I watched Miami Ink for years. I’ve never seen a tattooist draw anything that I’d frame and hang in my living room.
Kat Von D was the best in that shop. But she was just transferring photos to paper and then creating a tattoo. A 2nd year art student could do a much more creative drawing.
Why would I want that “art” on my skin for the rest of my life?
Like most of the others I question the OP’s contention that tattoos are “cool” today. What they are is trendy. IOW, popular. Getting one is the nonconformist-act-of-conformity-du-jour. Like dressing Goth was in the 90s.
While something is popular lots of people do it. Both the cool and the less-than-cool folks do it.
Eventually it’ll become not-trendy. At which point brand new tattoos will become much more rare. And then, like the many WWII sailors with biceps anchors & mermaids, we’ll get to watch the existing stock of tattoos slowly age and eventually die off.
For something with mostly permanent effects we’ll observe even flat-lined popularity as an ever-increasing number of tattoos out in public. This effect will mean this fad will be longer-lived than something more ephemeral like a particular haircut or toy. As long as people are still noticing people with *existing *tattoos there will be some social impetus for *new *tattoos. Contrast that with impermanent fad things like Farrah Fawcett hairstyles or Tamagotchi - Wikipedia. Anyone seen either of those in the wild recently? Since you haven’t, you’ve not experienced any me-too social pressure to get one.
I would not be surprised to find that the peak popularity for tattoos has already passed and the rate of new tattoos is flat to very slightly declining today.
I couldn’t find numbers, but I’d be surprised if we had passed peak popularity for tattoos. There might be some people who aren’t as interested in getting tattoos anymore since they’re not edgy and rebellious anymore. But I’d also guess that there are other people who would have liked to get a tattoo 10 or more years ago but didn’t because they were afraid of what employers or possible dates or other people would think. But now more and more companies, dates, and people in general don’t care as much one way or the other about tattoos, so it’s one less thing holding people back.
Also, I believe tattoo removal technology is getting better, so there is probably a good number of people who don’t completely think of tattoos as truly permanent, since if they change their mind in 20 years the laser removal will be even better then and it won’t be an issue. I’ve also read more about temporary tattoos that last only a few years, if those become more widespread I could see those being very popular, especially among college students and other young adults.
My prediction was that tattoos would start falling out of favor once the Tattoo Generation(s) aged to the point that their fading, sagging tats provoked generalized revulsion among the young.
However, I’ve seen lots of (mostly prematurely)-aged tattooed people who inspire one to lose one’s lunch, and there’s no indication yet that the tattooed movers and shakers (i.e. NBA stars) are giving up the practice.
Still, it can’t be a bad idea for aspiring physicians to get trained in laser tattoo removal. It’s my retirement plan and I’m sticking with it. 
Quint: What?
Brody: That one, there, on your arm.
Quint: Oh, uh, that’s a tattoo, I got that removed.
Hooper: Don’t tell me, don’t tell me…“Mother.”
[roars with laughter]
Hooper: What is it -
[Quint solemnly clamps a hand on Hooper’s arm]
Quint: Mr. Hooper, that’s the USS Indianapolis. *
How often do the regrets of the elderly inspire the young to avoid their mistakes? I’d guess more people don’t think about what their tattoos will look like in the future, or think that tattoo removal will be better and easier in the future, or plan on being an old person who doesn’t give a fuck about what anyone else thinks. I’ve heard people not wanting tattoos because they fear what they’ll look like as they age, but I’ve also seen photo galleries shared on Facebook titled something like “Older People looking Badass with their Tattoos.”
The question’s a paradox - something can’t be cool and mainstream, and when there are tattoo parlors in every strip mall and grandmothers have tramp stamps and “Hello Kitty” artwork, it’s mainstream. I don’t work in some counter-culture haven like an indie coffee shop or used record store, but 95% of my co-workers have tattoos and piercings, with about 60% having both. That’s a warehouse with around 1000 people.
Here’s a weird aside: maybe five people there ride motorcycles and none of us has any tats, far as I can tell.
Probably part of the paradox that is unique to the present time is that older people are getting fresh new tattoos. In the past all you could threaten your kids with was pictures of gnarly old sailors with fading liver-spotted hula girls they got on a binge back in '42.
