When does a permenant needled in drawing in your skin seem a good idea?
I’m going to talk today about something which is a particular pet peeve of mine. It is a Tattoos. I absolutely despise the things, and often recoil on viewing them. The sad fact of life being the bitch that it is is that more and more people are getting them.
Indeed it seems that trend-setting celebrities, and relaxing standards of acceptance (not all a bad thing although in this case I find it personally a problem) means that all the kids are getting them now. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind them so much, who knows I may have even got one myself, if it wasn’t for the fact they were permanent. That isn’t to say of course they aren’t removable but that requires considerable cost, and it sounds quite painful.
The permanence of a tattoo just leads me to accuse people with them of ruining their bodies. I suppose the key word in that sentence though is “their”, as their body is theirs to do what they want with, but for some reason it always seems like there is a naivety involved in the decision to get one.
Yes I have probably got it all wrong, and it’s all down to personal choice, but sometimes you get sick of having the individuality, and self expression argument for getting them shoved down your throat, as in a way it makes you feel like you are being judged for not having one. At worst you have celebrities (or everyday people, but then again as the papers so deftly show who gives a toss about them unless they are in some way spectacular. Cue Susan Boyle…) who start getting them for more strange reasons such as relationship break-ups such as Rihanna after her beating by Chris Brown (who it seemed knocked the sense out of her). Does this mean then that when you suffer a negative experience that it should be etched into your skin forever!? The pretension of that idea is just through the roof!
Also, what happens when the necessity for getting more “Tats,” as they’re colloquially known, gets more and more trivial? After all it wouldn’t seem out of place for a minor celebrity to get one for something as stupid as tripping up on a loose paving stone, just to make some filthy publicity shaped lucre. Imagine if you will someone small-time like Jodie Marsh appearing in the papers next week with a tattoo of herself falling flat on her face on her right shoulder. Of course that would be hilarious, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if more people then copied the idea, failing to see how much of an idiot said celeb has been. It would then beg the question of who is the greater fool, the fool, or the one that follows the fool? Also aren’t they rather forgetting that everyone will forever know how much of an idiot or a fool you have been, and to think that branding used to be a punishment in days of yore?
I think on a personal level I find the things annoying as its deemed cool to have one, yet I have no understanding or desire for the things (also needles freak me out). Also I’m a bit put off by the amount of women my age who seem to be getting them, or have them already. It’s a real turn off, as I somehow find a potential partner less impressive when I see she has stars imprinted on her neck or a butterfly on her hip. It just seems like narcissism taken to a new level, considering that people are turning their own bodies into a personal canvas (and I feel a little dead inside after describing it as that). Sure the postmodernists bloody well love it; it suggests that art is everywhere and that the human body is art etc etc. But remember they think that a messy bed, possibly the laziest idea for art ever, or a vat of piss is worthy of a million pound price tag….
A final thing to remember is a lot of the cool celebs who are getting the flaming squiggles are relatively young right now. What will happen in around 40 years time when these people start to hit their sixties (well look at Motorhead et al)? The sight is not/ will not be pretty I can imagine. I also hope that I will have the last laugh, when the fashion wears off and people with them are reminded of the permanence of them by fickle fate.
Indeed it seems that trend-setting celebrities, and relaxing standards of acceptance (not all a bad thing although in this case I find it personally a problem) means that all the kids are getting them now. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind them so much, who knows I may have even got one myself, if it wasn’t for the fact they were permanent. That isn’t to say of course they aren’t removable but that requires considerable cost, and it sounds quite painful.
The permanence of a tattoo just leads me to accuse people with them of ruining their bodies. I suppose the key word in that sentence though is “their”, as their body is theirs to do what they want with, but for some reason it always seems like there is a naivety involved in the decision to get one.
Yes I have probably got it all wrong, and it’s all down to personal choice, but sometimes you get sick of having the individuality, and self expression argument for getting them shoved down your throat, as in a way it makes you feel like you are being judged for not having one. At worst you have celebrities (or everyday people, but then again as the papers so deftly show who gives a toss about them unless they are in some way spectacular. Cue Susan Boyle…) who start getting them for more strange reasons such as relationship break-ups such as Rihanna after her beating by Chris Brown (who it seemed knocked the sense out of her). Does this mean then that when you suffer a negative experience that it should be etched into your skin forever!? The pretension of that idea is just through the roof!
Also, what happens when the necessity for getting more “Tats,” as they’re colloquially known, gets more and more trivial? After all it wouldn’t seem out of place for a minor celebrity to get one for something as stupid as tripping up on a loose paving stone, just to make some filthy publicity shaped lucre. Imagine if you will someone small-time like Jodie Marsh appearing in the papers next week with a tattoo of herself falling flat on her face on her right shoulder. Of course that would be hilarious, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if more people then copied the idea, failing to see how much of an idiot said celeb has been. It would then beg the question of who is the greater fool, the fool, or the one that follows the fool? Also aren’t they rather forgetting that everyone will forever know how much of an idiot or a fool you have been, and to think that branding used to be a punishment in days of yore?
I think on a personal level I find the things annoying as its deemed cool to have one, yet I have no understanding or desire for the things (also needles freak me out). Also I’m a bit put off by the amount of women my age who seem to be getting them, or have them already. It’s a real turn off, as I somehow find a potential partner less impressive when I see she has stars imprinted on her neck or a butterfly on her hip. It just seems like narcissism taken to a new level, considering that people are turning their own bodies into a personal canvas (and I feel a little dead inside after describing it as that). Sure the postmodernists bloody well love it; it suggests that art is everywhere and that the human body is art etc etc. But remember they think that a messy bed, possibly the laziest idea for art ever, or a vat of piss is worthy of a million pound price tag….
A final thing to remember is a lot of the cool celebs who are getting the flaming squiggles are relatively young right now. What will happen in around 40 years time when these people start to hit their sixties (well look at Motorhead et al)? The sight is not/ will not be pretty I can imagine. I also hope that I will have the last laugh, when the fashion wears off and people with them are reminded of the permanence of them by fickle fate.
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