The Banality of Tattoos

Nothing is unique about following the herd with an impulsive and regrettable decision

Defiling beauty as self-expression in the age of hyper-individuality and mass nihilism

Less than a century ago tattoos were the exclusive provenance of distant tribes, sailors and biker gangs, or prisoners and other social miscreants willing to sacrifice a little pain to brand their allegiance to whatever group where common cause or brotherhood prevented their social isolation and gave them a greater sense of purpose in life.

The rise of mass consumerism and the advertising industry rooted in the Bernaysean psychological targeting of individual wants and subconscious desires created subsequent generations of the coveted younger market that held ever increasingly unattainable wants and desires. This transformed to the early individualism of blue jean wearing James Dean 1950’s rebels to the ‘Turn on, Tune in, Drop out’ of 1960’s counterculture and rise of hyper-individualism. The self expression of the individual rooted in self presentation was never outside the desired social body to which that individual belonged, but the seeds of embracing more extreme modes of individual expression were planted. By the end of the century the self-molding of the hyper-individual allowed for various means of self-expression and self-presentation of public performances to impress upon others the desired image the individual wanted others to glean about them and to which social body they wished to belong. Thus the tattoo or “body art” as a common technē of self-fulfillment through physical self expression was born. Society’s mass acceptance of them took much longer, and was always inevitable, but should be reconsidered.

By the late 1990’s it became more frequent for the daring to express individuality with a small and partially hidden collection of tattooed foreign characters, often improperly translated tokens of wisdom in Arabic or Chinese. The entire purpose of the self scarring and deliberate choosing of foreign characters was to induce strangers or new acquaintances toward the curiosity of wondering and eventually summoning the courage to ask, “What does your tattoo mean?” to which the human canvas could then proudly exercise both her hyper-individuality and superficiality by conveying the impression upon the the inquisitor with her carefully rehearsed response: “In Hindi it means, ‘Chosen One’, but it can also mean ‘Wild Child’ or even ‘Seeker’ in Sanskrit.” By the 2000’s the phrases became larger and more superficial, often scrolled along the rib cage or flank, and mistaken as a courageous act of self expression, even a rite of passage every young person should pursue in the quest of embracing collective unoriginality to belong to that collective.

The notorious ‘tramp stamp’ above the sacrum became a public meme and one of the first to draw mass regret of the unfortunate ones stamped. This was followed by cartoon characters, famous people, brainy quotes, photos of ancestors, symbols, favorite sports franchises but mostly just mundane cookie cutter plagues of ancient patterns and semi-coherent cultural symbols. The mass inking of bodies made a cottage industry of ink artists and tattoo parlors. Once the association of rebels and outcasts, getting “inked” quickly became the beau geste of the burgeoning narcissistic generations to advertise their impulsively conformist socio-cultural bona fides. That the desire to be seen as original through the act of ink scarring ones body in ever visible locations quickly became a distinguishingly unoriginal act was lost on most millennials and a good portion of Generation Z. It’s almost impossible to witness someone under the age of 35 who is still a pure body, the un-tattooed equivalent today of an unvaccinated pureblood. The Pure Bodies have become today the very thing the tattooed masses thought they were upon embarking on the act of getting inked - original and unique by the very nature of not desiring to be original or unique.

This is not to say that all tattoos are a cliché or gauche. Some are befitting of the subjects, but it’s more common than not to witness the ugliness of tattoos and be turned off, even shocked at how someone who was born beautiful would be so eager to turn herself ugly. If you look carefully across the western world of the 21st century, and are honest, you’ll encounter shockingly grotesque orgies of clashing colors desperately advertising across contours of skin-fold a complete lack of self awareness or good taste on the part of the walking human billboard of regret. How often these days does one encounter an attractive individual, whose facial beauty or other features catches one’s eye, until it scans a bit further in another direction to encounter on that stranger the awful stamp of nihilistic incontinence polluting their outer thigh or smeared across their entire forearm like some kind of completely unnatural birth deformity or dermal malady?

And what is a tattoo after all but the intentional permeant scarring of one’s largest bodily organ as merely one of many pursuits of narcissistic self-expression and nihilistic impulsivity plaguing our post-modernistic western world of lost and depraved souls? Or, maybe it’s just a tattoo.

It’s hard to ignore the social and psychological breadcrumbs of evidence the act of getting a tattoo imparts. Impulsivity and impulsive behavior are rampant as attention spans become depleted to zero. Even a goldfish has an attention span of nine seconds. Engaging our first desires before we know what they are to satisfy a discomfort within us leads to an assembly line of poor choices. The same impulsive desire that befell the 20th century mass consumer, “If only I had X, I would be Y", with X being a want and not a need, now plagues three generations of western youth as, “If only I got this big ugly comic book hero ink-blasted across my breast through a six hour session of self-torture, I would be Y and on Instagram I would appear to be Z.”

Younger generations have always had an inability to see beyond tomorrow or the wisdom to invest time in the long term goals and projects that require monastic patience and selfless commitment, the most fulfilling always energized toward others. Those who do posses the ability to prolong gratification and see beyond the hedgerows have a greater understanding of the artificial trappings of postmodern life. Are they less likely to become enamored with the idea of marking their body with a tattoo? Probably, if we take into account regret.

Let’s assume a statistic from another regret in life is similar to the regret of getting a tattoo. Across the west divorce rates hover over 50%, and yet knowing that statistic doesn’t stop the masses initializing a lifetime commitment to another person bounded by a presiding national juris system. Polling data in the U.S. shows tattoo regret growing from 12% in 2012 to 23% just three years later.¹ If we assume an increase of tattoo regret growing at 3.75% annually since 2015 than we are fast approaching the 50% mark. The more time that passes, the greater the number of regrettable tattoos litter society. This would mean over half of all tattoos that you see littering the social body will one day be regretted by the individual if not already, perhaps sufficiently to require a deep desire to separate from it. Divorce from an individual is much easier in the physical sense. Yet for a tattoo it’s a bit more complicated. Imagine having your ex-spouse permanently imprinted on your largest organ for life, nagging you or ignoring you wherever you go. They are the first regret you hear and see in the morning every single day years after your separation had been legally finalized by a court of law. Yet the regrets we have in choosing a life partner can be overcome through time and perhaps the therapy that follows is akin to the many visits to the laser removal center for the separation required from the regret of having blasted our skin for hours with a hot ink electric needle in the hope that we would feel something more or special about ourselves from the impressions upon others we wanted that tattoo to impart.

They say tolerance of other people’s choices is a virtue, but so must be honesty. If we are ever to restore common decency to society it will require that we all stop pretending about tattoos. Perhaps we should require a pass for the dermally defiled to participate in society, a digital pass they must present to purchase goods and services so the pure bodies among us in society know who they are even if they try to cover and hide the daily physical reminders of the poor choices of their youth.

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1. https://www.statista.com/chart/12025/where-are-people-regretting-their-tattoos-the-most/