Leave my tattoos alone!
Source
I don’t know why I keep ruining my day by reading news.com.au but once again I have stumbled upon an article, which by itself isn’t too bad, but then you read the comments and the blood starts to boil.
In this case, it’s one about gen Y and how they love tattoos.
Yeah, you can already picture the sorts of comments these white, middle-class idiots who have this over inflated sense of self importance and like to tell anyone who’ll listen why everything sucks make. As a matter of fact, some of these comments even shocked me, and I’ve read some pretty dreadful comments on that website. I admit the article was a bit lame (shock horror) and did make it seem like the types of Gen Y’s (fuck I hate this who Gen Y vs the world thing that’s happening at the moment) to get tattoos are all a bit daft and think they’re getting tattoos to express individuality when they’re really just following a trend. I get that and have always been annoyed at the idiots who get tattooed to be trendy, as they’re the ones who make those, like me, who really love tattoos look like idiots.
So apparently we’re now conformist whores (I’m not kidding, someone actually wrote that) and immature idiots who all get kanji and swirly butterfly, tribal tramp stamps who will undoubtedly want to have them all removed once we’re 35 because we changed our minds and don’t like them anymore. REALLY? I don’t even know how to respond to these sorts of ignorant opinions. Not without flipping my lid and calling them all a bunch of swear words, anyway. My mind boggles that people are so closed-minded about tattoos still. I mean, I’m not stupid, I know a lot of people still consider tattoos “rough” and employers consider them some sort of badge of unreliability so that you can’t get hired outside of JB HiFi if you dare show them off. But still, I thought that since its 2010 now, people might have stopped thinking like it’s 1985 and accepted the fact tattoos aren’t all that bad after all. HOW FOOLISH I AM!
So I am going to clear some of this up for any of those who still consider tattoos the mark of lazy, unreliable, crime-prone, conformist whores!
- Not everyone who gets tattooed gets something off the wall or “just because”. Most of us put a lot of thought into tattoos, get them designed and spend a lot of time deciding what we want permanently inked to our bodies. Anyone who goes and gets a bit of tribal or a cherry blossom are usually the kinds of people who don’t know anything about tattoos and probably will regret it later. If they don’t, then they’ll probably move on to well-thought out and meaningful tattoos once they’ve gotten over the thrill of getting their first tatt.
- Yes, there are a lot of crappy tattoos out there. Some are poorly executed or involve clichéd and “trendy” designs that will date pretty quickly. But if ever you see someone with what you consider a crap tattoo, that is your opinion. While that Ned Kelly sleeve I saw the other day made me cringe, that guy who had it probably loves it and has attributed a lot of meaning to it so you just can’t assume it was done on a whim or they’ll regret it when they’re older, because they probably won’t. Tattoos are subjective.
- Most people do not get stuff tattooed on themselves that they will get bored of or stop liking in a couple of years. I wonder how fickle these people are who ask “what if you don’t like that in two years?”, do they go through their lives only half-heartedly liking things and then get sick of them and hate them for the rest of their lives? People always ask me this when they see I have Harry Potter tattoos for example, as though I could ever stop loving those books. Look, if in 10 years time I decided I don’t like Harry Potter any more, I will still love my tattoos because they represent a time in my life when Harry Potter was a huge deal to me and will always remind me of those times. The only time when I’ll accept this argument is when a name of a boy/girl friend is tattooed and even then I don’t think it’s a huge deal, as long as you got it for the right reasons and still have fond memories of that person then who cares?
- Bad tattoos are kind of part of the fun of tattoos. If you’re really into tattoos and have a few of them, there will always be that tattoos that isn’t exactly great. You might not hate it and want it removed, but it’s definitely your least favourite and one you tend not to show to people when they ask to see your tattoos. Mine is on my forearm, of all silly places, and while it was done by my favourite artist in London, I’d been too shy to really tell him how I wanted it to look so it’s a bit crap in that sense and basically needs to be completely redone for it to look perfect. But I don’t hate it and would never get it removed. I wouldn’t even get it covered up either, because it now has a story behind it and I kind of love it in more of a sentimental sense than an aesthetic sense.
- Most people understand perfectly well that tattoos are forever and most people do not get theirs removed, no matter how much they’ve changed over the years. The kinds of people who get tattoos removed are the kinds of idiots who get some shitty piece of flash from the wall of their dodgy neighborhood tattooist for their 18th birthday or while completely smashed, and usually on a dumb-arse spot like their upper arm, shoulder or chest. These are the kids of people who never really wanted a tattoo but got one anyone, whether they were drunk or dared to, it doesn’t matter. They’re the kind of people who don’t deserve tattoos and why tattoo removal was invented. Poor Rebekah probably should have thought about how her wedding photos with Shane were going to look before she got that tiny red rose/ying & yang symbol tattooed on her shoulder blade/bicep!
While I acknowledge that there are idiots out there who get tattoos for the wrong reasons, most people choose well and get something they’ll cherish forever and don’t ever regret what they got. We of Gen Y have leaned from the mistakes of previous generations and don’t go about getting tacky little things done for the thrill of it. Most of us think long and hard about what we want and don’t all rush out and get one on our 18 birthdays or make stupid, life-altering decisions involving too much liquor and a mate who has a tattoo gun. The people who left those nasty comments about how people with tattoos are rotten people need to wake up and get a dose of reality. Tattoos don’t turn you into a bad person, but judging people harshly for having tattoos makes you a bad person.
As the famous saying goes, The only difference between a tattooed person and a person who isn’t tattooed is that a tattooed person doesn’t care if you’re tattooed or not.
