I had a conversation about tattoos with a mate recently. I said I would never have one because I’m not a big fan of them. I cited 3 problems I have with tattoos.
If you are a tatt lover, I ask you not to be offended. These are just my opinions on tatts. There’s every possibility that I’m mistaken 😉
1) Most of them are shit
Most tattoos just look plain horrible. Either it was a bad design or the artist wasn’t very good. The main mistake is that they are too busy. Most of the time so much is going on that you cannot tell what they are depicting. Tattoos just look a bunch of smudges, indistinguishable from dirt.
Very few tattoos look good. The ones that look half-way decent belong to the ‘less is more’ ethos: less colours; less content; less complication. Here is an example of a good tattoo:
This ‘Maori’ themed tattoo become very popular after George Clooney’s character sported one in ‘From Dusk Til Dawn’. For the next 10 years every unimaginative pillock in the world had a Maori tattoo. Repeat after me: ‘Yes, we are all individuals!’
Of course, most tattoos only reveal their full impact on those 10 days per year when you are at the beach. The rest of the time you are wearing clothes, so, what’s the point? You see people with bits of tattoos emerging from under clothing which looks crap, imo.
Women, in particular, look terrible covered in ink. Women have the opportunity to wear such a versatile range of clothing: backless dresses; plunging necklines; short or long skirts; short sleeves or sleeveless. Those clothes will all look terrible if there are various tatts poking out from the clothing. The clothes clash with the tatts. The effect is a mess. A very nice dress, such as a ballgown or wedding dress, is ruined by a load of shitty 3rd rate art poking out from underneath.
The most original tattoo design I have seen was on a shop assistant in Rome who had a series of leaves, depicted in different perspectives, down his arm, as though falling. The leaves were all the same type of leaf. It was very effective. The design was simple and uncluttered. It was easy to see that leaves were depicted and the effect of the leaves falling meant that they were suitably spaced out to utilise the whole of the arm without being overwhelming. So that’s one good, original, well-designed tattoo out of thousands.
For the most part, very little thought or design goes into most tattoos. Either the original design was simply bad, or people continue to add to their tattoos until the result is a jumbled mess. A jumbled mess is bad but so are those tattoos that are spaced like islands over someone: one on your shoulder, one on your lower back, one on your calf: no theme, no concept, just isolated random images that appealed to a person at a point in time.
Then there’s the fact that there seem to be a lot of quite average artists out there, which means that a poor design is then poorly executed.
And anyone who has tattoos on their neck, face or hands is a moron.
2) Narcissism
For many people, tattoos seem to be a cry for attention. The holder of the tattoo is saying ‘Look at me!’. Look how cool I am. Or look how edgy I am; or how unique; or how rebellious; or what a good person I am.
Narcissism is the plague of our era. People crave indulgence. I’m not going to contribute to that over-abundance of emotional incontinence. As Peter Griffen once said about ‘The Godfather’ film in an episode of ‘Family Guy’: “It insists upon itself”. Well, I think tatt wearers are doing the same thing: they are insisting upon themselves.
People are using their bodies as billboards to advertise their personalities. People want you to know what is important to them. They carry tattoos of the names of family members, often with dates as a way of telling us how much they love those people. You don’t need to tell us the name and date of birth of your kids. We don’t care. People love their families, I get it. Why do they feel the need to advertise the fact? Are they trying to tell the rest of us that their capability for love is so profound that they are willing to have a permanent indicator added to their bodies? Do I not love my family enough because I am not willing to ink myself? It’s performative virtue signalling.
Or people are advertising their politics. We are surrounded by identity politics at every turn. Tattoos appear to be another facet of that same culture. It’s another opportunity to declare your identity. Therefore, tattoos are increasingly used to signal the in-groups to which you belong like your gang or your gender or sexuality. Sometimes even your politics.
I get the impression that people want to be asked about their tatts which will give them the opportunity to talk about themselves for 10 minutes. No thanks.
Poetry tatts deserve particular scorn. They always make me scoff. No one can read that shit. As far as I can tell, the reason women – it’s always women – have poetry tatts is because the words inspired them at a point in their lives when they were feeling particularly worthless. Nobody gives a shit, love. I like books but I’m not going to wear a billboard listing my favourite books because I am not a pretentious twat.
I get the impression that people are getting tatts to appear more interesting than they are. IMHO, it’s got to the point where it’s more interesting not to have a tatt. Go the other way. Don’t follow the crowd.
3) Regret
You change your clothes every day. You have different looks for different moods or events. Fashions change. You look back on photos from 10 or 20 years ago and wonder what you were thinking. Yet a tattoo lasts forever. You are stuck with it. A tattoo you thought was a great idea when you were 20 will not reflect who you are when you’re 50.
Don’t carry that baggage around with you. Travel light. Snakes shed their skin every so often. Rebirth. A fresh start. There’s no chance of reinventing yourself when you have no opportunity to shed your 20 year old self. Why would you want permanent reminders of your 20 year old self wherever you go?
But that’s just me. I’m probably over-thinking it.
Atticus Fox 