Once way back when in Texas, I was at a party with a band that had traveled there from the West Coast. They were making some sort of circuit; they didn’t go specifically just to Texas. But the singer was bald and covered with tattoos all over his head and neck. If he ever decided to become, say, an investment banker, he’d be screwed. I thought something along the lines of what gaffa said. It’s true that the old hippies could simply get a haircut and don a suit if they ever decided to change their lifestyle, but prominent tattoos can lock you out of certain paths forever.
If you get a tattoo, you’re stuck with a tattoo. “Good” or “bad” doesn’t enter into it. The fact is that it is, in a very real and indisputable way, stuck on the tattooed person. It doesn’t matter if you have the Mona Lisa of tattoos, it is still indelibly applied to human skin. Definitively “stuck”.
Hah!
I was born in '73, and my son in '92. What I’ve gathered from watching him and his friends is that they really don’t care much about the older generations at all. I don’t mean this in a negative sense. They just don’t seem to think much about how their parents behaved, what they believed in, how they chose to rebel, or how they might top that.
It’s interesting, really.
I wonder what the cutoff age for this generation is. I graduated high school in '04 and barely missed the “high school in an age of myself” era, although we did have AOL chats and everything.
I’m a millenial, I think that’s the term, correct?
Yeah. That or Generation Y, which runs from about 1981 to 1991.
But…that would make the current one Generation Z!
Oh dear Lord, it’s the end of days!
Could someone link to a chart or something of which gen is which? I don’t have any idea what the accepted birthdates and assumptions are.
‘Cause they don’t care about the young folks, talkin’ bout the young style? And they don’t care about the old folks, talkin’ bout the old style, too? 
I understand how tattoos work.
Yes it does: if you like it, you don’t feel stuck with it. So there’s no problem. And you also don’t have to adopt the point of view that if your tattoo reflects something from your past, it’s unwanted refuse.
“Feel” has nothing to do with it. Factually, you are stuck with it. In reality, you either have it for life, or have to replace it with a very expensive patch of scar tissue applied at great expense.
Tom Arnold was very amusing talking about the process of having a tattoo of his ex-wife’s face burned off. He said it was virtually impossible to get laid with Rosanne’s face on his chest.*
- Comment about Tom Arnold making a poor choice of a tattoo preemptively noted and rejected.
Thanks. I appreciate that, from the bottom of my apparently Gen-X nomad heart.
Could? You said “will” initially. How heavy are those goalposts?
Interesting conclusion you’re jumping to. If you don’t regret your tattoo, your life is boring.
Well, sure, your friends got stupid tattoos.
I’d be willing to bet that most people who get tattoos don’t regret them, But, sure, if you get a stupid tattoo, it could change your life.
Everyone leads lives that can change.
Feel has everything to do with it. You’re only “stuck” with something if it’s something you no longer want. That’s kinda what “stuck” means in this usage.
I’m sorry, I thought this was the thread where we made sweeping generalizations about generational coolness on scant facts.
This doesn’t seem to be sinking in: not everyone feels “stuck” with a tattoo even if it reflects something they’re not as passionate about as they once were. And if you make a sensible and considered tattoo choice (best not rush into that Rebecca Black tattoo) you’re less likely to regret it. I don’t feel stuck with my feet.
Drug addict does something stupid, film at 11. I’m not surprised your friends regret their prison tattoos, although that’s kind of a ridiculous comparison. If I had prison tats I think my biggest regret would be that I’ve been in prison, not some ink.
Yes, if you design your tattoos based on a tshirt you bought in Panama City Beach during Spring Break '98, odds are good that you will regret them later. Most of us have more sense than that. I mean, seriously, that is one terrible idea for a tattoo.
I have one tattoo, which is my bloodgroup shaped as a pair of "Jump"wings on my arm.
I had cause to regret it when on a freezing day in Belfast, dressed in civilian clothing with a VERY warm puffa jacket on over a short sleeved T shirt, I went into a Republican pub in the Markets district.
It turned out to be scorching hot in the pub, but I had to drink my pint and couldn’t take my jacket off because of the bloody tattoo.
The tattoo was of a design that only British service personell had done.
The sweat started rolling off of me as I desperately tried to drink the pint as fast as possible.
(not normally a problem but it seemed to be on that particular day)
The barmaid looked at me oddly and asked me if I was feeling alright, and I was forced to answer in my best Belfast accent that I thought that I was going down with flu.
(At that time anyone English in that area was presumed to be some sort of spy)
I thought I’d never finish that pint .
That said, I think that tattoos make the world a more interesting place and for some people are a way of expressing things about themselves to strangers.
So good luck to those who want them.
WHAT??!! My Club LaVela Spring Break '98 tatoo is TIMELESS!!