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Why am I (and others of an older generation) so horribly prejudiced against perfectly normal people covered head-to-toe in tattoos and piercings? Why do we cling to our outmoded beliefs that tattooing of that extent reveals low-life trashiness?
Well, cases like this, for one. Add in drugs (but of course drugs were involved) and it's a mess. Why, how can I look at the photos of this productive member of society and think to myself "that's a crazy dangerous person?"
Because he is a crazy dangerous person.
Also, while I'm at it, let me give out about the members of my own sex who hook up with crazy dangerous guys and still persuade themselves that this is the human equivalent of a velvet hippo cuddlebug pitbull who won't ever bite their own face off:
So let me get this straight: he's covered literally to his head in tattoos, he sells drugs, he's a drunk and a junkie, he's violent with the criminal conviction to back that up, and he just straight-up violently murdered a guy with a samurai sword over a disputed drug debt. But he's such a loving partner and father!
I honestly don't know why some women are so stupid. Yeah, loving and devoted up to the minute he swings at you with a sword, you silly girl.
Back to my main point: people covered in tattoos and/or piercings are the human equivalent of aposematism, change my mind.
An important ingredient here is that the overwhelming majority of tattoos are just hideous. Aesthetic harm. Visual downgrade. I know of a grand total of one person whose tattoos actually look good, and I think the secret sauce is that he has only a few, and they're perfectly sized to be clearly visible and framed on his body as you would normally look at them. Most people look like either a toddler slapped stickers on them, or like a derelict wall in a shit part of down.
I'm going to go a step further, for controversy's sake, and say that close to zero tattoos truly look good in practice.
Human skin is just not a great medium for artistic expression. The ones that are hyperdetailed kind of look okay if you look from the right angle, but get up too close and they tend to betray imperfections and from further away they all look like jumbles of random shapes and generally don't look like intentional art pieces.
The ones I might grant as appealing tend to be simple designs or patterns that emphasize the underlying physical features. But most people don't have good taste, and someone willing to permanently mark their body is probably even less likely to have good taste about it.
And time ticks by a few years, colors fade, clean lines get washed out, skin deforms and wrinkles and whatever trendy design you had falls from popularity (mileage may vary by how you care for them).
I make some exceptions for tattoos that genuinely symbolize something meaningful or important in the person's life. It is actually interesting to see a unique tattoo, ask about it, and get an actual story about its significance! That serves a 'useful' social purpose. But then, the signalling value is not in the aesthetics of the tattoo itself!
My late grandmothers position on tattoos was that the only respectable people who had them were concentration camp survivors.
i.e. people who got them unwillingly.
I'd say soldiers and sailors who were putting their life on the line and thus could never really be sure if they'd make it back to respectable society would also get a pass, although that also kind of falls in my "symbolic of something meaningful" exception.
Oh, and its worth mentioning how it seems like now full sleeves are kind of the default for Cops, Soldiers, even firemen these days. Like its functionally part of the 'uniform'!
Yeah I'm not against a tattoo for a valid lifelong commitment of great personal importance but even then execution is key to make it look good. Covering yourself in random pop culture references is the act of a lunatic with no long-term consideration
I mean, the Yakuza tats are a pretty serious commitment/ status signal.
But they definitely indicate a person who is bad news.
Atleast that person stands for something and has a sense of gravity about the occasion, though.
I might not want to hang out with a Yakuza but I respect their commitment to their lifestyle more than I do 'oh I've got Milhouse smoking weed'
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