Kid with ink drawing mimicking tattoos. A lot of the tattoos I saw the other day were no more artfully placed and were equally bad.
I went to two weddings in two weeks. They were both outdoor weddings.
Weddings in July mean, of course, that people's clothing is relatively light. Women wearing dresses, generally will wear light ones, although anymore, a lot of women don't wear dresses to outdoor summer weddings. The nature of summer dresses is such that women therefore are showing more skin than they do in, let's say, January. This is true for a lot of men as well, although not to the same extent.
One of the guys I know at the second wedding is a year or two out of the Navy, in which he spent six years. His comment, "geez, with all these tattoos, maybe I should get a tattoo". It was said in at least semi jest.
That a sailor would comment on the plethora of tattoos really says something.
There were quite a few women with tattoos at the first one, but it was also on a ranch, and probably half or more of the attendees were actual working ranchers or hands of some sort. Young women at that one were closely associated with ranching. Tattoos haven't spread, at least here locally, to the agricultural class.
They certainly have to the legal class. I'd guess about 1/3d of the paralegals, who are usually women, have tattoos and I know some lawyers who have tattoos, which used to be the kiss of death for employment in the law.
Anyhow, never in my life have I seen so many outright bad tattoos as I did at the second wedding. And I mean horrifically bad.
The best example was a young woman (I'm terrible at guessing ages) who was nicely dressed in a summer dress and who has attractive in the sort of youthful pouty way. The sort of girl whom, if she'd been that age when I was that age, in the early 80s, would have drawn a lot of attention at a dance. But the horrific tattoos. . .
Both arms were tattooed, one with a horrific crying heart, which is just childish in the extreme. And there was some sort of tattoo of an off-color dead center on her sternum. Roman numerals? Initials? I dunno as the color made it difficult to see, if noticeable, and a person would have had to close the distance to read it.
Do women really want men reading tattoos that are cleavage originated?
The same young woman and an older woman (late 30s?), who may very well have been her mother, had very fresh tattoos that started on their lower side and curbed into their bodies. They were large. Now, these tattoos were such that they'd have had to have been pretty much completely nude in order to view them, which raises its own question. If they're just elaborate floral decorations, what's the point, unless you want to show them off, in which case, well, that's its own problem.
One young man had a long arm tattoo that was a set of geographic coordinates. Why? Whatever the reason, these remind me of the blood group tattoos that members of the SS had during World War Two, or that Vietnamese Marines had during the Vietnam War. Both of those tattoos, by the way, gave the person away later on to the victors in those war as to their wartime service.
Some young woman had a huge, but quite well-done tattoo of a water dog of some sort. It was very artfully done, but extremely large.
Now, I have to be careful here.
I have to be careful as 100% of the female members of this household are now tattooed, the spousal unit having a small tattoo that's a significant signature to her, and the female descendant having one or deep religious significance and the other of personal significance, which are very well done. The latter aren't visible normally. The former is barely noticeable. And the male defendant's long time wishes to be betrothed has a colored trout tattoo that's quite well done. In my place of legal employment, one of the male employees has two tattoos for which I'm responsible, remotely, as I noted the pilgrim's tattoos from Jerusalem when he was on his way there.
I have to admit, if I went to Jerusalem, which I have less than zero interest in doing, I'd get one of the pilgrim tattoos, although that brings up something about tattoos, which is that they sometimes seem to operate like peanuts at the bar. You have a couple, and then the next thing you know, you've forged on them. My colleague started with one, then had it added to, and then got a second. One former female employee of mine was constantly having new ones added. The pouty girl at the wedding probably started off with one (bad) one before they spread.
Over a year ago, I ran this item:
I really wonder what percentage it is now, just a little over a year later, but this is an amazing trend. That Israel stands at 25% is notable, for example, as tattoos are banned by the Torah.
You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:28.
Indeed, some Christians take the position that tattoos are likewise accordingly banned for everyone, but generally this is regarded as one of the Jewish laws, like ritual cleaning of pots and pans, clothing fiber restrictions, and circumcision that is regarded by most Christians as having been lifted by Christ.* Indeed, in some Christian cultures at one time, tattooing was common to mark yourself as a Christian. As already noted, Christians being tattooed in Jerusalem for having made the pilgrimage there is an ancient custom.
Those pilgrimage tattoos set a person apart because they've been on the pilgrimage, which is an important clue, I think, to the popularity of tattoos in our current era. Tattoos have always set a person apart, while at the same, quite often, saying that you belong to some sort of special group. Marine Corps tattoos meant that you'd been part, or were part, of a hardcore group of soldiers of the sea, tough men. Bluebird tattoos on the chest likewise meant that a man had been part of the pre World War Two 25th Infantry Division, which was stationed in Hawaii. Biker gang tattoos served the same purpose.
When tattoos starting emerging in recent times in the wider population, this was still true. It might mean, for example, that athe person was a member of a sports team. Now, however, what they seem to be trying to do is to either express a deep belief of some sort, something important to the person, or to set the person apart, sometimes both.
And hence the purpose. They're a reflection on the fake nature of modern life.
In prior eras, people lived so much closer to authenticity that tattoos for the masses were basically unnecessary. Tattoos expressed something unusual, but most of society experienced a wider authentic life. Not necessarily a pleasant one, but an authentic one.
Now a lot of life just isn't authentic.
The culture has been stripped of its authenticity and much of the most fundamental aspects of it are now reduced to "lifestyles". In the wider American culture, nothing has much of a value, including people and existential beliefs.
Tattoos are a strike against that in a valueless society. Not always effectively, and not always entirely.
An office worker may spend his days in a cubicle, but his arm sleeve of the forest says where his heart is, and where he wants to be. A mother may spend all day in front of a computer, but the names of her children say where her heart his and where she wants to be. A bold religious tattoos says the wearer can't get to Mass daily, but that's where her heart his.
Nobody gets a tattoo of a cubicle.
Footnotes
*Generally, most Christian denominations don't hold anything against tattoos per se today, although some "fundamentalist" Christians do, and some of those can be found in any denomination.
It Catholicism, there's no set rules on tattoos, which is true of most other Christian denominations, maybe all of them. The only time they're regarded as definitely sinful is if they're in the nature of something sinful, i.e., the classic naked lady type tattoo.
Still, some must feel uncomfortable about them as it was recently notice that one of the chapel veil girls at our local parish applies make up to a tattoo of a turtle on her forearm while at Mass. There's really no reason she would need to do so.
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