Maybe you saw the video. A girl seemed to regret having 50+ little stars tatooed on one side of her face. Do you think she’ll be ok?
Is she going to have trouble getting a date (what if your girlfriend had stars on her face)? Is she going to be kicked out of church? Will she make friends? Can she pursue that career in astronautical neurosurgery after this?
You get the point. Me, I think she’ll be fine. But what do you think?
I haven’t followed her situation closely, but I recall reading that she wanted her tattoo artist to pay to have them removed and he agreed but subsequently withdrew his agreement. So it looks like she wants to have them removed, but perhaps lacks the money. I don’t know if removal techniques exist that would remove the tattoos without leaving telltale scars, but I hope so for her sake.
My guess is that the tattoos will make her life difficult in countless ways, especially so as she grows older. (Assuming she doesn’t have them removed, that is.)
Her life will be harder than it would have been without the ridiculous face tattoos that’s for sure.
Considering how many persons actually have star tats intentionally, I’m not sure it’s a horrible handicap.
I think it may be harder than an untattooed face, but I actually think things will get *easier *for her as she gets older. Tattoos have become so commonplace that they aren’t the taboo they once were, and that’s only going to keep becoming more so as older, more tattoo-hostile people die off or retire. When your mom and grandmom have tattoos, you’re unlikely to discriminate against people with tattoos who come to you for a job or a car loan.
I’ve got one always visible tattoo (well, I can cover it up with the right kind of shirt collar, but it’s visible with most t-shirts these days), and I’ve gotten nothing but compliments and interesting conversations from it. While I did have a brief moment of panic while it was being done and I realized just how visible it was going to be, I haven’t had real regrets since. The closest to a regret is a frustration that there are a lot of necklaces I can’t wear, because the tattoo disrupts the pendant visually. I don’t see that kind of thing being a problem for her.
Even though tattoos in general are more accepted nowadays, face tattoos are still pretty taboo. I think many people who might think a star tattoo on your shoulder is cute will think someone with a bunch of stars on their face must be crazy.
Plus in this case (looking at the photos on google images) her tattoos just aren’t very aesthetically pleasing. From a distance, it makes her look like she has a nasty breakout of some kind of fungus on her face.
I think she’ll get it removed one way or another. If she didn’t, well, I’m sure there’s someone out there who would date her and hire her and such…but I think she did limit her options quite a bit!
No comment on the OP, I just wanted to point out the silly little fact that there aren’t often two words of Polynesian origin juxtaposed like that.
I believe that some countries (I know Denmark does) prohibit facial tattoos. I am not entirely convinced that this is not a great idea.
The picture of her from far away, she looks pretty decent. The extra closeup one, I’d say that she’s not good looking enough to pull it off, I fear.
I’ve been following the story.
She may have lied about the non-consensual addition of the tattoos.
She DID lie about it. And read the comments on that article - tattoo artists routinely draw in ink on your skin prior to actually making the tattoo. They show you what it looks like in the mirror. Tattoos have to be done right the first time, and it’s in no one’s interest to have unhappy customers. Plus, tattoos hurt. How can you sleep through getting one - unless you’re drunk or drugged?
The girl had buyer’s remorse, plain and simple, and now wants someone else to pay to fix things back the way they were. Well, yes, you can use a laser to remove tattoos, but the tattooing process does scar the skin. Her face will not look exactly as it did before, it never will.
Wonder if this tattoo artist will get signed, written agreements regarding facial tattoos in the future, and maybe video tape the process so that if he gets another customer accusing him of getting happy with ink he’ll have something to back up his position?
I think she would have been okay if she hadn’t tried to throw the tattooist under the bus. Getting tattoos like that is, at worst, a strange choice. Making false accusations that made international headlines, directly linked to your extremely obvious distinguishing features, is just asking for perpetual public humiliation.
Probably safe to say that this chick is not the most sensible person, and also doesn’t have a good track record for considering future consequences of her actions.
Before this incident I had a discussion about facial tattoos with a tattoo artist. I brought up the subject because I had seen a young woman who was otherwise very pretty, yet had very extensive tattoos on her face.
