Are tattoos Getting Passe?

[Auntbeast]

About 12 years ago I went to work at Bennigan’s. I rode a motorcycle at the time. I am a female. I was the only girl there that didn’t have a tattoo. All the sorority girls all had their little hip tattoos.

Where I work now, we have folks ranging from 18 to about 94. Precious few of the older guys with tattoos are still glad they have them.

My take on tattoos isn’t that I am vociferous in my disapproval, it’s that tattoos are something that are routinely done drunk/spur of the moment/ etc., and that typically, that isn’t when the best judgements are made. Now, with them being trendy, you add yet another good reason to not do something. Sure, there are folks out there who genuinely love the art of tattoo and all the blahblah that goes with it. However, my beef, and I am certain I am not the only one, is that the vast majority of the people have no concept how long a week is, much less a lifetime. They don’t know that getting tattoos on your neck doesn’t matter today when you are young and partying, but your boss/future wife/future in-laws, it will matter to, and it will probably coincide with it mattering to YOU.

I considered myself lucky that I got through my younger years without too much permanent damage, no teen pregnancies, no maimed limbs, no bones in my nose. Because I was successful at that, I don’t have to keep telling people “No, it’s a liger, from this movie that came out 40 years ago called Napoleon Dynamite.” “Jonathan was a boyfriend I had for 5 years, we broke up when I was 23, it sure seemed like love.” Those sorts of things. My crush on Greg is my business, my love for Adam Ant is my little secret, and the horrid things I did to my hair in the 80’s only exist in pictures.

I have three girlfriends that have tattoos:

1. Very rebellious, huge forearm tattoos, big body tattoos elsewhere
2. Super, super, super trendy, hearts, butterflies, fairies in easily concealed spots
3. Pretty normal all around, married, not much older than the other two, small ankle tattoo, a hip tattoo.

Which one do I think really likes tattoos? Probably the 3rd one. Who will still like them in 50 years? Probably the 3rd one. The other two will probably have huge black indistinct blobs all over their bodies.

I don’t have one because I really can’t think of anything I’ll still like in 50 years. Except my daughter. My husband maybe. Everytime I think, gee, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, I have flashes of having “I’m an idiot.” tattood on my forearm in chinese. That straightens me right up.

[HMS_Irruncible]

I freely admit I wish I didn’t have a tattoo (coaster-sized mandala sort of thing on my shoulderblade). I’m 35 now and got it when I was 24; I still like the design and appearance. But it seems like an open invitation for anyone and everyone to approach me and interrogate me about my motivations and underlying beliefs whenever I take my shirt off. Hey dumbfuck, I’m not grilling you about why you’re wearing a Homer Simpson t-shirt, why do you feel invited to talk to me about my skin?

I wish the general public didn’t see tattoos as some sort of litmus test where they can express their approval or disapproval of the whole concept.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@First Amongst Daves

I’m keen to get two - “Imi” in Japanese which means “meaning” and was one of the reasons my daughter Imogen got her name given her birth elevated my existence…

I guarantee that someday you will end up having to explain to a Japanese person why the word “meaning” reminds you of your daughter’s name, which is “potato atom”. Just food for thought.

General note to nobody in particular: In these threads, it’s inevitable that some snooty person will come along and say “non-Asian people shouldn’t use kanji”. I’m not going to be one of those people. But I will say this: It’s incredibly easy to fuck up kanji, even if you think you’re choosing something simple and obvious. And someday, I promise someone is going to call you on it. Spend a few minutes on engrish.com and let this lesson soak in.

If you’re going to use kanji in a tattoo, please, please, pay money and hire a Chinese translator and a Japanese translator to cross-check. And do not ask them to translate just a single word… explain the whole backstory of the meaning, and then tell them to give you a brief, meaningful phrase that reflects what you want.

This concludes the warning label that should be on every ink-gun in the Western world.

[hajario]

@XJETGIRLX

They mean something to the people who get them. I always wonder why people who choose not to get a tattoo feel the need to be so vociferous in their disapproval.

