In Case You Missed it, the Tattoo Fad is Over

[Walker88]

It’s all over but the burning. Say goodbye to the silliest fad of the last two decades: tattoos.

 

Yes, tattoos have existed for thousands of years. In civilized society the bearers tended to be losers or sailors, which I guess is kind of redundant. Yes, certain ethnic minorities or faiths got tatted to reflect their culture or belief system, but tatts were still fringe in the wider world.

 

Around 20 years ago tatts became a fad. Suddenly they appeared everywhere, as those who ‘wanted to be different’ began doing what everyone else was doing. The author Charles Mackay might have called it “Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”. Celebrities got tatted. Athletes got tatted. Beta Males got tatted. Regular Joes and Janes (or maybe Noahs and Chloes) got tatted. Society began to get so “noisy” that one couldn’t tell a Hell’s Angel from a librarian.

 

Let’s be honest. NOBODY looks better with a tattoo. Now some folks swear their tatts have ‘special personal meaning’, but it’s difficult to guess what that might be when a geeky affluent kid growing up in Greenwich, CT and attending Choate or Phillips-Exeter sports a Maori Warrior tatt. In the old days, those of us who had events or experiences with ‘special meaning’ took a different approach, rather than getting stuck with a needle and injected with ink that can cause such autoimmune reactions as Lupus: we committed things to memory. I guess we assumed that if the memory ever failed, no tattoo would be able to remind us, as we’d forget what ‘special meaning’ that tatt commemorated.

 

Some aficianados also like to argue it’s “art”. Well, if tatts are art, then the Louve should have “Tigers Painted on Black Velvet” and “Dogs Playing Poker”, as they are equivalent in terms of importance and uniqueness. To the best of my knowledge, the Louve does not carry such works, nor does the Met or Hermitage or The Prado. (Okay, some museums do carry stuff by Damien Hirst, so I guess even curators make mistakes.)

 

In late stage fads, things get extra silly. TV shows sprang up that combined two then-current trends, such as competitions where losers are “voted off” the show, and with the competition being the application of tattoos. A second evidence of the tattoo apocalypse being upon us was when aging and beer-bellied expats in Thailand began getting tatted, assuming the ink might make them the babe magnet they found themselves not to be when they moved to the Kingdom to “live the dream”. They would have been better off spending the dosh on a gym membership, unless they could afford the historical and quintessential symbol of Mid Life Crisis: the Porsche. Nothing screams “I blew my life” louder than a guy with an enormous gut sporting a barbed wire tatt around flabby biceps or a flame tatt on wrinkled forearms. And what’s with the old man leg tatts? Nobody is going to confuse a pensioner with a Vory v Zakone.

 

Enter a celebrity named Pete Davidson, apparently a graduate of the US TV show Saturday Night Live, and passed-around boyfriend to other celebrities like Kim Kardashian. He was everyone’s boyfriend just as Taylor Swift was everyone’s girlfriend and Olivia Culpo was every NFL Players’ squeeze. (sidenote: Swift got Travis Kelce, a definite first ballot Hall of Famer, while Culpo finally settled for the gifted, but oft-injured Christian McCaffrey.)

 

This Davidson fellow was knee deep in the tatt fad and was walking cacophony in the helter skelter way he had chosen to get himself stuck. (Article with pics attached).

 

Recently he came to his senses. He began a process of burning off his youthful indiscretions and trying to make his skin look peaceful again. One pic in the attached article allegedly shows what his tabula rosa looks like now, though in the age of both Photoshop and AI, one has to retain a little skepticism.

 

Because Mr Davidson has a platform, his actions are likely to have consequences, perhaps setting a new trend toward unadorned and non-defaced skin. If so, upscale youth will adopt it, as I’m sure Mom and Dad will be happy to pay. At some later date, bargirls who pull in 200-300K baht a month might visit the ever-expanding number of tatt-removal clinics now seen in Bangkok. I fear a time when the only remaining tatted will be non-babe magnet expats on a pension, as they will be unable to afford the laser removal fee. Insult to injury.

 

In tech, those early to adopt the newest trend are called “First Movers”. As the tatt fad comes to an end---and not before time---Pete Davidson will likely be called a “First Remover”.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pete-davidson-revealed-body-looks-235614517.html

 

[Woke to Sounds]

... And in related news big beards are DONE.

