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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
Obviously it depends on the size, complexity, and skill of the artist, but as I understand it, anything bigger than a few inches across that doesn’t look like it was done by a drunk convict is going to cost you three figures. Those elaborate multicolor full backs can get close to four.
But it’s not just a matter of disposable income. The people my age (35ish) whom I know who have tattoos aren’t the ones who have the most money to waste; they’re actually the ones barely making it, the ones who aren’t getting married, buying houses, or raising children. This trend is about more than just having extra money to spend.
Why tat’s? Read this post, and its comments, and you will see why. It’s to make you squeamish. To set themselves apart from the squeamish. And it is working very well.
That’s part of it.
I don’t think a tattoo should ever be taken lightly, but a well thought out and discreetly placed tattoo can be worn with pride and can show a lifetime commitment.
I have a heart with my daughters name in it on my chest. Sorry it annoys and disturbs some of you so deeply, but not too sorry… And by the way, I’m a boomer. A grandfather. And it still looks good!
These comments are around what I think. There are likely some kind of psychological issues being worked through. There’s a bit of self-abuse tied up with it. There’s an addiction factor — seems you can’t get just one. And I think it speaks of a culture that is both self-absorbed and sees no future. It possibly speaks of a culture that has it too easy and now seeks some kind of thrill in the rebellion of the act.
Which is not to say these things are true of everyone who gets a tattoo. Individuals may or may not be exempt. But the culture in which these individuals live . . . yeah, I’m judging it.
One of my kids seems to think they’re pretty cool, and I hope I can knock some sense into her before she leaves the nest. Otherwise I expect I’m gonna see her on some future holiday with a tattoo, and I’m gonna cry my eyes out.
I got my modified
penkeyboard name from a picture of a guy with an obviously machine translated from English to Latin version of Psalm 23 tattooed on himself. (Never mind that Latin Bibles aren’t exactly hard to find.) The phrase, “shadow of death,” came out as, “Umbra of Nex,” exactly as you see it in my name, with “nex” undeclined and “of” untranslated. (It should properly be, “Umbra Necis” if I remember my grammar correctly.)Naked and screaming? ;-)
Obviously, cost is relative to time required, so generally the size and complexity is the key. But it really isn’t that expensive. As you say, a medium sized professional tattoo is one or two hundred dollars. But a a pair of shoes or a handbag can be that much easily. Tattoos last forever. So is it really that expensive?
I think part of the reason there are so many tattoos today is exactly that the cost is relatively low. Certainly, if you are homeless and starving that is an extravagance. But for the average Joe, who really wants a tat, cost is not a major obstacle.
My brother in law has the same, with the name of the daughter they lost at childbirth. I will not criticize that.
I am not nearly at the point where I am “in the market” again. (Maybe another year. Or two.) Yet, for me tattoos are a real turn-off. I see one on a woman, and the hindbrain says, “just, no.”
Exactly!
Wigs and heels can be taken off. That tattoos are permanent puts them in a different category.
How this conversation “navel-gazing”? It’s an interesting topic to discuss, at least for those who chose to read the post and comments. If you don’t agree, fine, but how is this “navel-gazing”?
I am surprised how many tattoos I see on middle aged women. The technology must be pretty advanced. The other day, I saw a tattoo on a woman’s calf (with lots of space) with a portrait of a young man with birth and death dates. I assume it was her son. The amazing thing was that it was very well done in grayscale – about like a B/W image would come out on a laser printer.
The other problem is that I have a compulsion to read everything I see. It is awkward when the tattoo is a Latin phrase in script across a woman’s chest. How long am I allowed to stare at it in order to sort it out?
I pay too much in taxes.
But what isn’t being bought or saved with that car payment sized chunk of change? That’s what I’m getting at. The cost isn’t an obstacle, no, but the repeated decision to spend the money on something completely gratuitous instead of something useful (and yes, I include designer handbags and non – work three figure shoes in the list of gratuitous purchases) is suggestive of YOLO mindset that isn’t thinking about tomorrow, much less the day after one dies.