The tattoo artist said that in his experience women who have facial tattoos have a low sense of self worth. Not surprising I suppose, but it was a good bit of anecdotal evidence.
That being said, if you have a low sense of self worth you have a huge strike against you to begin with.
BTW, the tattoo artist said that the only tattoo work he won’t do is facial tattoos and hate expressions (white supremacy and those types of things).
As a therapist I once dated (not my therapist) was fond of saying, “normal is a setting on washing machine and doesn’t apply to people.” However from what I could gather from all my anthropology and sociology classes an individual doesn’t generally get away with bucking societal mores while leading a “normal” life. Tattoos are more common than they were in the past but there aren’t many people who have them on their face. Mike Tyson was already thought of as kind of a crazy guy and people were shocked that he would get them on his face.
She may have a difficult time finding certain kinds of jobs and entering into relationships with certain types of people. I know a lot of us on the Straight Dope like to think we’re enlightened and everything, but, c’mon, how many of you would like to date a woman with stars tattooed all over her face? (I realize some of you might).
Will she be able to lead a happy life? Sure. Just because she’s a little different from mainstream society doesn’t mean she can’t live a happy healthy life.
Odesio
Well, exactly. No, she probably won’t be able to live a “normal” life, but chances are pretty good that an impulsive young woman who gets her face tattooed doesn’t really *want *to live a “normal” life. Do I think what she did was a good idea? No, I don’t. Not at all. I’ve always been a proponent of careful and long-term planning for tattoos, including wearing drawn on or temporary tattoos of your chosen design for a few months to see if you really can enjoy your life with it in place. Obviously, that strategy would have gotten her negative feedback from her father without being a permanent change.
If you have to lie to your dad (which she has admitted, no speculation required) and, in the process, get someone else into hot water on an international scale, then you’re not as confident in your decision making process as I’d like to see someone be to get any tattoo, much less a facial one. But it also tells me you’re the kind of person who is continually going to make things harder for yourself by impulsive action and an inability to take responsibility for the consequences than a “normal” person would, at least for the next 10 to 20 years of your life. That kind of lying is more of a red flag to me than the stars on her face, to be honest.
It depends on how you define ‘normal’. In a perfect world, someone’s appearence —whether natural or modified through surgery, or tattoo, or piercing, or scarification, or whatever— shouldn’t cause anything more than a momentary “Hmm, that’s interesting…”, but we’re hardly living in a perfect world.
I’m heavily tattooed, but they’re all easily hidden if I wear a long-sleeved shirt (in fact, people who meet me when I’m wearing a suit are always a little freaked out when they see me again in casual short-sleeves and shorts). I’m usually careful about making sure that my tattoos are not visible when I first meet someone; I’d rather be judged as a person than a walking canvas. Unfortunately for her, the chick with the stars on her face doesn’t have that often-necessary option. Despite a lot more mainstream social acceptence in recent years, tattoos are still regarded with a raised eyebrow by any number of people, and tattooed people are still subject to being regarded as social misfits.
Personally, I’d love to see more facial tattoos, and body painting, and skin tinting, and weird clothing and jewelry, and whatever it is that makes people feel interesting or beautiful. Of course, I’m an artist, so creative expression is my stock in trade, but still…
It seems a little silly to be worried about her problems after you get a load of what the artist’s face looks like:
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-tattoo-faced-girl-is-a-liar/
Odesio, what would your therapist say about men who get fourteen lip piercings?
I work for an engineering company that is universally considered best in its class and is an S&P500 component. She could get a job with us if there was an opening and she was competent, maybe not in sales where she visited clients but that would be about the only limitation. A lot of our staff wear t-shirts and shorts and we have a few heavily tatted individuals.
As soon as I read her story, I called bullshit. It was obvious on the face of it (heh) that she didn’t sleep through the procedure and that she had buyers remorse.
It’s not the first time I’ve caught you articulating my thoughts in your way-more-eloquent-than-I way. I’m watching you, buster.
(As a side note, I find it amusing that she went for the big social stigma of a facial tattoo… with the kind of twinkly star design than simply screams conformity-in-nonconformity & lack of imagination. She’s either really into post-modern irony, or a complete tool.)