Tattoo society!

Tattoo society, strange title for this post admittedly! There is of course no such thing as tattoo society, however society usually has an opinion on tattoos! It is this perception of opinions that I thought would be interesting to blog about here!

Okay, so I have a lot of tattoos and I am certain I will have many more.  My hands are tattooed, so I can’t really hide them from anyone (even if I wanted to). There is of course a reason why I started getting tattooed and a reason why I want them to be obvious.

Since I started on my project that links tattoo art to wildlife conservation I have really fallen in love with the whole culture of tattoos. With this growing interest I have joined quite a few websites, Facebook groups etc that are for people with an interests in tattoo art. I love these groups as they are a great place to see a huge variety of art! As with most things, I don’t like all of what I see, but I can usually appreciate good art (even when it is not to my particular taste).  However one theme that seems very prevalent in a lot of these groups is a drive to have tattoos more acceptable by general society. I can of course understand this to some extent. We all want to move away from the criminal or low intelligence stigmas that have plagued tattooed folk for years. The reality is that anyone with any intelligence will know that in this day and age (and historically) tattoos are popular amongst people from all walks of life! Winston Churchill even had a tattoo (and so did his mother)!

I’m no Winston!

In general, people like my tattoos. People are amazed with the colours and detail. People usually see them for the beautiful works of art that they are. I love it when people comment positively on the art I am wearing permanently on my skin! I have of course had negative comments; but usually from the waste of space small minded folk that spend most of their time sniping from the sidelines (and not doing anything positive with their lives). Sure, people are entitled in their opinions; but if its negative, don’t waste your energy – I didn’t ask for your opinion!

I like the fact that tattoos are not fully accepted by society. This is art, this is individuality, this is expression. To be accepted would be a bit boring to be honest!

I recently had someone comment on a wildlife Facebook group about my latest tattoos. Here is the comment (edited for grammar):

 lol for some reason I don’t believe this person has ever been outside his city, and is probably getting most of his wildlife from TV.. lol

This actually amused be. The person had made a judgement about me purely based on the fact that I had tattoos! What he didn’t realise of course is that I had seen every one of the twenty-four species of bird tattooed onto my arms and hands (in the wild in Turkey). He also was not aware that I had raised over £3,000 to support a conservation charity in Turkey. When I politely informed him of these fact his response was as follows:

Nice, then the tattoo become cool! )

 

I love the fact the went from ‘uncool’ to ‘cool’ so quickly!

This was a quite a good example of reactions those of us with tattoos will often get; it is kind of fun really!

I love the fact that tattoos are not fully accepted by society.