Tattoos: A story waiting to be told

Photo Cred: Augusto Serna

Gone are the days that tattoos were reserved for gangsters, pirates, criminals and other socially unsavoury characters. Now they can be seen on business men and women, housewives, teenagers (troubled or not), fathers, manual labourers and basically anyone in any industry. They are no longer a taboo thing: they are generally accepted by society, especially the younger generation.

Photo Credit: Austin Mills (there is a small tattoo visible on the forearm)

Tattoos may be gaining popularity – according to The Harris Poll one in five Americans had a tattoo as of 2012 and that number is growing – but tattoos are nothing new. The earliest tattoo dates back to the Neolithic era, also known as the New Stone Age, which was around 12,000 years ago. Evidence of tattoos were found on seven mummies of Egyptian women that could be dated back to around 2,000 B.C., according to The Smithsonian. The women with these tattoos were believed to be dancers or prostitutes, one of the one was a royal concubine. Another theory is that the tattoos were some kind of representation of pregnancy. Historians are not sure of who would have done these tattoos but it is thought older women would have tattooed the younger women.

Today, tattoos can symbolize any number of things. They could be a religious signal or perhaps a representation of a person’s culture. Samoan tribal tattoos have become popular, even to people who are not from New Zealand. Actor Dwayne Johnson has a rather large Samoan tribal tattoo running from his elbow, up his arm and over his chest. The tattoo incorporates tribal patterns as well as his family and the spirits that guide him. Rhianna went so far as to have her tribal tattoo more traditionally applied: the tattoo artist chiselled the tattoo onto her hand, the traditional way of doing these tattoos.

Photo Credit: Mez Love

Photo Credit: Mez Love

Photo Cred: CooperLondon

Many people choose to have their loved ones commemorated in a tattoo, whether it be a portrait, the person’s name or perhaps, as Angelina Jolie did, the coordinates of their birth places.

Probably the most important thing about any tattoo is that it is unique to the person getting it and that it represents them. However, representing yourself in a tattoo can sometimes go too far: Jackass actor Steve-O has a portrait of himself covering most of his back. Artistically speaking the tattoo is incredibly well done but Steve-O himself refers too many of his tattoos as “dumb tattoos.” Many people around the world would probably agree with this assessment. Some people’s commemorative tattoos seem to make no sense at all to the outside world. South African singer Ninja from Die Antwoord has the number 16 tattooed under his eyes, which at first seems like a random number but it is, in fact, a commemorative tattoo for his daughter, whose name is Sixteen.

Employers and society appear to have become more accepting of all kinds of tattoos. There will always be those drunken tattoos that the person regrets getting, or perhaps the tattoo of an ex you can no longer stand. But no matter how ridiculous a tattoo seems, as long as it means something to the person it is on, then it’s serving a purpose. It is a permanent fixture that, perhaps, future generations will study in attempt to understand our society.