Tacky Tattoos: A New Craze

By Meghan Michels

Turning 18 means different things to different people, to some, it means freedom from their childhood home, others, legal gambling, or even voting. Although the newest craze seems to be getting inked up the second your eighteenth rolls around, and for some even sooner.

A tattoo is a permanent alteration of your body, meant to be meaningful and thoughtful.

Tattoos originated in aborigine tribes all across the world, have once been associated with rebellion, but are lately considered a right of passage to most teens.

Tattoos range from oddly unique, delicate and pretty, to downright tacky. Common tattoos of ’09 include last names, initials, tribal, symbols, flowers, and stars.

 “Tattooing is about personalizing the body, making it a true home and fit temple for the spirit that dwells inside it,” says Michelle Delio, a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in Wired News and the MIT Technology Review.

Original tattoos were symbols of gods, and today we have Americans getting Chinese or Japanese symbols on themselves. Does that mean that in Asia people are getting ‘truth’ ‘hope’ ‘love’ or ‘friendship’ tattooed on themselves in plain English? I really doubt it.

Unlike the growth in popularity of tattoos in the nineties, the people getting them nowadays aren’t rebelling against society or parents. Some just do it to be in.

“The tattoo attracts and also repels precisely because it is different,”  Margo DeMello, author of Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community, said.

Being different is what attracts people to the idea of permanently altering their bodies in the first place, and getting a tattoo you saw on someone else or because someone else did it completely contradicts the purpose of the whole ordeal.

We can laugh now at the mushrooms, butterflies and lower back tattoos our predecessors got, yet unknowingly follow a similar trend.

What is a tribal or nautical star tattoo going to mean to you thirty years from now?

It all comes down to a simple phrase: Think before you ink.

Straight across bangs or frosted tips can grow out. Snap bracelets and ‘brand name’ clothing can be thrown away, but getting a tattoo without a deeper meaning than ‘I thought it looked cool’ can be a regret you wear for life.

A genuine tattoo tells a story. If it doesn’t tell a story that involves you personally, then it’s just there for decoration, and not a valid tattoo. There has to be some emotional appeal or it isn’t, to me at least, a real tattoo.

It tells people who you are and what you believe in. Although it is meant partially for the enjoyment of others, a real tattoo is for you.

A tattoo is a reflection of who you are and a small part of what you’re about. So, make it meaningful.