No one here has been particularly vociferous. I agree that some people are but in my experience, the number of people with tats with a huge fucking chip on their shoulders is much, much higher.

Tattoos will probably never be passe. They’ve been around for thousands of years and will probably be around for far longer than any of us will be alive. They are long past being trendy which is probably a good thing for tattoo lovers and tattoo haters alike.

[Cisco]

Sirius sattelite radio is awash with commercials for this stuff called Wrecking Balm, which is supposed to “Easily and painlessly remove tattoos” in as little as 90 with no scarring, etc.

This has got me thinking: How will the inevitable non-permanence of tattoos effect their popularity, meaning, and the perception of them in mainstream America?
FWIW, I have two personal facts that I feel are applicable to this thread:

1. I have always been considered, in general, the most “rebellious” person in my immediate family of 5.

2. I am the only one without a tattoo, and I’m not the youngest.

I always think of this as a micro sample of how out of control tattoos have gotten in the last couple decades.

[Excalibre]

@Dante

Yep, that’s me. Got one that supposedly says “courage”. Actual translation? Puppy.

Sigh…

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do for a coverup.

Do you mind if I laugh at you?

I can’t imagine getting a tattoo without knowing what it meant. And another problem is that, while I suspect that a minority of tattoos in East Asian languages are actually completely erroneous (at least, I hope so; most that I’ve seen appeared to be correct but a substantial minority were not), I’m not sure I’ve yet seen one in real life that actually looked nice. If you’re not familiar with the script, you don’t have much of a clue as to what attractive calligraphy actually looks like or how characters are supposed to be proportioned. Even with my limited command of written Chinese I can very easily tell how bad most of those tattoos are from a calligraphic perspective. They simply jump out at you with their ugliness.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the always entertaining hanzismatter, a weblog by a Chinese guy that focuses on misuse of East Asian writing in the West and mostly on bad character tattoos.

[Miller]

@Dante

Yep, that’s me. Got one that supposedly says “courage”. Actual translation? Puppy.

Sigh…

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do for a coverup.

Buy a dog?

@Brain Wreck

I guarantee that someday you will end up having to explain to a Japanese person why the word “meaning” reminds you of your daughter’s name, which is “potato atom”. Just food for thought.

Now I know what I’m naming my first kid. “Potato Atom Hume” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

[SnakesCatLady]

@mhendo

I’m not sure it’s right to call tattoos in general passe. What has begun to decline is the number of people who are not really serious about tattoos, but who just want a little one on their arm or ankle or small of their back because it’s what everyone else is doing.

I don’t have a tattoo, although it’s a pretty close thing. In the mid-90s, when they were all the rage, i seriously thought about getting one. But after racking my brain for ages, i couldn’t thing of a design that (a) looked cool, and (b) actually had some personal significance for me. I didn’t just want to get something because everyone else was doing it, and when i worked out that there was no design that i could be certain of appreciating ten years down the road, i decided to give it a miss.

I think some tattoos are really great, and really suit the people that have them, but i like it when people have more than just one or two little symbols. I think that tattoos look best if they cover more than a couple of square inches of skin, and full arm sleeves or large back tattoos look great. And i’m a big fan of tattoos on women, as long as they’ve not the typical butterfly or whatever in the small of the back or on the ankle.

How’re you doin?
I have a full leg tattoo that I have been working on, literally, for years. I got my first tattoo ( a very small ankle rose) at age 31. Then I got an orchid on mid shin. Then a (censored because it is a special thing) on my inside ankle. Then a dolphin on my left breast. (Funny work-related story with that if anyone is interested)

I realized I like it, so I talked with my artist and we worked up a leg-piece for me. If I need to be “respectible” I can do so with dark hose. If I want to play “biker bitch from hell”, I can do that too.

It can make interesting conversation when the “nice lady” asks the “biker bitch” in a grocery line: “Who does your ink?”

