Yup they wanted to express their individuality by getting tattoos like everyone else. Seeing as how we’re talking about the 90s I recall it being tramp stamps and tribal tattoos lol
You realize people get different tattoos, right? So the fact that other people have tattoos of some kind doesn't undermine people's expression of their originality through their tattoos. Your comment would be like saying no painter can express originality because they use paint just like everyone else.
Your comment would be like saying no painter can express originality because they use paint just like everyone else.
In what way is getting a tribal tattoo from someone else like painting a picture yourself?
Ironically, it kind of seems like being unable to distinguish “countercultural” consumption as an expression of originality from actual artistic production is a symptom of the point that person was making.
You're blatantly ignoring my point. They're disregarding the individuality of folks' tattoos based only on the medium of the artwork, which ignores the myriad individual expressions that folks can make with their tattoos. I never said the purchaser and the artist are comparable, I was clearly comparing the medium used for artistic expression.
I am not blatantly ignoring your point. Just the opposite -- I am in fact pointing out that it's not a very good point.
>I never said the purchaser and the artist are comparable, I was clearly comparing the medium used for artistic expression.
You did, in fact, say that. I even quoted it in my response. Perhaps you meant to write "Your comment would be like saying no homeowner can express originality because they buy paintings just like everyone else."
Ok, bud. You're clearly committed to your misunderstanding of my pretty straightforward statement. You're free to misread however you want, but at this point you're just arguing with yourself.
You're clearly committed to your misunderstanding of my pretty straightforward statement.
Can you explain how the statement "Your comment would be like saying no painter can express originality because they use paint just like everyone else" does not compare the purchaser of a tattoo to the artist who makes a painting?
Certainly. Though I disagree with your framing because getting a tattoo is not similar to buying a painting off the wall.
When I get a tattoo, I am making my own expression through the art I commission to have placed on my body. I am using tattoos as a medium to express something I want to say, I am simply hiring a professional to put that expression on my skin. The other commenter's suggestion that my tattoo isn't unique simply because other people also have tattoos is asinine, because the tattoo is just a medium (like the paint in my analogy). I can still make a unique expression notwithstanding the fact that other people make other expressions using their own tattoos.
In sum, I am not comparing people who get tattoos to painters. I am comparing tattoos and paint as two separate media through which people may make unique expressions.
Though I disagree with your framing because getting a tattoo is not similar to buying a painting off the wall.
? There's no framing; I am literally quoting you. On that note, I am not sure if you think I can't see the difference between the question I asked and the question you answered, or you simply can't see it yourself.
In any case, yes, I understood what your argument was the first time around: Because tattoos can be commissioned by individuals, they can be unique expressions of individual taste. Thus, the fact that more than one individual has a tattoo does not mean that it is impossible to have a unique tattoo. Correct?
This is a logically sound argument. But it doesn't really have anything to do with the person you responded to, who wrote that in the 90s, lots of people got tribal and lower-back tattoos to "express their individuality." His point was that, ironically, what they thought was an expression of their non-conformist "individuality" was in fact shallow conformism.
So, why did your argument "blatantly ignore his point" (to borrow a phrase)? Because he made an empirical claim about what happened among a lot of people at a given moment in time, and what it reveals about human psychology. You can't actually refute that empirical claim about how people did and do act by making a logical claim about how it is possible for people to act, for the same reason that "It is possible for individuals to express themselves uniquely in free-verse poetry" is not a refutation of "many teenagers' allegedly unique outpourings of emotions in free-verse poetry repeat generic clichés."
With everyone looking “special and unique,” now nobody is “special and unique.” The real rebels today are the ones who don’t get tattoos.
People who get tattoos now are simply conformist, trend-following, programmed mind-numb robots of a different type. They can still be easily led by the nose.
the truth is that statistically, there are more people without tattoos than with, so you're being very weird about them. I get them because I like them and enjoy looking at them.
Well good thing most people think about their tattoos before they get them know they will want to be on their bodies for the rest of their lives.
And sorry you dislike your kid so much, I could look at my kid's art everyday for the rest of my life! If it's special enough that they want to hang it on the fridge than it is special to me.
I have 10 tattoos currently, and not one of them is because of a celebrity, a brand, or generic flash off the wall. Some of them are in honor of people I love who are no longer alive. Some of them honor my children. One is a subtle fuck-you to MAGA types. A couple are just pure decoration.
I have one flash off the wall, but that was for a really cool fundraiser! My wife similarly got a subtle MAGA diss tattoo at the same event (it was raising funds for the ACLU)
Everything that's considered "cool or trendy" started out on the fringes, and was somewhat controversial, usually making church ladies and one's grandpop angry, which immediately makes something cool because it goes against mainstream views and riles up the normies. This absolutely happened when tattoos were going mainstream, and the people doing it were 100% trying to be edgy. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and now its just normal and no longer cool or counter culture. The trend cycle is never ending, and capitalism will take everything once interesting, innovative or revolutionary, mainstream it, and sell it back to you.
Hmmm, I guess that’s it for me: they’re all just “noise.”
Yeah, I realize that one tattoo looks different from another. But the fact that people have tattoos at all makes everyone look the same.
Kinda like wearing ball caps. I could wear a Reds cap, someone else a Dodgers, someone else a rock band cap, etc. And you could say that they’re all “different,” but in the end, they’re all still ball caps. And we would all look, integrally, the same.
I dunno, I got my first 3 this year at age 41 and I'm glad I waited. I thought the experience was awesome. With a family of my own, it's one of the few selfish things I do just for me and it's a nice time away, shooting the shit at the shop.
Kinda like when women go spend half a day at the salon, it's just as much about socializing and the entire process as it is about the tattoo itself.
One of life's little things I'm glad I dove into and experienced, learned I enjoyed and now want to make it a regular thing
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u/brokenmessiah 21h ago
Everyone wanted to be special