Yeah, if you’re going to get a tattoo, make sure it’s something you really want, not just a spur of the moment thing. That’s where the stupid comes in.
There’s no such thing as a right NOT to be offended. I see things I find ugly every day. Get the fuck over it. If the worst thing you ever see is a tattoo then you’re lucky. (And if THAT’S what ruins porn for you, you have a really, REALLY low tolerance)
And if you bothered to read your link, trepanation still plays a part in modern medicine.
Yup. If you wait just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle while longer, the earth will reverse its spin, everyone will agree with you, and the world will make sense again. Feel free to have a seat and read quietly until then.
I have my tattoo’s because I like them. they have some meaning to me, but in all honesty it’s pretty minor. I like my tattoo’s. My father would hate them, if he saw them, and I’m pretty sure my living grandparents would hate them if they saw them, but since you can’t see my tattoo’s when I’m wearing a shirt and long pants, then no harm done.
That being said, tattooing has been part of human culture since as long as we’ve been human, it seems. But I’m sure it’s just a fad.
It does seem weird though. Folks who are incredibly “live and let live” on so many other subjects will RAIL against tattoos. I just don’t understand.
Oh, I rail against lots of things that I just don’t get…spectator sports, Frank Zappa, tattoos… It’s just so bizarre to me. It’s as if a large segment of the population suddenly decided to get hairy warts. “But my hairy wart looks just like Minnie Mouse!”
I’ve realized that I kind of shy away from self-expression for the most part, such as bumper stickers, Facebook pages, T-shirts with writing on them, etc. I used to have a favorite outfit consisting of a pair of black pants and a white shirt, and one of the reasons I liked it was that I felt it gave away absolutely no information about me. I don’t know how I decided that I shouldn’t be so expressive, but that is one of the things that turns me off about tattoos.
I agree with this.
If anyone doesn’t believe tattoos are a fad, they should realize that even the tattoo fads themselves have changed.
Chinese Symbols? Out
Barbed Wire? Out
Tribal Markings? Out
Cartoon Characters? Out
Upper Arm (bicep) location for a tattoo? Out.
Tramp Stamp? Not sure, but I don’t see as many now as I used to.
What seems to be “In” now are tattoos with written text on the inside of the forearm or inside bicep, or on a shoulder blade. Angelina Jolie has all of these I think.
Eventually people will stop coming up with new ways to tattoo themselves, and the fad will die.
Now if someone can explain why the pants-around-the-middle-of-the-ass fad won’t die.
The world is getting more crowded all the time, people are trying to stand out and be different. Tattoos are becoming mainstream, I see them on the arms of retail employees now.
I don’t like them but whatever, if you want to ink up your skin it’s fine with me.
I love how people like to make issues like this black and white. But like most things there are a lot a shades of grey.
In defense of the pro tat group. Yes there are individual reasons that many people get tattoos. All make sense, for whatever reason.
In defense of the anti-tat group. There are a lot of people that get tats because they think they are cool and will impress someone else. The guy who gets the barb wire bicep tat just like a thousand other guys, thinking it will impress the girls at the pool.
I personally have a lot more respect for the person with whatever tattooed all across their back or chest, because of the special significance to them, than the bohunk that got the wrap around bicep tat, or the chick with the lower back tat above bikini line as a fashion statement.
I’ve never gotten a tattoo because I’ve never been convinced that I’d like something forever. But I’ve seen a lot that I like, so if other people can find stuff that works for them, then that’s great. And if they end up regretting it, why would I give a shit? Not my problem. Either they get it lasered off, or incorporated into something new, or they just live with it - whatever.
I came pretty close to getting one when I was in New Zealand for a few weeks - thought a Maori inspired design would be a nice souveneir, but didn’t end up doing it. Maybe next time.
I don’t have a tattoo but I don’t hate them. I don’t care what other people do to their bodies. In fact, I actually kind of like them for the laugh I occassionally get out of them.
It is very curious ‘fad’ though. Just about every tattoo I have ever seen looks hideous to me, either a boring picture, random symbols, tribals bands, or kid’s names/dates, etc… Even a nicely drawn piece of art looks dumb on somebody’s arm, or back or wherever. But people seem to really love their tattoos. To me (and I stress this is my opinion), it is like people being proud of some terribly ugly piece of clothing they are wearing.
As for it being a fad, I think it is to an extent. I really noticed it last summer when at the beach. I would say 95% of the people at the beach that day had a tattoo. I don’t really envision this large a percentage of people still getting tattoos in a decade or two.
