MrO, I wasn’t responding directly to the issue of whether tattoos are desirable or not; I was responding to the statement by INSANE that tattoos are some sort of ‘**** you’ to society. Which they ain’t. They just aren’t. They’re a trend. When half of society is sporting tattoos, they cannot be described in that way.
I think what might be going on here is one of those communication breakdowns that occur because people percieve the Board differently: I tend to think of it in terms of two modes: the Letter to the Editor mode and the Breakroom mode.
Omnipresent is pretty clearly in breakroom mode: he’s just shooting the shit, making casual conversation about how he feels about something he sees. I give a great rant about how silly “sagging” looks on teenagers, and I enjoy giving it, but I don’t feel like it has anything to do with the charecter of the kids themselves, anymore than pictures of me with “feathered” hair reflect on anything about me. The rant is an end in itself. I suspect that Omnipresent’s rant is also meant to be an end in itself and not serve as laying groundwork for any other, more complex confusions.
MrO and Insane1 are in “letter to the editor” mode: they are reading the board as something that takes a substanial amount of effort to post and so must have some signifigance to the writer in order to be worth doing, and they worry that the writer is trying to appear deliberatly innocous but is planning on pulling a rhetorical hat out of their pocket: “Ah ha! Now that you have agreed with me that teenagers with roses on their shoulders are likely acting out of silly motives, youmust agree with me that people with tats deserve to be maginalized!” I mean, why else would someone write a letter to the editor if not to lay groundwork for a more difficult to sell idea?
Someone else discussing email said it beautfully: We tend to write casually and read formally. I think that is what is happening here.
I’m a little biased about tattoos, because there are always dumbasses on the Chinese boards I look at asking how to translate some impossible phrase for a tattoo. “Avoiding all evil and keepin’ it real,” you idiot… And most people get tattoos that, frankly, I think look trashy. Though a big old Yakuza tattoo is kind of cool.
I also have to laugh at the word “modified” vs “non-modified”. Hey, I had my wisdom teeth out. My wife had a C-section for babyp and then had her gall-bladder removed. Do we count as modified? Or do we need a torso-ring? 
Amusingly, as if planned, Dan Piraro has stepped in to show us that tattoos have jumped the shark:
Nope, and I’ve got plenty of them. Some of them I even take out of storage once in a while and look at. At long intervals. But, and here’s the critical thing, the mementos that now make me cringe in embarassment can be given the discreet heave-ho without any discomfort. Similarly, pictures I still like but which have gotten sort of stale can be taken down off the wall pretty easily.
Like LifeOnWry (but without her tact), I find that I react to tattoos as very white trash. While I’m aware that many bright, cultured individuals now tend to get tattoos as a symbol of their individuality, this has really only been the case since the early to mid-90’s. So when I see a tattoo (particularly the full-sized murals as opposed to the discreet hidden-under-the clothes tat), I tend to think of someone like those clowns who ran out onto the baseball field the other day and assaulted the first base coach.
tattoos are too perm. for me. i like the idea of the temp. painted ones. they last 2 weeks and you can erase them and pick a new design. if i could figure out a formula for a tattoo that would last a year and disappear, no doubt i could make millions.
(emphasis mine)
Um, does no one else get the irony in that statement?
I did
It’s like in the early 90s when all the kids were on MTV dying their hair green as a statement of their individuality and who they were as a person.
Well, tattoos are a trend, and I think they’re a trend that the OP is clearly tired of. The thing with most trends is, once they’re over, you can throw out your baggie pants, pet rocks, low-rider jeans, peasant blouses, platform shoes, cement geese wearing rain slickers, whatever. The word “trend” kind of comes with the concept “temporary.” Tattoos are pretty permanent, and it requires at least minor surgery to get rid of them. For that reason only, one would think that some serious consideration ought to be done BEFORE letting someone poke ink-filled needles into you. Just MHO.
I still associate tattoos with prison.
I have one small tattoo on my lower back of a moon and stars on the night sky. I didn’t do it as a “statement” (and it would have futile to do so, since no one sees it unless I’m undressed) or to “assert my individuality”…I did it because I think it’s beautiful, and it means something to me personally (my last name is Starr, which has contributed to a lifelong fascination with the night sky, constellations, etc.)
No one else needs to think it’s pretty though. I didn’t do it for them.
Manda JO - Yes, good point. (Except that I think I’m writing as formally as I’m reading, here.) Probably true that Omnipresent is just shooting the shit, and doesn’t mean anything by it. But if I were in the breakroom shooting the shit about stupid choices people make, knowing that some of the people in the breakroom with me make those choices, I would expect to be considered rude, unless I could explain myself.
I for one have never claimed that my tattoos are symbols of individuality. Tattoos are older than the mid-90’s by thousands of years, and they are generally a sign of some sort of membership. Sometimes they’re just decorations.
As for the clowns who ran out onto the baseball field, it sounds like an impulsive, violent act. I can find no correlation between that and the years that I spent considering my tattoos. And probably unlike those clowns, I have no regrets about my tattoos. I can’t imagine being without them.
