Reuters reports that practitioners of the art of tattoo are beginning to sense a sea change.
Tattooing just isn’t as fun as it used to be. It seems like every suburban kid wants a tattoo as soon as they are out of braces. And worse, it has become a staple among soccer moms and cubicle jockeys across the country. The town where I live (republican territory, dry county, population around 30,000) now has several large tattoo parlors. Tattoos have become mainstream, which poses a problem. Part of the allure of tattoos, at least in the U.S., has always been that they were seen as non-conformist, a little dangerous and always cool. They are now so commonplace that it is no surprise to see one on your babysitter.
Long-time tattoo photographer Charles Gatewood of San Francisco said:
"It (tattooing) is so popular that it has lost some of its magic. It
was like a club, a secret society and family. Now it’s gotten
commercialized, co-opted and watered down … in the opinion of some
people."
You can almost hear the sadness, the disillusionment. This state of affairs has also led to a kind of one-upsmanship among tattoo-ees. To get even a second glance nowadays, your tattoo must be exceptionally; large, vulgar, psychotic, stupid, so-cryptic-that-even-you-forget-what-it-means (pick one). It’s basically the same thing that’s happened to music.
My problem with tattooing (for me personally) is that there is no "undo" command in the drop-down menu.
Imagine going into a store and seeing a hat you really like. It’s a great hat, a bejewelled and richly embroidered skullcap. You go to try it on and the sales-guy informs you that this is no ordinary hat. If you put this hat on your head, it will never come off. Ever. You love the hat. It’s the coolest hat you have ever seen. The inner conflict is almost palpable, ain’t it? And for good reason. What if this hat doesn’t look as cool to me in thirty years? How will I explain it to my grandkids? My employer? Sure, I can always cover it with another, bigger hat, but what if I just want to stroll bare-headed in the park?
This is my tattoo conundrum: Anything important enough to have permanently engraved on my skin turns out to be too important to trivialize by reducing it to a fashion statement. If Jesus is important to me, then I will try to imitate his behavior, not have him drawn on my calf. And besides, it’s really not fair to the true fringe element in society. The "mainstream" keeps getting wider and wider, pushing the real fashion rebels farther and farther out into the jungle. To get noticed now you need a face full of hardware, or implants on yor forehead, or any number of other absurd "modifications".
So, in sympathy with frustrated bikers everywhere, I beg you, please don’t get that Tweety-Bird on your ankle. Refrain from purchasing that tribal butterfly back piece. And definitely take a pass on anything written in a language that you can’t read yourself. You could be getting someone’s shopping list permanently embroidered on your flesh.