 

Clean shaven is the new beard.

[frank83628]

Wha generation are yoy? You seem to be way way out of touch.

[ChaiyaTH]

Not sure what this nonsense is about again but facts are there is more people than ever having and getting a tattoo to the point its at least 50/50 to hear Yes.

P.S. If you want people to actually read a few sentences of your crap, maybe reduce the length and apply spacing. The length of these nonsense posts are so much smelling like desperate employees or benefitors of this site are trying to get the last little traffic and platform activity. It will die anyway.

[Andrew Dwyer]

So, one minor celebrity decided to remove his collection of obscure and, imho, immature tattoos and now tattoos are finished ?

 

I would say tattoos are far from finished, rightly or wrongly the “ fad “ is enjoying its current peak. 

Adoration for celebrities among the younger generation ( call them sheeple if you like) continues to soar and with people like Post Malone sporting many face tattoos don’t expect it to be “ finished “ anytime soon.

[ChaiyaTH]

29 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

So, one minor celebrity decided to remove his collection of obscure and, imho, immature tattoos and now tattoos are finished ?

 

I would say tattoos are far from finished, rightly or wrongly the “ fad “ is enjoying its current peak. 

Adoration for celebrities among the younger generation ( call them sheeple if you like) continues to soar and with people like Post Malone sporting many face tattoos don’t expect it to be “ finished “ anytime soon.

The dude it clueless, too many senile dinosaurs on this website. Same as those claiming to live here 1-2-3 decades while all they did was sitting at home, a new person going out daily and travelling around would know more.

[GinBoy2]

As one of what feels like the only human on the planet not inked, it seems far from over.

 

I begged all my children not to do it. Told them pierce what you want but don't ink it. They all ignored me.

 

The kids I work with, the boys and girls, all inked and actively discuss their next inking adventure.

 

And it costs a fortune, they will willingly spend a weeks pay check on something I'm pretty sure in 20, 30 years time they will hate

[hotsun]

Strange conservative take coming from a raging liberal

[worgeordie]

I think the folks that don't like them , their problem is they are afraid of the pain to get one,

Why not just leave people alone to do what they want to do , its their body.

 

regards Worgeordie

 

 

[GinBoy2]

1 minute ago, worgeordie said:

I think the folks that don't like them , their problem is they are afraid of the pain to get one,

Why not just leave people alone to do what they want to do , its their body.

 

regards Worgeordie

 

 

I think my thoughts are, what looks good on 20 year old skin, may not look so good on the 40/50/60/70 year old skin.

 

Maybe the trick is delay ink until you are in your 50's your skin is already on the downhill, if your a woman the babies have already been pushed out, and what the Hell you you only have a couple more decades to live with it

[connda]

Nah - tats are a generational phenomenon,  They ain't going away unless the youngest generation chooses to reject them.  Which may happen, or not. Personally fads are fads - they come and they go.
I wear a few days of facial hair because I'm retired and too lazy to shave.  I wear slacks, a polo shirt, and flip-flops when out. At home shorts, t-shirts, and bare-footed. My hair in the cold season is long and in the hot season short, and in the rainy season somewhere in-between. I'm no trend setter as I'm sure there are others my age who do the same. I don't have tats and never will, well, unless I have "DNR" tattooed on my chest in Thai.  Maybe there I'm a trendsetter. 

[OneMoreFarang]

If some people want tattoos, that up to them.

 

I find it sad that many pretty young girls end up with often huge ugly tattoos. And that will mark them for the rest of their lives. Sad.

[worgeordie]

2 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

I think my thoughts are, what looks good on 20 year old skin, may not look so good on the 40/50/60/70 year old skin.

 

Maybe the trick is delay ink until you are in your 50's your skin is already on the downhill, if your a woman the babies have already been pushed out, and what the Hell you you only have a couple more decades to live with it

I got mine when I was 18/19 I am now over 80 and they ares till eligible ,maybe not for some other

people , but like i said it's their bodies , don't you worry about it....

 

regards worgeordie

[connda]

4 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

I think my thoughts are, what looks good on 20 year old skin, may not look so good on the 40/50/60/70 year old skin.

Yeah, they are going to be a whole lot of fugly, tatted-up 60 and 70 years old in 30 or 40 years.
Large swaths of tatted up skin all wrinkled and faded. 

