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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 wouldn’t jump to any conclusions there… The person in the photo has a remarkably prominent Adam’s apple for a girl and appears to have tattoos on his/her knuckles — maybe even some facial hair. Just because it’s wearing diamond gauges and long hair does not make it a girl…
Another good point: If you ever plan on leaving the group where the tattoos have utility, you’re probably better off not getting the tattoo.
Excellent point. Illiteracy knows no boundaries of sex, or even indeterminate gender. Or, perhaps, actually, the more indeterminate and vague the gender, the more propensity for lack of clarity and, even, illiteracy . . . who knows. Thanks for the caution!
I’d seen that photo for a number of years used to represent bad choices. When I searched for it to include in the article, I was surprised to discover that it is from the movie We’re the Millers. I haven’t seen the film and didn’t know that. The character is played by Mark L. Young.
Which can only be followed by…
One of my favorite stories surrounding the making of the Lord of the Rings movies was when the actors who played the leading characters decided to all get commemorative tattoos to symbolize their bonding during the movie shoot. When they asked Ian Holm – who played Bilbo Baggins – if he wanted to get a tattoo with them he told them to grow up.
It keeps the tattoo off it’s skin or it gets the hose again.
One of my favorite websites….
Ugliest Tattoos
Looks a bit like Holly Hunter.
Oh dear. A couple of those seem to be designed to cause a potential rapist to lose erectile function. Brilliant plan or stupid dumbasses? We may never know.
Get Off My Lawn!
@she “like the girl in the photo accompanying the OP.”
I’m pretty sure from the neck and hands that that is a dude. But I fully admit that you may be correct.
He is a guy, saw the movie :)
Eeeewww!
‘Inoffensive’ (not unpleasant or objectionable, not arousing distaste) to you.
This is why I’m not getting tattooed.
Probably at least half of my friends going back to college have tattoos. Nothing in your face, just smaller, hidden lizards and Chinese character type things. My cousin’s wife had a big hangup about hers as it was visible in her wedding dress. I recall Mom saying something about it, but the rest of us just celebrated the joy of the event. Which of those reactions is weird?
By the way, Ed G. wins this page of comments:
I would hazard that it is creeping into your writing because misspellings and bad grammar are omnipresent in the online-o-sphere and eventually the muscles that twitch when you read le mal mot get worn out.
Peeps who get tattoos with a double-edged sword are hard core.
Love it!
And, let us not forget the inability of diktatation software and the ever-present Autoincorrect to misuse/misconstrue homophones [sound-alike words]…
Illiteracy used to know boundaries of sex – I well remember when pretty much every female could spell and rather few males could.
Are you sure he isn’t the dude playing the girl playing the dude?
But apparently objectionable to you.
Let it all out, now, don’t let it fester in there!
Homophobe
Went out to listen to the band playing last night. Saw a girl in a flowery sun dress, cut off at the shoulder. She had a large flowery tattoo on her shoulder; it matched rather well with the dress, but still wasn’t what I’d call an improvement on the original.
There’s a member of the British aristocracy who has a tattoo. I forget her name, but she was a model in the 1970s and had her tattoo back then.
She was sitting with the girl who had the short, electric blue hair. Not exactly bad looking, but not a patch on the wavy-haired brunette with the subtle highlights on the other side of the venue.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got something I really ought to get back to…
I like that idea better than the thought that my mental facilities are starting to fail. Maybe it’s like the story told about how counterfeit finders are taught. They are only shown the genuine articles and study them intently so that fakes pop out instead of studying fakes. I’ve seen so many incorrect articles that I subconsciously type the wrong version of my thoughts.
Hmm…interesting.
So: Who do I go to at the IRS to get back all of those taxes I’ve been paying since I’ve got tattoos on my forearms? Is there, like a specific form I need to file, or something?