Very short article about Jodie Marsh standing up for her tattoos. It resulted in a twitter debate on the subject of tattoos, as well as an equally fun debate in the comments. See #TMTattooDebate.
Tattoos: tacky or trendy? #TMTattooDebate
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Tattooed for a day: An Experiment
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Daily Mail is continuing with their tattoo obsession and had one of their authors get fake tattoos for a day in order to write about the experience. I love the idea, but the article that followed seemed a little one-sided to me. The title alone, ‘Can you ever feel classy as a painted lady?’ leads one to believe that tattooed women lack class.
Author Beth Hale with her temporary tattoos
As more middle-class women get tattoos, our writer discovers the VERY colourful reactions body art can provoke
And then, filtering just over my shoulder, I hear it. One word, uttered by a woman and at least an octave higher than the rest. ‘Hideous,’ it crows.Soon, ‘hideous’ is joined by a couple of ‘how awfuls’, before reaching a crescendo with a ‘ghastly’.
She goes on to describe other negative reactions to her tattoos, with stories of old women clutching to their purses, people switching seats on the train to get away from her, security guards following her around the store. Once outside, she had this little story to share.
…I resolve to show people that I’m still a kind-hearted, middle-class girl underneath all the body art. I spot an elderly woman pulling an over-laden shopping trolley as her fluffy, white dog trots beside her. An opportunity for my good deed of the day arises when she flags down a taxi.
‘Please let me help,’ I say as she attempts to clamber into the cab. She takes one look at me and proclaims: ‘Oh my goodness, look at your tattoos,’ while brushing away my offer of aid.
I don’t know where she was finding these people, but some of the encounters just sound made up to me. Perhaps it was the authors own bias exaggerating the reactions to her ink.
The way she described the feeling after walking the street with her tattoos for the first time, “I step out on to the street and immediately feel the eyes of every passer-by fall on my arms.” I know this feeling, and after having tattoos for a longer period of time, I can assure you that although it may feel like it, not everyone is staring at your arm. You are staring at your own arm, drawing more attention to yourself than you realize.
It’s kind of like leaving the house knowing that you have a big zit on your forehead. You fixate on it and assume everyone that looks at you is just staring at your head, when in reality very few people will actually take notice.
She ends her day by washing away the fake tattoo and concludes with this:
As the flowers, fish and birds wash off, I ponder what I have learned during my 24 hours as a painted lady, and only one thing springs to mind: when you have tattoos, people will always struggle to see anything other than the ink.
Although I commend the author for taking part in this experiment, a new tattoo takes a long time to get used to and you grow more and more comfortable with it as time goes on. Having ink for a single 24-hour period is nowhere near long enough to understand what it’s truly like to be tattooed. In my opinion, the authors conclusion that people will struggle to see anything other than ink is based on the fact that she is only seeing the ink because it is so fresh and new.
It can be quite a shock to look down at your own arm and see an unfamiliar, colorful picture where plain skin used to reside. But over time the tattoo becomes a part of you to the point where not seeing any ink would be a shock. Once you get to this point of comfort with your own skin, other people will begin to react, or in this case, not react accordingly.
Idiotic Comments of the Week: 6/29/2012
I almost made it to the end of the week without finding a comment bad enough to be immortalized here forever. But I think I found a winner in a response to the recent ‘Tattoos have a distinguished royal history‘ article on the Telegraph.
The comment I am highlighting is actually a response to another.
Here is the original comment:
The only stir they cause in me is one of the stomach related variety. Put bluntly I find tattoos appallingly ugly. -remittance_man
And the response:
I agree. It is unquestionably a form of self-mutilation and when I see them I feel physically sick as I do with OTT piercings but maybe they are intended to have this effect.
I feel so sorry for the parents who have invested so much of their lives trying to produce a well rounded and healthy, educated, independent etc adult knowing that their beloved child will bear the steadily more ugly mutilation for the rest of their lives – all because of an inability to see into the future. -feudejoie
What you call self-mutilation, many like to call art, adornment, or body modification. How can you state something is unquestionable, when there are so many people who obviously disagree with your opinion on the matter?
But, it’s the 2nd half of his comment that made it really stand out to me. Instead of feeling sorry for the parents of people with tattoos, wouldn’t it make more sense to feel sorry for parents of people who are not well-rounded, healthy, educated or independent? These attributes are not related in any way to the presence or absence of tattoos.