These “I hate tattoos” posts bother me because it seems that far, far more men hate tattoos than women. And those men tend to have a special disdain for women with tattoos, but don’t care either way about whether men have them. It’s not-so-thinly-veiled sexism. Like “I hate tattoos because the women in my porn look horrible with them.” Or the “tramp stamp” thing- nobody has a problem with any particular location that men favor. And I’m remembering that guy on the boards here- can’t remember his name- who recounted some made-up story about how he was undressing a girl, saw her tattoo, then stood up and immediately walked out. Or guys who talk about how they would never, ever date a women with a tattoo. Women seem to be way more easy going about tattoos than men. I wonder if these anti-tattoo men are whining because they think that the tattoos are unladylike, or that the lady got the tattoo with complete disregard over how a man might feel about it. How horrible!
As for the “Ohhhh, you’ll regret it someday!” argument, it’s not that big a deal sometimes. I got a tattoo when I was younger, one that was impulsive and pretty dumb. I grew to dislike it and got it covered up with a design that I spent much more time planning and considering.
Tattoos may not always remain as popular as they are right now, but the sheer number of tattooed people out there suggests they’ve become mainstream and they’ll remain so- if there was ever a time you had to be a sailor or gang member to have a tattoo, that time is long over and it’s never coming back. It’s socially acceptable for just about anybody to have a tattoo at this point as long as it’s not huge or hideous and in general I think workplaces are becoming more tolerant of them. If I remember right, something like a third of young people have one, and that means that for that generation and onward, tattoos themselves are not seen as a big deal. You can still freak people out with a face tattoo or something like that, but growing numbers of people see a little bit of artwork on your arm or leg as nothing of significance. From what I can see, some types of tattoos already seem to be stigmatized as uncool: ‘oh look, another suburban mom with a butterfly above her ankle.’
So yes, here we go with another thread where some people without tattoos make proclamations about why people get tattoos and talk about how they’re going to feel about them in the future. There are bad reasons to get a tattoo (tribute to a 72-hour-old relationship, trying to impress strangers) and there are also bad reasons not to get a tattoo (it might look bad in 40 years!). I’m not much impressed by these kinds of broad generalizations. They really say more about the people making them than they do about the subject of the generalization.
None of which is intended as a defense for bad tattoos, because there are plenty of them. Then again, there are bad clothes, bad haircuts, and these days truly shocking numbers of horrible mustaches. A tattoo is permanent and those aren’t, but the issue is the bad taste that inspired the fashion, not the permanance of the choice. So people make different fashion choices. Make your own- casting aspersions on people who like something you don’t is kind of dumb, isn’t it?
I’ve never quite figured out the right way to bring this up, but yes, some of the comments about tattoos on women come off as rather possessive. Everybody has different tastes, but once people start saying stuff like ‘the female body is perfect and I hate it when tattoos ruin them,’ it starts to get a bit creepy.
Thirded. Same for all the I hate short hair on a woman threads. Ballsy sense of entitlement there, to assume that a passing stranger’s opinion is wanted, needed, or heeded. I have unmarked skin and long hair, and wouldn’t consider dating a man who warned me against short hair or tattoos.
You all understand that making your opinions known on a message board isn’t the same as walking up to strangers and saying, “I think your tattoos look stupid and you’re a moron for getting them,” right? Speaking for the tattoo-disliker guild, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone in real life what I really thought of their tattoos.
Casting moral aspersions on people who like something you don’t is dumb. There is, however, nothing whatever wrong with casting aesthetic aspersions on choices of fashion or whatever. I have yet to meet a human who never made such remarks, and I’m not sure it is either possible or desireable not to do so. Naturally, there is a time and place. It is rude to ridicule someone’s fashion choice to their face. But on a more-or-less anonymous message board?
Tattoos are in this respect just like mullets, Nickelback records, and the afore-mentioned leasure suits. It doesn’t make you a bad person to like, or have, any of these things, and anyone who says it does is being silly. Likewise, it does not make you a bad person to find these things ugly or unpleasing, and to say as much. Naturally, the mulleted, Nickelback-listening and leasure-suit wearing contingent of the public will not enjoy hearing their choices questioned, but it is not some sort of moral failing to question such choices, even though as in all such things it is a matter of de gustibus non est disputandum - a phrase I have never wholly believed in.
