Tattoos whether you know or it or not is a big part of today culture. Some people think their bad, some people think their good. No matter what the opinion tattoos will never cease to be around. In fact the art of tattooing has been around for 100’s of thousands of years, for the sole purpose of being a very important symbol to one’s life. You might see people get them to symbolize religious beliefs, love, or just unique decorations. In older times they were even used as a punishment. Although tattooing has to do one’s own body, in certain situations many people believe tattoos can be a bad thing.
I myself completely disagree with that accusation. Although I am only 17, if you count my mini tats I have about 8 tattoos, not because I wanted to be cool or anything like many of you are possibly thinking. I got them because I’m into art and in my eyes my body is my canvas. Don’t take that the wrong way, I wouldn’t tattoo my whole body or anything even though im not against it, I believe people should be able to do what they want, if that’s how they want to express their self then so be it. The body is just a shell for the soul, so there is nothing wrong with decorating your shell. Tattoos don’t just decorate you, they tell stories. Tattoos are very personal and can have tremendous meaning to them. Johnny Depp said it best “my body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story”.
Tattoos gain a lot of criticism in many different ways. For example in certain cases jobs won’t hire you if you have showing tattoos. Now don’t get me wrong in some cases I can see why that happen, such as jobs like health care. But in most cases I believe there is a little bit of exaggeration. Like the army to be particular. I’ve have recently been informed that you can’t join the army if you have showing tattoos, which makes completely no sense to me. You join the army to serve your country or in other words kill enemies, so why should tattooing even matter? Plus the whole thing is a huge contradiction, you can’t join with tattoos but you can leave with as many as you want. That makes no sense to me. Tattooing shouldn’t have any effect toward most work place, as I said before people just exaggerate. Although an excessive amount can be understanding, when it’s just a few things should be compromised.
In order to change people views on tattoos certain things have to be stopped. Starting with stereotypes. Having a tattoo does not make you an rebel. You don’t have to be a tough guy to have tattoos, as I said before people get them for personal reasons. In fact statics prove that more women get tatted then men. Tattoos aren’t as bad as people make it seem, it just the fact that you are trying to make it seem that way. It all starts with acceptance, if people can accept the fact that tattoos are a part of today’s culture then biased opinions can come to a decrease in time causing less altercations.
Tattoos have been discovered back to 2000B.C so their nothing new, they’ve always been a part of life and will not cease to be. From the quotes, to initials, to meaningful or religious designs, tattoos will always be here in our culture. Tattoos are not an act protests to social or cultural repression. We simply get them because we like them, because we believe their meaningful, and because it’s our body and we can do what we want with it.