Friday, July 11th, 2008...11:58 am
#64: Don’t Fear The Tat
Tat is of course short for tattoo, and the truth is, I do fear them. The neck tattoo is, to me, what shaggy hair and elephant bells and leather jackets were to our parents: A sign of both danger and decay. Show me a neck tattoo, and I’ll show you a pregnant 15-year-old who drinks Pepsi for breakfast and lives in a trailer with plumbing that drains into a wading pool.
Of course, I could show you a neck tattoo, and you might show me Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice aka Mrs. David Beckham. Or Eva Longoria, aka the Desperate Housewife who would never really live in the suburbs. Or Angelina Jolie or Ben Affleck or Amy Winehouse (there’s a role model) or just about any contestant on any reality show, tattoos, neck or otherwise, seeming to be a prerequisite for crossing the Hollywood town line.
Why would anyone get a tattoo? That’s a very good question. In fact, let’s do a Q and A on the subject with a noted authority, me:
Why would anyone get a tattoo?
The young get tattoos for the sole purpose of setting themselves apart from the old. “I’m nothing like you,” the tattoo signals, “and I want to make sure the entire world knows it, so I’m going to etch this large dark blue and red symbol on my neck. Just so there’s never any confusion. And I mean never, ever, ever.”
Exactly! That’s the problem with tattoos: They’re so permanent! Why would anyone want to mark their body with a symbol of something or someone (“Billy Bob”) they might not care about in two decades or even two months?
The young believe that who and what they are now, they will stay forever, and the tattoo is evidence of a superstitious belief that making a permanent mark will create a permanent condition. Or at least that’s what studies show.
What’s with the Asian symbol thing? Why would a kid who’s not Asian, has no desire to travel through Thailand or Mongolia, and can barely write and read English choose to put a Chinese character on his shoulder or forearm?
As with so much else, it’s Angelina’s fault. Right, Jen?
Won’t having a tattoo make it hard to get a good job? Look terrible if you want to wear a strapless wedding gown? Be difficult and painful to remove if you change your mind when you’re 35?
Yes! That’s what I keep telling them! But nobody listens!
But you’re so intelligent! So right! Why won’t they listen?
Because they think I’m old and out of it and that I don’t know what I’m talking about and that they’re never going to feel the way I feel or be the way I am. And 
my only consolation is knowing for sure what a 50-year-old butt looks like, and why a fat red rose would not add anything to the picture.
What to do if confronted with a young tattooed person? “Don’t try to look “kewl” and “hip” by asking said kid where they “got their ink done” or comment on their “nice tats”. Eew,” says Denise Garratt, aka The Internet Research Geek. “Just stop staring, take your book or coffee and walk quickly and quietly to your Volvo and don’t look back.”
I have one tattoo, which I got by sneaking to a parlor the day I turned eighteen. Very young of me! :p But actually, it’s an excerpt from The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. You know, that hyacinth garden scene. I don’t think I will be as I now am forever, but I am pretty sure I won’t ever be embarassed by having a piece of a Nobel prize winner’s foremost literary contribution on me. (Between my shoulder blades, to be exact.) At the very least, it’s an interesting social experiment. Education and tattoos are often seen as being at odds.
I am annoyed by most tattoos though. Butterflies (they mean freedom to everyone, you who are about to get one on your ankle! It’s not special and personal!), Chinese/Japanese words (it isn’t more deep and philosophical just because it’s in a different writing system), roses (even real ones are tired to look at), and the list goes on…
Two friends and I thought we might get a tattoo when we all reach 60. We’re currently waiting on the young one. I am not sure we will ever do it, though, as we can’t decide on what or where. My suggestion was a little band around the pinky finger to look like a ring. Nixed by all! We do agree that flowers, bugs and foreign words are out. Maybe it’s just fun talking about it.
I have a tattoo. I waited until I was 21 years old to get it. It is a tribal heart on my calf. I am very happy with it and do not regret it at all. Just because you are one person who thinks tats are dumb don’t force your stereotypes off on the world. Tattoos are just a way to express yourself they are not a sign of trailer trash or gangs. it wouldn’t kill you to be more tolerant.
