UNPOPULAR OPINION: TATTOOS ARE CORNY AND DEGRADING

I’m warning you ahead of time that this is a terrible article. It’s judgmental, poorly written and makes no clean points. That being said, the comments are worth reading.

UNPOPULAR OPINION: TATTOOS ARE CORNY AND DEGRADING

Tattoo artists want kids to think before they ink

About three years ago, husband-and-wife team Sara Spruth and Eric Dean Spruth, both tattoo artists, started an outreach effort called Symbol of Thyself, in which they go into schools chatting up teens and pre-adolescents about the dangers of using unhygienic tools and the long-term social ramifications of marking themselves with permanent tattoos.

This sounds like a great program. Kids need to learn about tattoos early in order to make informed decisions that they won’t regret a few years down the road.

Tattoo artists want kids to think before they ink

Getting a tattoo has lost its edge

I thought this was a great article. The idea that tattoos have lost their edge only seems to bother people without tattoos. I have never heard anyone use words like edgy or cool when describing their own tattoos, yet I constantly see anti-tattoo rants talking about how they aren’t edgy. Nobody is still trying to claim they are are, so move on.

Getting a tattoo doesn’t have to mean a lot these days. I think it used to mean something – it was edgy, a sign of the counter culture. Now it’s just … a tattoo. Nothing more.

Anything that’s cool will be cool for a while, and then it becomes normalised. That doesn’t make it s***, it just means it wasn’t what it was. Punk was punk, but then punk bands started to get in the charts. Rock’s the easiest example – it was alternative, but now rock bands are the main pop acts.

Getting a tattoo has lost its edge