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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
I didn’t say that they were no longer worthy of respect. I’m Catholic, and therefore it behooves me to see dignity in everyone. But to answer your question: a person with lots of tattoos and piercings is telling me that they follow fads, and indeed are willing to inflict permanent markings upon themselves to follow this particular fad. If that’s what they do for self-expression, their goals are shallow and fairly pointless. In other words, it is indicative of a poverty of imagination and abilities.
Nor did I say, “you are beneath me”. I would say, “You’ve made some poor choices”.
I grew up partly on a farm. The working types I know both then and now don’t bother with tattoos and piercings, which is maybe why I associate them with people who don’t have a lot going for them.
OK, so you’ve spent several months on a Navy cruise in the Pacific or stuffed into a fast attack sub playing chicken with the Reds and Ruskies; you hit port in Honolulu and in an hour an a half, lose all conscious memory. You wake up a day later in an unfamiliar bed with a woman old enough to be your mother and spy it on your left forearm, raised, red and hot, a picture of a heart encircled by a snake underscored by the word “Mother.”
That’s the only tattoo that is acceptable in my book; when someone asks you why you got it you can reply honestly: “I don’t remember ever getting it. Nice though. “
Except it only says “Mothe” because it hurt so much you made the guy quit before he finished.
That, or the Marine Corps Logo is also acceptable.
If you served in the Pacific in WWII, you can also have a bikini-clad (or not) woman on your bicep that you can make do strange things when you flex.
Yeah, I don’t automatically associate tats and piercings with blue-collar types.
If doesn’t hang or can’t be caught why would they? Rings are not allowed for fear of swelling and degloving.
When I have to do something remotely blue collar I got 2 pairs of gloves, arc-flash resistant coat, face shield and helmet.
That is fair, but I won’t disassociate. I work with a mix of guys and girls, good mix of tattoos and not.
I suppose another reason why I find tattoos and piercings to be such a poor choice is that, as I mentioned, I grew up partly on a farm. We had beef cattle, pigs, and sheep in addition to horses and poultry. So tattoos and piercings just remind me of the branding and tattooing on animals, and yes, sometimes cattle were led by a ring through their nose. You wanna willingly adopt the trappings of cattle and pigs?
Instead we got Richard Pryor, perhaps in between goes with Marlon Brando, skimming hundredths of a cent from corporate transactions. That was cool too, I guess.
… and covered with someone else’s blood.
lol, this is getting a bit graphic :)
I come in naked and everyone else goes out screaming. I choose to take it as a compliment.
When I do it I just get arrested.
I was buying some smokes in a convenience store once. The checkout girls were discussing one of them getting a tattoo of her beau’s name.
“No, no” I said. “Get a box with fancy scrollwork. Write his name in the box with a magic marker. Then when he goes all third-verse-of-a-country-and-western-song on you, wait for his name to fade away and write the next one in.”
They liked the idea.
I specifically left that part out, you treacherous Russian whore!*
*That’s a PIT meme. All in good fun.
I’m very familiar with tattoos. That’s because I spend so much time in prisons and dealing with gangbangers – and wannabes. Some of those wannabes live to regret it. Some don’t.
I’ve always been impressed by the number of homeless people and others picking up free lunches in local parks – who have tats head to toe. I’ve often wondered – to tattoo parlors accept food stamps?
Or gone swimming at the Y.
I understand a badge of belonging like in a military unit, biker gang, tribe, etc. I understand embracing an outsider status, rejection of society. I don’t say I like any of these, but I understand them.
What I don’t understand is the tepid tattoo. “Why did you get it?” “Oh, I don’t know, it was just sorta cool looking.” Ok, but posters and paintings look cool – why permanently mark your body? For what purpose not served better by other non-permanent, non-body altering choices?
I went in for a pre-employment drug test a few years ago and realized to my amusement that I was the only person there who didn’t have a neck tattoo, staff included.
As to blue collar meaning tattooed, that wasn’t exactly my point, I was comparing suits to sweat shorts.
