Tattoos are expensive, they are painful and they are permanent. Many people find them unattractive, or even repulsive, others see the beauty in them. If you get a tattoo, you will be judged by others because of that tattoo. You may be labelled a criminal, a thug, uneducated and immature and you most certainly have some underlying psychological issues that you are trying to compensate for. People think that tattoos are just a cry for attention, a rebellion against society, or a way to hide who we truly are. Some will say you get tattoos in order to be different, yet others will claim you are just trying to fit in with all of the other tattooed people.
In all honesty, all of those opinions are true, but at the same time couldn’t be more wrong. The truth is that some people do get their tattoos to rebel or be different and some tattooed people are in fact uneducated thugs and criminals. But that fact should not lead to the conclusion that this is the case for all people with tattoos. Unfortunately, some people can and will jump to those very conclusions.
I was recently involved in a rather lengthy debate, in the comments section of an article posted on NPR. Keep in mind the article was posted in the health section and was talking specifically about the dangers of tattoo ink. Ignorant comments about tattoos and tattooed people are completely irrelevant to the subject at hand, yet as I predicted, those are exactly the type of comments that began to flood the page. The following are just a few of those comments, highlighting some people who obviously know very little about tattoo culture. This is their twisted view on why people get tattoos.
No offense. When I see a tattoo I think “There’s somebody tryin’ really hard to be special. Just like everybody else.”
No offense, but I hardly call this “thinking” at all. You are assuming rather than doing any real thinking.
People color their skin exactly because they didn’t like the judgments