form of self indulgence, or it might not be. Regardless, that doesn’t have any bearing upon whether it is or is not a sign of cultural decay.
Paul Johnson is quite a highly regarded intellectual and historian, so I doubt he threw the term around loosely. I will have to find out the context of his remark and see if he doesn’t delve into the question in depth.
So predictable.
Depending upon what job you were applying for, being a homosexual might have been a resume enhancer. Going further back, I doubt Liberace would have achieved the success he did if he had not been so flamingly gay.
I doubt if in 20 years tattoos will still be a fad, because, you know, that’s the nature of stupid fads. Fads come and fads go.
We will agree to disagree, but I do appreciate the comment.
Then again there was Jim Fixx and the ‘running yourself to death’ phenomenon.
I agree. A person, especially a woman, who gets a visible tattoo is announcing that she has questionable judgment, for one thing. And saying “But it’s a rose!” doesn’t change anything.
Ricochet comment of the week.
But it fits with the texting culture. Listen to me, listen to me.
This really is an apples-and-oranges comparison, so I don’t get your insistence on this. I might very well agree with your condemnation about circumcision (I don’t pretend to know much about the pros and cons, as it doesn’t concern me. It’s not a public thing.), but all the same, it’s a stretch to somehow make some doctrine of moral equivalence. It just seems like a diversion.
Hasn’t held me back. But then again I work for people who hire for what I do not how I look. I mean I did work where I had to wear a suit all the time. So kind of a none issue. Its fun when you meet outside of the office.
I read part of the article you linked to, but couldn’t bring myself to read all of it. Not sure whether to laugh or cry. Mostly, I am crying: I knew a very nice man who dropped from a heart attack while running.
Reminds me of my US Marine buddy (both LT’s at the time) who came to the USMC Birthday Ball on his Harley (loud pipes – go figure) with a full out biker babe. Some of the elderly wives who saw the happy couple arrive did not stare approvingly.
How do you know that?
Granted, it is weak sauce, but young women should be made aware that lots of people find their tattoos, nose piercings, and-worst of all, in my opinion-very thick eyebrows, unattractive. Not that I have ever been the most attractive person, but I didn’t go out of my way to make myself less attractive :) I see these beautiful young women, and most women would give their eye teeth to have the natural beauty some of these girls have, but the tattoos and the piercings and the eyebrows just totally ruin them, and if a young woman isn’t a great beauty, the tattoos and the piercings and the eyebrows are only going to make life more difficult for her.
When I was younger, I often dressed immodestly; the men in my relatively conservative family and other relatively conservative men I knew had no problem with women dressing immodestly. They actually encouraged it: they totally acknowledged that some very conservative men wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t want very conservative men marrying into the family anyway, so it was all part of a plan. But I was made aware that the way I presented myself would draw some men in and drive others away: virtually all of the men I dated were very nice, and there was never a problem, but it is wrong to give young women the impression that everyone can and should accept them no matter what.
In theater, they have a saying, “Never break a rule unless you know exactly what you are doing.” A few years ago, I worked with a young woman who liked to brag about her ability to beat other women up; I wanted so badly to tell her that she was making a huge mistake, behaving in a very unfeminine way, making herself unattractive, but she didn’t care what I thought about anything, and there was no point in trying to advise her. Every single man she dated-and there were several of them in the time I knew her-turned out to be a certified weirdo. I am certain that there were men around who would have wanted to date her if it weren’t for the strange persona she adopted of the girl who could beat everybody up.
Telling these young women that what they are doing is unattractive may seem mean, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
If the point is you can screw it up and doesn’t look good? Sure that’s a total possiblity. Can it look awesome and add so much more, sure.
I was an undergrad in the early ’70s. At that institution, formal wear for a date generally consisted of a clean T shirt and clean Levis.
An acquaintance was a medical student who was in his clinical rotations. His supervisor insisted that he show up in a shirt and tie. He asked “why.” He was told something approximating this:
“A lot of our patients come from cultures where they have certain expectations of doctors. They are in the clinic because they or a loved one is in distress. Wear the tie out of respect for them.”
I do not judge anyone to be ‘extremely low class’ based on any first impressions or cultural differences. And cultural differences are exactly what we are discussing.
I don’t like sagging pants. I also don’t assume that that person is unworthy of respect and extremely low class, and I don’t see the common sense in judging that harshly over something so superficial.
None of us can help having first impressions. It seems to me that a wise man would not allow those impressions to lead him to disregard a person over something so trivial.
But there are plenty of jobs where how one looks is, in fact, very important. Yours obviously isn’t, but it seems stupid for someone young, coming up in the job market, to limit job opportunities by indulging in a fad that will turn off some employers. It’s not a wise choice. I’m happy that people have the freedom to make poor choices, but poor choices aren’t free from consequences.
The point is, people usually screw it up. Once in awhile, somebody gets it right, but that is rare.
The attractiveness of tattoos is certainly a personal thing,* but I do believe that something societal is indicated by the sheer overabundance of them.
* Adding that because I personally find tattoos unattractive, it seems to me that the more humanity inks, pierces, and modifies itself, the less attractive it becomes as a whole.
Pants around your thighs, tattoos on your face and neck are not trivial. Long hair on men who are not rock stars or named Fabio is not trivial.
I call shenanigans.
If you see two people walking down the street, one wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase, and the other wearing gym shorts, a wifebeater t-shirt, a baseball cap sideways and carrying a 40 oz bottle of malt liquor, you’re not going to make a snap judgement of the one over the other?
If true, you’re a better man than I am.
As I said, we all have first impressions. The wise man knows that the dude in a suit and tie is just as likely to be a creep as the one in a tank top and shorts.
How’s that haircut working out for you?
Sure, we all agree that prejudice is wrong, but life and circumstance often require us to make snap judgments about people. Multiple tattoos and piercings send a message to those around you (and you can’t tell me that those messages aren’t intentional).
If you’ve got multiple piercings and tats, it’ll require effort to communicate to people that you’re otherwise normal. More power to ya, but you might have to work harder at it than others. Understand that this is part of the decision you make when you go under the needle.
Somehow, what I said got attributed to Mitchell; no one on the internet knows what my hair looks like, which is a good thing on days like this…… :)
“Just” as likely? Really?
How about the dude in the suit may also be a creep? But just as likely. No sir, not in the known universe.