Looking at the world today there are many different traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation, but one tradition that seems to get overlooked and miss interpreted is tattoos. Tattoos have been a way of life for many years and have many different meaning to different countries, races, and social groups. Tattoos have been given to many different age groups of people in many different ways such as nails, sticks, bamboo, barracuda teeth, and many of other different tools that have been passed down throughout time. Most people think that tattoos only express people’s feelings in negative ways but there are many more important meanings for most people’s tattoos and it changes from culture to culture. This paper will discuss the history behind tattoos, and the cultural significance from several different cultures. It will address the American point of view in comparison with these other cultures.
This is important because even those that rely on tattooing people for an income believe that people do not put enough thought into the tattoo and that takes away from the beauty of it. I tend to side with the tattoo artists that believe that, people getting tattoos at the spur of the moment usually end up being a bad representative for those who have tattoos since they regret their tattoos. Tattoos were originally for the subculture in America and people identified that they were a part of the subculture since they have a
In recent years tattooing and body piercing have become increasingly prevalent in popular culture. These forms of body modification are no longer tools used by criminals and gang member, showing their role in society. These practices are used by many of teenagers and young adults in our society today. In fact many of these practices have been a positive trend in American culture, giving adolescents a way of expressing themselves
Certainly, tattoos and piercings are a lot more popular nowadays than they were thirty years ago. Now, 1 in every 10 Americans have them, while back then, 1 in every 100 had them. Your body is a blank canvas, and you’re just making it something fun to look at. Today, people get tattoos and piercings for many different reasons, such as beauty, art, and fashion, individuality, group affi...
In today’s society, a tattoo is a form of self-expression. Tattoos are simple another art form. This art form allows the canvas and artist to share their thoughts, feelings, and emotions be known as “living artwork”. These living
Despite the negative aura of body modification, many people still choose to participate in the practice. This may cause some to wonder why a person would adorn his/her body at the risk of social exclusion, and the answer can be found in asking a tattooed person himself. Vince Cancasci, living in California, once stated, “Some people write in a diary, I write on myself” (Gay and Whittington 13). Other people may be interested in proving their independence by running their own lives, or simply that each tattoo or piercing has a very significant meaning to a previous time in their life (Gay and Whittington 12-13). Many people in the older generation of today believe this art to be vandalism of the human body and dislike it with a passion. In the younger generation, many people are concluding that piercings and tattoos are, in fact, creative individualism, and they are treasures to be proud of rather than hidden. They believe that body art and jewelry personify unique opinions, express a person’s history, or even merely...
Quotes, birds, and Chinese lettering are just a few tattoos that are seen in today’s society. Tattoo placement ranging from the wrists, feet, and back the possibility for where and what someone would want for a tattoo is endless. Tattoos are looked as ways to express yourself by either remembering a loved one, giving yourself a reminder to push forward in life, or just to get something that you really enjoy. When people get tattoos they probably don’t see anything wrong at the time, but people from a later generation than today’s can definitely disagree. Most are very un-accepting and against tattooing one’s skin. They are not the only ones who frown upon them, though; most work industries would not admit them either. A lot of businesses look down on people who have tattoos, either not allowing them to get a job or believing that they are not suitable for the position. Tattoos do not disrupt a person’s work ethics and take away one’s capability to get a job done.
Once considered taboo, tattoos have shed the social outcast stigma once associated with getting inked. One might even say tattoos have become trendy.
Tattoos are not only a marking on the skin, but also a symbol representing something or someone in a person’s life. In Skin Deep, written by Alexis Keinlen, also a journalist and literary editor of Ricepaper Magazine, wrote the article Skin Deep giving several points on the history of tattoos and also letting her viewers know her opinion on the topic of tattoos because of religious reasons or even as low as how the person with tattoos looks compared to someone with zero tattoos. People should look past on how tattoos may look because when choosing the right tattoo with meaning than it shouldn’t matter what others think because the tattoo resembles something special in the person’s life.
A persons’ image is vital when meeting someone for the first time. Our peers, employers, family, superiors, even strangers that you walk past can automatically judge someone, and imagine how they present themselves to the world. Tattoos have been predominantly linked with a rebellious attitude and pictured on out of control stereotypes such as rock starts, bikers, sailors, and disobedient teenagers who want nothing more than to hack off their parents. With a new coming of age generation and a step into a more lenient and liberal society these types of patrons still participate in body art but so do doctors, lawyers, or just the run of the mill house mom. Tattoos signify religious beliefs, cultural influence, or each individual’s sole style. Body art is no longer socially offensive, employers are more apt to hiring tatted hopeful applicants, parents are warming up to the idea of their children inking their body and no longer a stranger on the street with a tattoo is necessarily prejudged as a criminal or safety hazard. Tattoos have become more evolved over the years because they have become more of a socially accepted element of the general public.
Tattoos in Ancient Polynesian traditions marked the various ranks and statuses of people (Losch). This is the case with anything; we assign meaning to different things. An example of this is a suit. Traditionally, suits are associated with people who have positions of power. Hoodies, on the other hand, can be worn by anyone. It traditionally means comfort and is in no way associated with power or professionalism. But what if a CEO, such as Mark Zuckerberg, wears a hoodie? Contrary to popular belief, people violate norms…seem powerful (Hutson). There is power is breaking social norms. Therefore, although tattoos are traditionally associated with criminals in Western culture, this nonconformity and breaking of rules will actually make the person seem more powerful. Tattoos are a powerful symbol. Although each tattoo is unique in design, overall, the person who wears them is seen as rebellious. The trick to changing society’s mind about this is to accept the fact that tattoos are rebellious; but this does not have to necessarily mean that they are bad. What makes a tattoo bad is the person underneath the tattoo. The parts of the body are quite distinguishable from the self (Mead). This means that the body is a separate entity from a person’s true self. Therefore, in order to change someone’s mind about tattoos they must get to know a portion of a person’s self before deeming them to be bad. They cannot just judge a person as being bad based on their body. Once they get to know a person’s self, then their previously held ideas about the person will be deconstructed along with the reality that tattoos are inherently