Along the lines of a tattoo (which were not in style when I was young enough to care what was in style) I almost got a nose ring when I was in high school. I am still thankful to my best male friend who told me it was a gross idea. That was all I needed to hear. Gross to boys is not cool to a girl.
you dont really know what youre talking about.. i have tattoos because i like them.. if you really believe that tattoos are acquired to stand out from “old people”, then you’re interviewing retards.. tattoo is an ancient artform.. do your research
people with tattoos shouldnt be judged based on looks.. if you turn around and walk away because of that, then you’re ignorant
I can’t help thinking that what’s the hottest fashion one minute becomes the lamest thing in the world a little later, and unlike blue eye shadow or leg warmers or a “Rachel” haircut, you’re never going to be able to change it. One day your kids might associate tattoos with “old people.”(You!)
The nursing home employees of tomorrow are going to get a lot of good laughs at those sexy “tramp stamps” while changing your Depends.
I don’t have any tats. I experienced 12 years of allergy shots. I think that’s enough needle pricks for one person. My daughter has two tats. One is a large cross on her mid back which surprised me since I couldn’t get her to go to church for the two years previous to the tattoo. The other is a tiger lily that symbolizes my mother’s beautiful garden, lost because of family greed. (I hate you, wicked bitch aunts).
Anyway, Nicki and Jay, lighten up! The title is ‘#64 don’t fear the tat.’ These are supposed to be amusing rants. Don’t take it personally.
I turn 50 on Sunday and have about 10 diff tattoos
I love them all I am going to get a Pepsi Logo tattooed on my leg for my 50th B-day how cool is that. I have never judged anyone for any reason.
My whole left shoulder is going to be a tribal tattoo
I am currently working on it with a friend. I bought him the tattoo guns and inks so I don’t have to pay the hundreds of dollars the tat shops want…..
I have 2 tats. I luv them both and am planning another. I am 35 and know I will get old and wrinkled but I am enjoying the body I have now. I also know that someday my skin will rot off of my body with the expensive art I put on it. But hey, That is life…would you plant an apple tree today if you thought the world might end tomorrow?
i understand that you are stating your opinion on tattoos, which is fine, but it is ignorant for you to judge people with tattoos. They may be gross to you, but they are obviously pretty popular with others, and to some people, it might even be a passion. Tattoos are art, and art is beautiful. So please stop judging.
I have always loved tattoos but when I was in my teens getting tattooed was totally out of the discussion for girls (unless you were Cher who I loved and still do).
So I used to admire them on a guy who I found incredibly sexy. He looked like Robert Plant, was mad and bad and rode a motorbike. (I attended catholic convent school for girls, instead and if my parents had found out that we dated they would have probably killed me).
Somehow I always knew that I would get tattooed myself some day. 7 years ago, at 42 my time had come. I had left the business I had worked in for the past 20 years and could now look and behave just the way I wanted.
As for being tattooed for some years now, I can say I never experienced any negative reaction, I was even told that my tattoos looked “beautiful” or “elegant”.
Do they make me look young or old?
Honest, I don t care.
Okay, I have several tattoos, and… *GASP*! piercings.
For myself, and for many other people, tattoos are not an attempt to stay young and rebellious, nor are they something I have gotten just to be cool.
You seem to be pretty judgmental, and I will say ignorant.
You want to categorize everyone with ink (at least in a foreign language) as being uneducated or incapable of writing in English. I guess it’s pretty hard to get to know someone when you run away with your coffee as soon as you see anyone different than yourself. You wouldn’t have posted that quote if you didn’t agree with it.
And that’s fine, but maybe one day you can be open to the idea that sometimes people get a tattoo to commemorate an important event in their lives or in memoriam to a loved one, or even a belief. It’s not always skulls and naked women.
So maybe watch who you judge. I don’t sum up a person just by what I see at first glance. I’m half your age, but you seem to be the one that needs to grow up.
I personally have one tattoo on the back of my neck, a butterfly breaking out of a cocoon, that represents breaking out of a shell of a human being I used to be after years of sexual abuse.