The point isn’t that folks will look at Grandpa’s tattoos and think “Ewww, if I get one tomorrow it’ll look like that in 70 years. So I won’t get one.”
It’s more like they’ll think “Ewww, tattoos are old folk’s things. Waay out of style. Not gonna do it. Not gonna buy a large white sedan or doilies for my end tables either.”
My parents were entertainers, and we knew a lot of old entertainers and circus and carnival people.
So unlike many, I know exactly what a tattoo looks like on an 80 year old woman.
Laser tattoo “removal” is a lie. What it does is replace the tattoo with a burn, applied over a very long time at a very great expense. It never looks like skin that has never been tattooed.
Penn Jillette got what may be the only actually cool tattoo - one without ink. He got a tattoo artist to tattoo a skull on his arm with no ink, making a “tattoo of blood” that was “all pain, no gain.” Lou Reed wrote a song about it.
I’d agree that geniune artists seem to be few and far between. But some really gorgeous ink can be found here and there. I submit to you this piece that I will always love:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5091/5494850209_f12ca10192.jpg
Note the greyhounds and how the different sides of the tree are shown in different seasons. This isn’t my back, but if I could figure out who did the work I would make an appt in a heartbeat for something unique of my own.
Ahh… it seems to be inspired by this: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/1e/76/23/1e76233d42cdef65c8848a787f78fee7.jpg
Sorry, I meant to add that I think ink that involves genuine artwork will always be cool. It’s all the mundane and poor-quality work that is uncool.
The most painful of my many tattoos would have to be my knees. If you looked at my knees you’d never guess they were tatted, but they are.
Vitiligo left my knees and the backs of my hands unpigmented, and prone to burning. I wear kayaking gloves to help protect my hands, but I forget to protect my knees and they burn easily.
So, I read somewhere about tattooing as protection for sunburn. I had a tattoo artist tattoo my knees flesh-tone. It’s thick tissue that is difficult to tattoo. He had to go over and over the area.
Worked out great, no more sunburn. But it hurt like hell and my knees just look like knees.
ETA: as far as the rest of my tattoos, they were all done for me. Don’t like them? Who the fuck asked you?
It’s kind of silly to think that in 50 years all the senior citizens in the nursing homes will be looking at their wrinkled droopy skin and thinking how horrible all their tattoos look.
Like, all the old-ass senior citizens without tattoos will be looking awesome and buff, but the tattooed ones will be hideous freaks.
Sorry to say, but saggy wrinkled skin with some ink on it looks like saggy wrinkled skin. When you’re old and wrinkled you’ll be repulsive because you’re old and wrinkled, not because you’re old and wrinkled and you’ve got a tattoo.
I think it’s important to distinguish between “cool”, as in trendy, and what’s in mainstream fashion. Tattoos stopped being edgy and cool a long time ago, now are just fashionable. I think the difference is that “trendy” is what the kids do and “fashionable” is what everyone does.
The problem is that fashions change, even accepted, mainstream fashions. And for the most part, those who got tattoos are dating themselves. I don’t think it will be too long before kids view adults with lots of tattoos as just simply adorable.
I see a lot of tattoos here in Taiwan among “kids” in their teens, 20s and 30s.
Looking online I see a survey in Australia says almost 30% of women in their 20s have tattoos.
I grew up in a very conservative, Christian household where tattoos were looked at as evil and my father molested my sisters.
For the life of me, I just can’t muster that same outrage about what other people do to their skin when we have do idea what “clean cut” people may be doing to their daughters.
When middle aged moms get tattoos to show how wild and free they are after their divorce then it is no longer cool. Welcome to my circle of friends.
I wouldn’t want a little isolated tattoo, but the full body yakuza-style irezumi tattoo (apologies for probably getting the Japanese description wrong, not really fluent in Japanese tattoo terminology). Go big, and give not a shit should somebody declare it uncool.
Surely that must have been Ed Bradley. There’s no way Andy Rooney had a pierced ear.
**Will there be a point in the future where tattoos are so common they are no longer cool? **
Yes. The day I get mine.
[sub]I’ll give the tattooed populace a one week notice so you will not be shocked when you suddenly, through no fault of your own, become uncool.[/sub]