[Throatwarbler_Mangrove]

Not that it particularly concerns me, but let’s get the Dope’s opinion. I have two tattoos: A green Canadian flag on my shoulder, in the same place it would be on my army uniform, my blood type and rhesus factor in small lettering beside my brachial/radial artery on my other arm. Am I passe?

I find the second one a nice little conversation piece, since it’s visible with a short sleeve shirt, but not garish or anything, and it came free with the first one! It’s been a few years but I can’t see myself ever wanting to get rid of them.

[Excalibre]

@kawaiitentaclebeast

Not that it particularly concerns me, but let’s get the Dope’s opinion. I have two tattoos: A green Canadian flag on my shoulder, in the same place it would be on my army uniform, my blood type and rhesus factor in small lettering beside my brachial/radial artery on my other arm. Am I passe?

What’s a green Canadian flag? Aren’t they red and white?

[Throatwarbler_Mangrove]

Yes, like that, but green!

[Magiver]

How many people have a shirt they wear that is 30 years old? I do (while I’m changing the oil).

But as I get older I’m starting to get a rebel feeling in my soul. Maybe I’ll get a mullet hair cut, and die it green.

[Dante]

@Excalibre

Do you mind if I laugh at you?

Knock yourself out. Line forms directly behind me.

[Dante]

Actually, searching the hanzismatter website yields this link.

That’s EXACTLY the tattoo I have.

For my next one, I’m thinking of a nice stylized “L”. Perhaps on the forehead area.

[NajaNivea]

@Magiver

How many people have a shirt they wear that is 30 years old?

I would, if they didnt fade and eventually fall into tatters . Good news is, my tattoo (theoretically) won’t do that.

[SSYBESMA]

When you started seeing all these church-bait homebody type women who didn’t look like they were part of a motorcycle club wearing tramp stamps and droopy pants, that’s when it became really stupid in my opinion…I wouldn’t even consider touching such a woman as she has her entire personality just barely above her ass.

I almost think it’s going to take seeing small children with real tattoos before people realize we’re going backward toward New Guinea in this country and finally get shocked enough into removing them.

I feel like the tattoo removal business taking off big time will be the beginning of this country coming back to its senses…that could not happen too soon.

This country really has been going straight to the dogs for over 10 years now…like nothing really good culture-wise has happened in this century yet…all 100% pure crap.

The whole ‘tribal’ culture is just fricking ridiculous and I’m completely lost on it…I don’t even want to care to know what that’s about. It has no real meaning and it’s just a way to display your fakeness and un-originality.

My two cents.

@ralph124c

I ask because of the recent popularity of those TV shows (Miami ink, Las Vegas Inked, etc.). it strikes me that trends these days follow certain evolutionary paths. first, something starts out being embraced by the people who are radiacl in some way, then it gets picked up by the elites, then middle classes, finally it migrates to the working classes. At this point, the trend is passe-and people go looking for something else. It strikes me that massive tattoos are now at the point of becoming mainstream-so we shoud see those tattoo shops closing pretty soon.
Has a reverse trend been detected yet (like removing tatoos)? I’m pretty sure that certain Hollywood stars will make a big shouw of getting their formerly-admired tattoos burned off by a laser.
I also think the body jewelry stuff is passe-you see little girls with eyebrow rings, etc. , now-so kiss this goodbye!

[Procrustus]

Tattoo threads are always popular. The same can’t be said about tattoos, however. I predict a difference of opinion will soon be expressed. I’ll start. I like a woman width a tattoo or two.

[Chronos]

SSYBESMA, I think you’re a bit confused. Tattoos being passe means that they’re less likely to be removed, not more. People remove tattoos because they’re shocking or offensive, not because they’re boring.

[ThelmaLou]

@DonutSprinkle

God I hope so. But now I’m stuck watching an aging population’s fading testament to the ignorance of youth.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

[Enright3]

ZOMBIE THREAD STARTED IN 2006.

A lot of this thread is still relevant, but I just wanted to let people know.