I’m 25 and don’t have any tattoos because a)I think the vast majority are plain ugly and b)I just know I would get sick of whatever I got and want to scrub it off. I might consider getting one when I’m old and ugly. On young attractive people, they are a disfigurement IMO (JMO).
I think they are becoming slightly less trendy (especially the trend of getting just one random tat your first year of college) but they’ll never go away.
None of my close friends have a tattoo for some reason, but most people I know around my age have at least one and some are covered. My 19-year-old sister got her first tattoo when she was 16 (without parental permission) and she plans on many more. My 17-year-old sister loves them as well, wants to get a full back tattoo as soon as she’s 18. Can’t say I am happy about this but to each their own.
I don’t really like them for myself. There’s nothing I’d want to look at my whole life. I have a needle phobia anyway so it’s not likely my opinion will change.
I really don’t care for them on other people anyway. They don’t do a thing to enhance a person’s beauty, but I’m sure they have personal meaning beyond aesthetics. I’m old though. My 21 year old is fascinated and wants one when she finds just the right design. Her 20 year old cousin has a few already.
I know, right? I have two fairly small, easy-to-cover tattoos. I don’t really care either way for them on other people. I just don’t like people’s flesh is buried in ink. I like looking at skin.
As the person who started the other thread, I’ll say that I never predicted that tattooing will disappear. There will always be some people who decide to get tattoos.
But let’s face facts - tattooing became much more popular in the last twenty years.
And as you wrote, tattoos have been around for thousands of years - it’s not like they suddenly became inherently better around 1990. So I think we can attribute the rise in popularity to personal choice. And that’s pretty much the definition of a fad - when something rises in popularity for no apparent reason.
And if people in the last twenty years decided they liked tattoos a lot more for no apparent reason, then people in the next twenty years might decide they like tattoos a lot less for no apparent reason.
I have one so small <smaller than my pinky fingernail bed> and oddly placed <upside down on the inside of my left ankle, so I can see it> that I’ve dated people for quite some time without them ever noticing it.
I’m 33, female and I have no tatts, nor am I ever likely to get one. Partly because I’m shallow and can’t imagine finding a design I’d be happy to live with forever; partly because, no matter how skillfully rendered they are, I’ve never seen a tattoo that I thought was more attractive than the plain bare skin under it.
It just seems so cliché and unimaginative at this point. Of course everyone thinks their own koi fish tramp stamp is unique and special, and I’m sure to them it is, but I think I can honestly say I’ve never in my entire life seen a tattoo that made me think “huh, what a clever idea”.
Male, 28, one tattoo on my right shoulder.
Its a geometric spider design I designed myself.
I used to be crazy about spiders back in the day, and it is something that reminds me of when I used to be young and more free spirited. Dont regret it at all.
It was also the first time that I felt comfortable enough speaking in Japanese to get what I wanted, which was a major psychological boost for me.
Kanji for “Death” on my right arm, A copy of a self portraint that Miyamto Musashi did of himself on my right calf, and I had originally had the Kanji for “to live”, or life, on my left arm.
I have since began expanding the kanji’s and intend to have half-sleeves on the same theme, that connect together in an upper back piece.
Currently the “to life” kanji has been turned into a disc with the kanji on it. To one side of that, as if it is swimming around it, I have a large koi (outline and detailed, to be colored probably in about 2 weeks). I will also get added to that sleeve a cherry tree in blossom, a daruma doll, and anything else that is “lucky” and symbols of good fortune. All in vibrant bright colors.
The other kanji will eventually be inscribed on one of the Japanese cemetary obelisks, with an Oni face, a broken sword, a skull in Mempo, and any other bad luck or bad fortune symbols I can think of. This will all be done in blackwork, and grey shading.
wunderkammer: I always wonder about the pointillism tattoos and how long they’ll last before the effect gets blurred by time. Though really neat and graphic, it is a bunch of tiny dots arranged closely together, and isn’t necessarily going to look great in two decades; however, since it’s a “newer” trend in tattooing, there aren’t any ones that are 20 years old yet.
I’m 27, and I have what could be called three tattoos, though one is a set of tattooing sessions to make one large themed piece. One is a knotwork puffin w/ key and shears motifs inside, one is a LoC call #, and the third one is in progress: it’s a flurry of snowflakes that goes from my deltoid, over my back, and will eventually reach my mid-thigh. I’m currently snowflaked down to my hip, which was about 10 hours’ worth of work, and am quite pleased with it. I’m contemplating whether I want to go along with my tattoo artist/friend’s suggestion of maybe doing a lava flow/metamorphic rock motif mirrored on the other side, but it sounds like an interesting project.
None of my tattoos can be seen if I’m wearing a t-shirt and shorts/a skirt, and most people don’t realize I’m tattooed unless I’m wandering around in a tank top and they happen to see me from the side or back. It does, however, surprise people when they find out that I’m tattooed and they didn’t find out until months or years of knowing me. Before I started the snowflake project, I had classmates who’d seen me in workout clothes (wifebeater style tank, sports bra, and spandex shorts) and had never actually seen it exposed-- it was certainly a bit of a shock, as they’d formed a mental image of me as a non-tattooed person.
No. I personally don’t understand the attraction. I guess that’s a function of my age. As others have said, it was mostly sailors, bikers, and cons that had them. (That’s not a slam at anyone, I realize normal average folks get them now.)
Also, I have a minor medical issue that could be made a lot worse if I were exposed to hepatitis and I just don’t trust tattoo parlors. I’m sure most of them are scrupulous but you never know which one might not be.