If I recall, Michael Jackson has eyebrows and specific hairline tattooed on himself. That kind of thing at least makes sense to me.
@alsparks, what is a “pastie” in this context? Many women who frequent nail salons these days have acrylic or gel overlays on their fingernails, which extend the natural nail bed sufficiently to show more color and/or design. Designs are often hand-painted on the nail by the manicurist.
I don’t like it, thus collapse of civilization…. Errr yea.
Man, y’all are pretty puritanical aren’t you? lol Full disclosure: I do not have any tattoos, and sometimes feel like one of the only people left that doesn’t. I thought Chris Loesch’s tweet was hilarious. The reason I don’t have any isn’t any huge moral stand. I like them when they have a special significance to the person, and I have never really found something that works for me. I do not want to be the tribal tattoo/barbed wire/chinese symbol guy. :) Maybe a nice tattoo of a concrete truck or a Power T for the Vols?
My mother had eyebrows tattooed on after menopause caused her own to fall out.
And lest anyone get me wrong, I’m not opposed to tattoos per se. There’s nothing I like so much that I would want it made a permanent part of me, and in my own case, it would more like graffiti on some Courbosier monstrosity than the Sistine Chapel. Sure, they’re a waste of money, but I sure don’t have any standing to feel high and mighty over others’ wasteful spending.
But in a “carpe diem” culture generally, multiple tattoos are a very visible marker of fully embracing a “the most important thing is me right now” attitude.
I can’t really understand the anti-tattoo bias. I’d never get one myself, but I’ve never once found tattoos to be off putting in and of themselves. I guess having grown up in the 90’s and early 00’s I saw plenty of tattoos around on normal everyday people. Thus I don’t much associate them with either the army or criminals. Maybe back in the past that was the case. But, since most cosmetics are ridiculous, from makeup to hair coloring it seems a rather trivial thing to judge people on.
The fact is that not getting a tattoo is as much following a fad as anything else. Either way you are giving into social pressure. The most rebellious thing might be to wear temporary tattoos when you feel like it.
It’s true that older generations regularly complain about youth culture and how their particular idiosyncrasies herald the decline of civilization.
And the younger generation laughs and says “You old farts say that about every generation.”
As if that answers all concerns.
Yet here we are declining.
Okay, so, hypothetically speaking, if you had someone who wasn’t giving into social pressure for or against, what would that look like?
pantaloons and powdered wigs. That would be a free spirit.
Also of note its odd to complain about tattoos when one considers the amount of male circumcision in US. That’s a rather permanent change and one that lacks consent. One could say that’s rather “primitive”.
Any of you pro-tattoo guys want to comment on this? A guy with a tattoo is one thing. A girl with a tattoo is gilding the lily, at best.
I do tend to react to people worse when they’re sporting tattoos. The guy at the game store with HICK LIFE across his knuckles, for example. (He’s actually a pretty good guy, and contra the previous graphic a productive member of society. He paints bridges for a living. Makes more money than I do, and he’s welcome to it.)
Maybe that’s part of my problem too. “Winona Forever” was Johnny Depp’s tattoo until they broke up a little while later. Someone spoofed the INRI cross by making the cross out of bacon and replacing INRI with IHOP. The image has been out there for years. Someone posted it to Twitter yesterday with the text, Finished my tattoo last night. Think I’ll log into Twitter and see what’s going on.
As an old “get off my lawn” guy there are three questions I would ask my wife if she told me she was getting a tattoo:
Never stopped me from eating a donut before.
As you noted, it is almost always done to a boy unable to consent. If I encountered lots of men bragging about how they got themselves circumcised to show just how hard core they were, I’d think that a primitive, YOLO behavior too.
Since it helps with hygiene, circumcision is a practical medical decision. Hardly primitive.
Gen X is what age group? My niece is covered with them – a trend that went off the charts. I saw a young woman with a large chest wearing a very low cut top who had tattooed eyes looking down at them – really??! It was not attractive. I remember a couple women – one a restaurant server who had pentagrams tattooed on the arms, and one I worked with in a professional setting – eewww – but I’ll take the tats over all the hideous piercings….