Another one is a beautiful rose on my left forearm, (Which I do get compliments all the time, by people from all walks of life, including conservative older ladies in pearls and diamonds. I’m a nice person, and people have no problem conversing with me) I got after my mother’s battle with ovarian cancer. I got it to remind myself to stop and enjoy the beautiful things in life.
I don’t need to go much more into detail, you’ve probably made up your mind about me, too.
And about wearing a wedding gown, or growing old and the nurses at my old age home having a laugh?
I don’t care! It’s MY BODY. I don’t give a hoot about impressing some nurses. I’m not going to be putting on my lipstick before they come to change my Depends. Is your self-esteem that bad that you care?
I’m married, my husband told me to forget my ink on our wedding day, he said they are a part of who I am, and he could not stop telling me how pretty I looked.
Both of our families consist of conservative, clean-cut, Christian people, but they love us and accept us for the people we are inside. Try doing the same some time for someone you meet.
first..this whole thing made me laugh because you are so closed minded about tattoos it’s funny. You can not put people with tattoos into one huge stereotype, yeah there is some people who get tattoos just because, but then there is some of us who have them for meaning. I think tattoos are beautiful art that we carry around with us all the time. Im Nurse, in no way do i think i am uneducated at all. My older clients who have tattoos are the best, because they have stories about their tattoos, and not one of my patients have EVER said anything bad about my tattoo because its not skulls or anything like that. and yeah i plan on getting sooo many more because to me, it is art of my own, and has meaning to me… do i care if you think im scary… god no.
but i do care that you make judgement on those people who have tattoos without even having a conversation with them. maybe one day you should try that, instead of blogging about it.
Hmm, I also wanted to add that
a) Not all of the nasty people in the world have tattoos. Some of the most rude, unintelligent, racist, undesirable types that have crossed my path have been ink-free.
And b) Since tattoos are such a widely accepted form of art, you may very well know someone with one. You never know WHO has WHAT underneath their clothes these days.
My only question/comment regarding this post:
Why, exactly, is drinking Pepsi for breakfast wrong?
I do not think I have ever seen anyone so closeminded and ignorant in my life. Your pitiful, and I will pray for you.
Firstly, to the writer, you are indeed one of the many typica, closed minded fools that infect this world with their out of date views that tattoos make a person bad. You are un-willing to appreciate a true art form, an art form that will live much longer than yourself and an artform that millions of people all over the world from our high rise cities to the tribal communities of Africa enjoy every day. I feel very sad for you knowing that you are going to die, having spent your entire life judging those who are adorned in tattoos the way that you do. May I also urge you to voice your opinions on matters such as this directly, face to face to a heavily tattooed person someday and have a real conversation with them. I am 100% sure that this will change your opinion somewhat in that I have encountered hundreds of heavily tattooed people and many are interlects, scholars or servicemen.
To Mark…Please do not trust your friend with his ghetto tattoo setup. He will destroy your skin, this is a fact. Leave it to the professionals.
Thanks for reading, and please, if anyone would like to contact me, feel free (beese4life@hotmail.com)
Nice blog. This is a very interesting.
I have one Flower tattoo in my left hand. Means flowers, again, are loved more by the women. It generally suggests the nature element.
Thanks
Zena
http://www.onlinedocumentconversion.com/
Could people work on learning a few synonyms for “ignorant”? Repetition is dull.
I doubt the geriatric care nurses will laugh at their patients tramp stamps. By then all those tattoos will be blurry blotched colour patches and unreadable.
Ask any WWII vet what happened to his permanent record of that unfortunate drunken night in Singapore.
I’m glad that people with tattoos get them to “set themselves apart” from me.
That’s exactly what I want.
I don’t want anyone, for a second, confusing me with the kind of low-life who is ignorant enough to get a tattoo.
“What to do if confronted with a young tattooed person?”
How about do nothing, and secretly feel superior that you are not the reckless fuck-up whose life will soon (if it isn’t already) be a train wreck? Ever thought about that?