Generational Perspectives on Tattoos

I don’t have tattoos on my neck. A symptom in women with low to no testosterone is thinning eyebrows, so I have those tattooed and I have ear tattoos. However it works with the way I look. I feel like it all depends on the particular person.

I’d lump him in with people who get a lot of tattoos, but I’ve always seen a distinction between a person who gets body art done by talented artists vs someone who will let anyone draw on their body. That’s not a look I’d want, nor would I encourage my son to get that kind of body art, but I can acknowledge that it is less repulsive to me than Tekashi 69’s body art.

As we’ve all alluded to in this thread, there is a different level of self-awareness on display, depending on whether or not the tattoo matches the person. Tough guy tattoos can compliment an actual tough guy’s already tough guy look. Tough guy tattoos on a soft weakling just look silly to me. It’s almost like a 2022 human version of a harmless snake that mimics the look of a venomous killer, but not nearly as respectable as the animal who is only a poseur so it doesn’t get eaten.

Back to the guy above, a person with a well-done neck tattoo is still a guy with a neck tattoo, and that neck tattoo is going to come across the wrong way to certain people. Then again, I can come across the wrong way to people even though I don’t have any tattoos at all. I just rely on my personality to make people not like me.

Brainwashed!!!
My understanding is that brainwashed means that the value system you acquired as you grew is washed clean and replaced with a different value system.

So, I take offense with you accusing me of being brainwashed. Sure, being raised by Depression Era parents influenced my value of work, but by no means should it be called “brainwashing.”

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Hahaha… doesn’t work for girls. Not resting bitch face, mean personality or threatening tattoos. They aren’t so scary on a little girl. Funny though!

Why not? My parents tried to brainwash me into religion from a child, I would have none of that. Each to their own.

Well I can’t say I understand women very well to begin with, let alone why women get their tattoos. I’m sure some like the idea of intimidating people, but I’m sure there’s other reasons too. I’ve only dated one girl since 2000 with no tattoos.

Not to speak for my elders, but you are raised how you were raised, if you’re lucky enough to have parents. Brainwashing, by definition, is a process that seeks to undo and replace what is already in your brain. It “washes” the brain.

In simple terms, brainwashing is necessary for aspiring adult Scientologists. They must un-learn what they believe they know in order to accept the truth of Xenu and achieve Operating Thetan level 8. This process is not necessary for children raised in Scientology. They would need to be brainwashed if they were to convert to another religion or even reject what they were taught as children.

Raising children is just planting the first seeds in a human.

Your parents were not brainWASHing you. Think of them as tattoo artists. They were working with a clean canvas. They tried to tattoo faith in God on you. You chose to reject the tattoo.

BrainWASHing requires something be erased (washed out of your brain.)

I reject your misuse of the word “brainwash”. Though if enough people misuse the word long enough it will eventually include that meaning in a future dictionary.

The literal definition is trying to manipulate someone’s thought or actions against the will, desire or knowledge of the individual. My parents absolutely tried to brainwash me. I knew since I was 5 I didn’t want or believe in religion. So I reject your rejection of what brainwashing actually is, and what’s that have to do with the OPs post anyway?

Well I don’t believe that at all. Brainwashing is also called Coercive Persuasion, by definition it is

systematic effort to persuade nonbelievers to accept a certain allegiance, command, or doctrine . A colloquial term, it is more generally applied to any technique designed to manipulate human thought or action against the desire, will, or knowledge of the individual.”

People are not meant to work themselves to death for the man. Work is not the end all be all in the world. Therefore being raised to only be aware of what work would want or what a job would want is brainwashing.

It sounds to me like you were just raised by your parents. I know that’s anti-climactic compared to being brainwashed, but it doesn’t sound like you were subjected to any kind of abuse based on simply being raised Christian. Speaking from experience on both ends of that process, being raised by parents often involves getting dragged into things that you don’t want to do but that your parents think is important for you to do.

Despite my best intentions, some of it has stuck with my kid, some has not. I hope he can understand the disconnects we have as me trying my best to raise him as well as I could, and not that I was trying to drag him into something terrible against his will for his entire childhood.

Back to the subject-at-hand, you can’t say that I or anyone older than me was brainwashed into not wanting tattoos any more than we were brainwashed into not wanting nose piercings, rainbow-bejeweled teeth, an elongated skull or clavicle-lengthening surgery.

Not wanting these things has been the de-facto position for most people throughout most of time, especially societies without long cultural traditions of tattoos.

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Whose definition is that?

Mercian-Webster
First definition: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas.

A little etymology study is interesting.

Fellow boomer basher here.

Little did they know that eventually a good chunk of the people hiring us would have tattoos. :grinning:

I know this isn’t directed at me, but it’s obviously up for public discussion. No, I wouldn’t lump him in with the others considering the high-skill artwork on him, but I think it is reasonable that some guy in a tattoo bodysuit will be judged for it in some or many situations.

And why would I talk about trauma with complete strangers? It’s enough to know that they did try to brain wash their kids.

I’m not sure why you would talk about trauma with me or anyone else. I certainly didn’t ask you to. You only mentioned a Christian upbringing and suggested that you and baby boomers were both victims of brainwashing.

You’re perfectly free to use words however you like. You seem to be using brainwashing and parenting interchangeably to me, but I get it. I didn’t like going to CCD classes when I was a kid.

Back on topic, much like the personal meaning of tattoos, you don’t get to insist that other people accept your personal definition of words.

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The world is changing and people’s understandings are also changing. For example, when I was a student in my communist country (as it was until 1989), when we saw a young man with his head cut off, we perceived him as a very funny and disgraceful thing. Such people were constantly ridiculed. No one at that time wore such a short haircut. The reasons were usually that either the young man was found to have lice / nits / or he did something in violation of the law and had his hair cut by the police. Things were the same with tattoos. Tattooed people didn’t take them seriously, they looked at them as very low-ranking people, criminals and geeks.
And nowadays young people are mostly naked or with very short hair and there are tattoos all over their bodies. But tattoos are no longer seen as a bad thing, although many older people (around 40 and older) still don’t accept it. They believe that, for example, people with serious professions find it absurd to get a tattoo, unless the tattoo is hidden and you can only see it on the beach, for example.

You need to edit this. :grinning_face:

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Where do you live?

I remember a middle-aged mom at a sporting event noticing my chest tattoo, which was peeking through my V-neck, when I was 22. She couldn’t believe it and chewed me out. The people nearby were like “WTF?” I didn’t even know this lady. She was like “how do you expect to ever get a job?” Some people have a real disdain for tattoos, it’s borderline pathological.

Now, at 30, I’d guess I’ve already accomplished more and made more than she ever will…even with my tattoos :slight_smile:

I live in Eastern Europe - in Bulgaria. Since the fall of communism, I can say that we have skipped democracy and in many ways it is anarchy. Even during communism, many things were not banned in our country, unlike other communist countries. But right now, many young people are like untied rabid dogs. They are only interested in parties and nothing else. Girls look like prostitutes (but they are not), boys have a lot of tattoos, short haircuts, beards and they look bad :joy: Everyone wants to show a high rank - this is the most important thing for them. But there are decent ones anyway.
For example, this is what many of our 18-19 year old girls look like at their graduation ball. And this is massive, and their parents encourage them.
I’m sorry for my bad English.
ujasni-snimki-na-abiturienti-potresoha-mrejata--7

I’m pretty liberal when it come to clothes but wow… that’s totally inappropriate for the time and place.