As always I am baffled by how opinionated people without tattoos are about the reasons/styles of those who get them. It's like non-smokers criticizing you for your brand of cigarettes.
So many people love to attribute stupid motives to people who get tattoos, smirking to themselves over their assumptions that skinny whitey couldn't possibly have any meaningful reason for getting designs from another culture. And then they go on criticize a style of tattoos, or tattooing itself, simply because it has become popular.
So a woman piercing her ears is sensible because everyone does it. But piercing your tongue or getting a tattoo is stupid because, err, everyone is doing it now. Uh huh.
Many untattooed people seem to have this notion that tattoos must be deep and meaningful expressions of the soul and any tattoo that does not fulfill this criteria is irresponsible. That is possibly a result of how an untattooed person thinks, which is one reason why they have never wanted to be tattooed. But we need to lighten up and remember that tattoos are decoration, like clothes, haircuts and jewewllery. Sure they're permanent, but so are lots of choices we make. People often decide to have kids with less thought than is apparently expected before you decide to get a tattoo. I think there should be a factor of spontaneity involved which makes it fresh. How many stories have we all heard of people dithering for ten years over whether to get a tattoo or not? They could have been enjoying the thing for all that time. I'm sure I'll get more tattoos when I'm old but I want to get a decent amount while I'm young so I'll have more time to enjoy them.
Tattoos are fun. If you want to get designs etched into your skin just because they look cool then that's enough justification for me. They don't need to be depictions of your life philosophy. |