[GinBoy2]

4 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

I got mine when I was 18/19 I am now over 80 and they ares till eligible ,maybe not for some other

people , but like i said it's their bodies , don't you worry about it....

 

regards worgeordie

Never said I worried about it, well maybe for my kids I do

 

But for old age tattoos, maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

[Andre0720]

Seems to me that the decision of getting a tattoo is more related to the friends that one has, same as cigarette smokers.

The number one predictor of someone getting hooked on nicotine or not, is about the people they hang around with.

Parents might have some influence as well. But someone in martial arts have a higher chance of getting a tattoo. Just the way it is.

 

But the good thing about tattoos, is that, unlike tobacco smoking, they will not kill you prematurely, like the average of 10 years reduction in life expectancy of smokers.

Tattoos are simply some willful mutilations of the skin, akin to being scarred for life, while thinking that it might look good. A tattoo looks good only to the bearer, and no one else.... And the mutilators are referred to as 'artists'. Quite the irony.

 

African rituals sometimes included such mutilation. Should have remained in those cultures....

[scubascuba3]

I hate tattoos on women, ruins them, men I don't care, i see them as an early warning, so quite handy.

 

Hope it does die out

[soi3eddie]

TLDR.

Tats are for criminals, losers and tramps (for the most part). A single hidden or unobtrusive tattoo can have meaning for the wearer. Never, in my opinion, will tattoos enhance the appearance of the wearer. They can be both a curiosity and a turn off.

 

[dddave]

Love the Damian Hurst reference.  For me, it was the elevation of the Starn Twins and their taped-together, out of focus mega scrap.

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, worgeordie said:

I think the folks that don't like them , their problem is they are afraid of the pain to get one,

Why not just leave people alone to do what they want to do , its their body.

No one is stopping them.   It is much more likely that they are afraid of the eternal emotional pain they will suffer as a result of their 'artful' misjudgements.

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, worgeordie said:

got mine when I was 18/19 I am now over 80 and they ares till eligible

Eligible for what...derision, admiration?

[pgrahmm]

LL

still legible (looks like they bumped together)

 

Regards, not Worgeordie

[Woke to Sounds]

2 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I find it sad that many pretty young girls end up with often huge ugly tattoos. And that will mark them for the rest of their lives. Sad.

Agree 1000%.

 

So many of my favourite porn models have destroyed their luscious bodies with god awful tattoos...

[NoshowJones]

3 hours ago, ChaiyaTH said:

Not sure what this nonsense is about again but facts are there is more people than ever having and getting a tattoo to the point its at least 50/50 to hear Yes.

P.S. If you want people to actually read a few sentences of your crap, maybe reduce the length and apply spacing. The length of these nonsense posts are so much smelling like desperate employees or benefitors of this site are trying to get the last little traffic and platform activity. It will die anyway.

Do people with tattoos have even as much as an average IQ?? I don't think so. How many university graduates, doctors etc have tattoos?

[Purdey]

While I would never have a tattoo, though my father did, girls with tats really helps when looking for loose women.

[Sandboxer]

I'm highly OCD so I really like my Thai symmetrical tats even after many years (arms only). They've been somewhat therapeutic in that respect, and I still get the odd (seemingly honest) compliment from locals which is kinda nice.

 

My only advice is for folks to do it once they are financially set for life and have no one to answer to. 

[CHdiver]

When you start to stretch the painting of Mona Lisa in every direction, that painting will start to look real ugly. Same applies to tattoos in a aging body. Additionally the colour fading away..... If you can't stop the urge, paint on tattoos may be a better choice. 

[NoshowJones]

2 hours ago, worgeordie said:

I think the folks that don't like them , their problem is they are afraid of the pain to get one,

Why not just leave people alone to do what they want to do , its their body.

 

regards Worgeordie

 

 

I was a right womaniser from my twenties to my fifties especially probably with above average looks and playing in professional bands.

But I imagine being back in these times today, being one who would not have dated girls with tattoos. What sort of life would I have had with very little girls to choose from?

[madone]

the fad is over indeed. 

No longer a fad, tattoos are a common form of self-expression that are no longer stigmatized when worn in moderation.   

[EVENKEEL]

Got mine at Ricky's in Hong Kong. Locked steel door to keep out ShorePatrol. 

 

If the fad is over perhaps time for more.