Do you know who I feel sorry for? Parents who have invested so much of their lives trying to produce an open-minded, non-judgmental adult, knowing that their beloved child will spend his or her adult life criticizing the choices of others all because of an inability to see beyond their outside appearance.
The view of tattoos in Japanese society
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Excellent write-up on tattoos in Japan.
Despite the popularity of Japanese art and imagery among tattoo artists and enthusiasts in the West, even the most beautiful piece of body work done by the most talented artist will result in disapproving looks and negative comments. Not only that, but even the smallest, most insignificant tattoo will get you thrown out or prohibited from entering certain public places. Even that little one on your ankle or wrist, or the one on the inside of your forearm that no one can really see unless you raise your arm straight up.
Tattoos don’t make you a tart – just not very smart
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This next little anti-tattoo rant was submitted by a reader. Thanks Michael.
Most fashions come and go like the rain.
But not, girls, tattoos.
You’ve got them for life until your pouncing tiger turns into mangy old cat and your pretty flowers go wrinkly.
Why do so many people insist on saying that tattoos are just a fashion trend? Tattoos have existed in cultures across the globe for thousands of years. Can you name another “fashion trend” that has been able to survive for so long across such a wide variety of cultures?
I can just imagine the author sitting at home thinking of what topic to tackle next when she realized that stories about tattoos, especially with mention of a few well known celebrities are the latest way to grab the attention of your readers. And this type of story is sure to result in more comments than you will know what to do with.
I don’t, however, think tattoos mean you’re a tart – just not awfully smart.
Then this silly rhyme popped into her head at some point. She felt that it was so wonderful that it was worthy of being used as not only the title of her uninformed rant, but as a closing argument as well.
Do you know what I find to be “not awfully smart”? Making generalized statements about the intelligence of a large portion of the population due to the fact that they chose to go out and get tattooed.
Are Tattoos Still Taboo in the Workplace? Boston Experts Weigh In
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Another story about tattoos in the workplace.
Luckily, my worries were all for not and to this point my tattoos have resulted in exactly zero jobs lost and have started enough conversations for me to still justify having them (apart from personally loving them). Tattoos were once regarded as the mark of a rebel, perhaps a criminal. They weren’t seen as professional. Though now it seems they’re fairly ubiquitous, especially among impulsive 20-somethings. So is the stigma gone?
Neil Davenport: Why tattoos make my flesh crawl.
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The tattoo has always been a mark of powerlessness, not individuality. And now everyone’s got one.
I believe that Tony Parsons has passed the tattoo bashing torch to Neil Davenport to aid him in the writing of his most recent column.
Yet there’s more going on here than questionable aesthetic tastes. With tattoos, the emphasis is all on the self, and the centrality of the self, rather than anything outside of the body. You may not be in a position to make a mark on the outside world, or even on your local community, but at least you can leave a mark on your own body. In a deeply narcissistic age, self-aggrandising tattoos have become the body badge of choice for thousands. But by enlarging ourselves with tattoos, we’re belittling ourselves in the process. It’s a sign of our low expectations that having control over flesh decorations is considered to be the limit of our capacities as an individual. So while shaping the outside world seems near impossible, you can at least shape barbed-wire patterns on your arm.
Why do all of these writers think that getting tattoos is an indicator that you are doing nothing else with your life? I cannot even begin to explain how wrong this notion is, yet I see it written over and over again by authors who know nothing about tattoos other than what other narrow-minded writers have said before them.
Tattoos: The Legacy of a Seafaring Heritage
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From Captain Cook to playboy Prince Bertie, Tessa Dunlop examines the appeal of the tattoo among high society.
Bedazzle Me
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Even seemingly innocent articles are riddled with insults.
I spent last Saturday morning at a tattoo parlor with my teenage daughter. But don’t worry; we weren’t there for a tattoo. (I do have some standards.) We were there to pay someone to shove a 16-gauge needle through the cartilage of her ear.
Thanks for easing the minds of your readers by informing them that tattoos are below your standards. I guess that fear of being judged is still hanging around.
There was something incongruent about this circus freak asking me for my daughter’s birth certificate. “Original only,” she specified. “It has to be the long form. With a raised seal.” She needed legal evidence that, 1) I was in fact this child’s mother, and 2) I was allowing her to permanently alter her body.
The “circus freak” asking for your daughter’s birth certificate was simply doing the job that she is paid to do. It may come as a shock to you, but even people who stoop below your standards by piercing and tattooing themselves are capable of acting in a professional manner.