But that said, a notable number of construction, plumbing and landscapers I know have ink. It isn’t really that uncommon any more… Not to mention IT professionals. Plenty have tats. Including many very good at their job.
I am not recommending facial tats, full sleeves, etc. I don’t like them. I wouldn’t do that.
But I also wouldn’t take one look at someone that has one and decide they are unstable or stupid or incompetent. That is just ignorance. They made choices you wouldn’t. They may have even made very bad choices. Most of us have, but don’t wear it on our skins.
Judge a man by the whole of his character and abilities. Don’t discount someone for something only skin deep. Seems like pretty simple common sense advice to me…
Well, I made it through all the comments (so far)! Yay, me!
Tattoos and excessive piercings were once a sign of rebelliousness, but (as often happens) have become a sign of conformity.
I have three related stories, just for grins.
A friend of the family had her eyebrow pencil, eye liner and eye shadow tattooed on, just to save time and effort in the morning. It was tasteful and practical, though it struck me as a tad permanent (what if she decided to change the color scheme?).
Driving down Highway 80 one day, I overtook a guy on a low-slung Harley. He was fifty-something years old, eighty-something pounds overweight (mostly in his gut), wearing jeans and a sleeveless denim shirt. The jeans were riding down (“plumber cleavage”) and the shirt tail flapping in the wind. “What’s that on his back? OMG, he has a Tramp Stamp!” Just one image stuck in my brain that I’d prefer not to have.
I was at a business lunch years ago at a restaurant whose name rhymes with “shooters”. Our waitress was almost incandescently beautiful, in a natural “Mary Ann”, not “Ginger”, way. Short-ish brown hair. Understated makeup – she didn’t need it. Lovely smile. Pretty eyes. Well proportioned from head to toe. No visible tats or extraneous piercings. Then I noticed the tongue stud. <shudder> Ruined the whole thing.
Yeah, but that’s only so they can run you in via the scenic route then let you out with a warning….. warning you to tell them when you’re gonna do it next. It doesn’t work out so peacefully for doughy white guys. They must be offended by circumcision.
There was a subplot in An Officer and a Gentleman involving the Richard Gere character trying to cover up a tattoo he’d gotten as a Navy brat in Subic Bay. Gere’s father–a tough as nails petty officer (or something) played by the late, great Robert Loggia–had a tat that he’d somehow gotten in between bouts of drinkin’, smokin’ and [ummm]. That’s the kind of guy who can wear a tattoo.
Gere was method acting for that movie so he really did get a tattoo. Afterwards he wanted to get it removed, and he heard about an experimental method for tattoo removal involving gerbils. Unfortunately the gerbil broke loose and met a dark end. Boy, was Richard Gere red with embarrassment, and gerbil blood, after that.
It really started to snowball during college, now 25ish years ago. There was a bit of adventure in it, and the images were usually small and never anywhere that would show up in professional or formal clothing. Those standards were blown by in more recent years, as many former professional standards have been, and that’s not altogether a bad thing.
You did an excellent job describing it…and now your pain is shared.
Hey, I’m a giver!
FIFY.
I have a few thoughts about tatts.
First, we have some beloved Ricochetti who have extensive tatts, so I’ve learned not to judge too hastily.
Second, when I’m at a theme park with my family waiting for them to get off the rides and people-watching, if I see someone go by in revealing summer attire without tatts, I think to myself appreciatively, “There goes a blank canvas…”
Third, the coolest tatts by far (sorry veterans) are on large Samoan/Polynesian men. They just fit.
And last, when I found out that dermatologists are among the highest paid doctors, but with better hours than anesthesiologists, and make over half their income from tattoo removal, I knew what career path to guide my kids into…
Polynesian men are a special exception. That’s a case of embracing tradition, not snubbing it.
Of course, there is a real generation gap (naturally accompanied by a knowledge gap) behind the tattoo trend.
The first one I remember seeing was an apparently random number on the wrist of one of the men moving my family’s household goods into our new house. I was about six. Dad made sure I was aware of that marking and explained the meaning of it.