Im 39 and growing up thru the 80s and 90s tattoos were different. Now a full sleeve is ordinary. opinions?
I’m being edgy by not having any at all. I figure in 15 years I’ll be the REAL outsider.
It actually is different by not having one. or even just having a couple. Sleeves are common on women now too.
Does it matter?
I actually had a friend of a friend approach me and say “You don’t have any tattoos, you don’t smoke, and you barely drink? Christ, I could never be that hardcore. That takes some real dedication!”
I thanked her, but I thought it was an odd sentiment. Then a few weeks later I began noticing that everyone from my generation (late 20s/early 30s) seems to have at least one tattoo.
I’m just waiting for the mass realization that an armful of tattoos (or any other location) is awfully damned ugly when you’re of retirement age.
Think of it, imagine grammie and grampie all tatted up. It ain’t pretty.
OK - I may be a little bit biased - I can’t even look at the girl behind the coffee bar because she has so many piercings on her face - it makes me shudder to look at her face on - I have to avert my gaze. Tattoos are only slightly less off-putting for me.
Jeez! How many of these “I’m better than you are because I don’t have any of those scum-baggy tattoos.” do we need?
Yeah, elder folk aren’t usually known for their flawless super hot bodies.
If only there were some way to give yourself a permanent reminder of something you feel really strongly about. 
:dubious:
Yeah, and you called me for threadshitting in a Batman thread a week ago?
Some folks are shallow and close minded to ink and piercings (like Crab Rangoon there) and some are not. It’s all personal preference.
But yes, tattoo’s have become quite mainstream at the moment. There was just a big thread on it if you do a search.
Pro-Tip: Every person that has gotten a tattoo knows it is permanent. That’s part of the appeal. And when I am 80’s, the fact that my tattoo’s have faded or blurred over the decades will be a minor thing.
I’ve become so accustomed to baristas having tattoos and piercings that when I get one that doesn’t have them, I find it strange.
It’s not threadshitting. It’s a valid question.
Overplayed, no; they’re just mainstream. I guess in generations past, you could rebel by getting a tatto, but now-a-days, unless you’re really seriously tatted up, no one will think twice. Hell, even if you are seriously tatted up, the thought won’t be “OMG, he’s such a rebel” but more “oh, he must like tattoos”. The people that would have used tattoos as a form of rebelion a generation or two ago are now the ones getting body modification like horns or whatever.
Personally, I have no interest in getting any tattoos, but I still have an appreciation for them because they are a form of art and they usually have some significance to the person. Yeah, sometimes someone has a dragon because they thought it would look coo, or they get their boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s name tattooed and then they break up, but it seems more often you find out that it has some personal meaning. For instance, I met a girl who had just a tiny butterfly tattoo and it was a special connection with her mom that she got when she died of cancer, and I know someone who got his tattoo when he went sober and another who got one when he quit smoking. I respect wanting to have that sort of reminder for important people and important events or important influences in one’s life. So, in that regard, I think it’s pretty cool that it’s no longer a social taboo.
I think I may have mentioned this before, but I know what an 80 year old woman covered with tattoos looks like. My dad was (among many other things) a rep for the Associated Guild of Variety Artists, a union for performers. And that included carnival people. He had formed a lot of friendships during that period and maintained contact with a lot of these folks after they had retired.
One of them was a former “tattooed lady”, who was covered from head to toe - well, technically from lower neck to upper ankle, so she could wear long sleeves and a long skirt and look completely normal. She had gotten them as a way to earn a living, a far more valid reason than fashion. And, as one might imagine, they had spread and faded into a bluish full-body bruise, shot through with liver spots and wrinkles.
I wish I had some photographs of her to conduct a sort of “Scared Straight” program for people waiting to get their first tattoo.
Man, some folks get so defensive about their poorly thought out decisions.
The point is that, when you are 80 you will be a substantially different person than you are now. And you are making irrevocable decisions for that person.
I see an entire generation staring into the mirror in the cold morning light of the other side of fifty muttering to themselves “What the fuck were we thinking?”
Then let them worry about it. Every 80 year old will be victim of the decisions of their past, of which a tattoo or four would be among the least significant I’m sure.
Well, perhaps you can see the converse: the whole “you’ll regret this when you’re 80!” thing is based on the idea that the tattooed person doesn’t know what they’ll feel about their tattoos in the future while some other person who was not part of making the decision and doesn’t feel whatever emotions inspired the tattoo does know how the person will feel. It’s very presumptuous.
Because everyone knows that 80-year-old women without tattoos are SMOKIN’ HOT!
Why in heaven’s name would anyone care if someone else’s tattoos are going to be bluish and faded by the time they’re 80? Shit, when I’m eighty I plan on sitting on my front porch drinking gin and openly laughing at people while eating chocolate mousse.
Seriously. Why does anyone care what other people will have on their bodies when they’re eighty? If you’re eighty you probably have enough problems without taking “I got a tattoo at age 28” into account.
I wouldn’t call it shallow - I just have a gut adverse reaction to seeing holes and knobs and such sticking out of people’s faces. It’s my personal preference not to look at things that remind me of old horror movies I saw as a kid. All I can think of is how much that hurts.
Are you defending the piercings and (I don’t know the proper term for them) - cut-outs? like in ears and lips - are you calling these enhancements that all people should find attractive? Is that really why people get them, to be more appealing to others - or is it more for the “shock” factor that is exactly what they get from me - and then call me shallow and close-minded because that’s what they got? Or perhaps do they get them to fit in with the “cool” crowd?
I’m not actually asking you to tell me why people do these things - I don’t really care - I think that just perhaps the gut negative reaction from strangers is not a total surprise when someone chooses to do that to their face.
Some of them are ok, some are badly done.
God, every time I see Randy Orton on TV, I want to tell him to wash the dirt off his arms.