Most importantly, unlike those clowns, I didn’t assault anyone–which brings me back to the question of why you care. Lots of people are posting their negative opinions, and this is IMHO, so that’s cool. I’m not concerned about why anyone doesn’t like tattoos; it would never occur to me to give a rat’s ass about what other people like. I’m asking why it bothers you that some people have them. And I’m still curious about how this question shows insecurity.
Other than the minor point that the needles aren’t hollow and filled with ink, I agree. One should give serious consideration to the permanence before getting inked. Lots of us do.
So now that we’re all just shooting the shit in the breakroom, and I’ve walked up behind you at the water cooler as you were putting me down, what is there to say? Maybe I’m white trash, but you’re rude. Maybe you dislike or fear tattoos because you don’t understand the motivation behind them. Maybe it’s better not to criticize what you don’t understand.
And maybe I’m taking it too seriously. Generally I just ignore rudeness and false accusations, but this time it hits a little close to home. Still, I’ll lighten up here; we don’t want a scene in the breakroom just because some co-workers have bad manners. I will check back in though, to see if anyone can answer my questions.
I, for one, salute Mr. O for his oracular wisdom and light-hearted take on life. The original post puported to be an opinionated jab about the counterintuitive notion of a non-removable trend, but Mr. O saw through that; in fact, Omnipresent was really saying that all tatooed artists are nigh-criminal, colossally insecure trendoids, and I’m not sure, but I think he mentioned Mr. O by name. Hence, the O’s on-point riposte.
Do not criticize Mr. O, Omnipresent. If he has, “modifications,” such as his 666 tatoos; this does not make him an amphetamine-taking Hells Angel, despite what they say. He is merely a Modified Citizen, and you owe him the respect that he deserves.
So please, next time, some 16 year-old saunters down the street, with a four foot chinese butterfly unfurled above her Old Navy low-riders, and below her Porn Star baby-T, don’t say “Boy am I tired of those same-ol’ tatoos. Oh, and MrO’s a creep.” Say, “I Salute You, Goddess Of Individuality!” That’s what makes America great, the freedom to be yourself. And if you should be so unfortunate as to bed some poor girl who isn’t herself, as she lacks modifications, be sure to get her some mods ASAP, lest her individuality be questioned.
I just get sick of the holey-er than thou attitude…
d&r!
More bad manners, still no answers.
(Yawn)
MrO, I think you have to distinguish between opinions and rudeness.
“I don’t understand the choices that people make. I think tattoos are terribly declasse and unattractive” is an opinion. It may not be an opinion you agree with. It is not, however, equivalent to “MrO has tattoos so I think he’s stupid.”
Frankly, there’s not a soul on the SDMB who would care if you tattooed yourself completely blue (unless your Mom reads the boards). But you must have known when you got your tattoos that some people would make judgements about you based on that choice. People judge other people based on their choice of clothes, haircuts, style of speech, whether they smoke, drink, drive SUVs, use a PC or a Mac. IMHO has had threads discussing pretty much all of these. We recently had a thread discussing the wearing of sandals, for all love.
You can choose to take a thread about a personal choice of yours as an opportunity to espouse your views on the subject in an intelligent fashion, or you can throw a hissy fit.[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Manda JO *
**Omnipresent’s rant is also meant to be an end in itself and not serve as laying groundwork for any other, more complex confusions.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by finagle
****You can choose to take a thread about a personal choice of yours as an opportunity to espouse your views on the subject in an intelligent fashion, or you can throw a hissy fit.
Pretty much sums it up for me. We’ll leave it at that.
I believe I’ve done the former. The OP struck me as insulting toward a choice (a “trend,” if you prefer, though I find the implication that I am “trendy” to be laughable) that is important to me, and I defended that choice. In doing so, I asked a couple of questions, which still have not been answered.
Yes, of course I knew that my tattoos would cause some people to judge me negatively. That was probably part of the reason I got them–to encourage such people to expose their narrow-mindedness early in the relationship. Their judgement is a statement about them, not about me.
Likewise, Omnipresent must have known that his or her unprovoked criticism would be insulting to some. I recognize that it is an opinion. It strikes me as rude to express negative opinions about things that don’t harm anyone, in the presence of those who do those things. It doesn’t, however, strike me as much of a big deal. It isn’t the first time I’ve encountered thoughtlessness.
I’ve admitted to being a bit defensive about tattoos. But “hissy fit”? I don’t think you’ll be able to make that case, and I won’t ask you to. There are enough unanswered questions on the table. And I’m willing to leave it at that.
For the record - absolutely NOT what I said and certainly not what was meant to be interpreted.
And Mr. O, I don’t really know what response it is that you’re looking for exept to say that, “I care” as much as I care to say while leaving the house on a given day, “Yech, what a shitty day!!” Then, to have someone say to me, “Well, I don’t think it’s a shitty day - WHY DO YOU CARE?”
See what I mean?