If you don't like tattoos

[TheAverageJoanne]

Can you say why?

I'm fed up of people who think those with tattoos are rough arsed bikers, thick or common.

I don't like them because I don't think they look very nice. Skin looks much better.
Also I don't understand why anyone would want to walk around with a permanent decoration on their skin. I have changed my taste in almost everything during my life. Something someone may think is a good idea in your twenties is often a regret when you are 60.

Western tattoos are a trend; there's no cultural heritage behind them.

There is a massive cultural history of tattoos in the UK. Just because it dropped out of sight doesn't mean it never existed.

The name Prydain (the Welsh for Britain) comes from the term Painted/tattooed ones and there is lots of Roman literature around the fact that people in Britain were covered in tattoos

It may be ancient heritage and modern day tattoos often have little in common but I do find the frequent uneducated dismissal of celtic heritage jarring

There's a bit of a difference between being "more likely" to have a tattoo if you have suffered trauma and assuming every person with a tattoo has unresolved trauma

Unless you can point to peer reviewed research that shows everyone who has a tattoo has trauma

But why do they have them where they can't see them? If they like tattoos surely they would have one where at least they can see it even if they prefer it hidden from others?

Who knows? I mean the first friend no idea! I do know with her I think she was 18 and hadn’t had her first baby yet but in the late 80s it was still a bit shocking to get a tattoo.

The second two people you can in theory see them as they’re kind of on the side of the body so wrap around. Like rib side area.

I don’t like them because they’re extremely permanent and don’t tend to improve with age. Each to their own and all that, but I cringe when someone has more tattoo than bare skin. But then I’m 55 and squarer than a packet of Squares.

I remember the stories about Johnny Depp having to get his ‘Winona Forever’ tattoo removed in stages; for a while (allegedly) it read ‘Wino Forever’.

Meh. People deal with trauma in many ways. I have definitely experienced trauma, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me though. I don't abuse drugs or alcohol which is a far worse coping mechanism.

Some can be beautiful and artistic.

In my opinion, many are badly drawn, badly inked, badly placed, or just unattractive or uninteresting designs. Many don't seem to age well over time. And I'm not a fan of when people have multiple tattoos in different styles all over them so it seems very disjointed and piecemeal.

But obviously it's just my subjective judgement, presumably the person whose body they're on likes them, which is the important thing.

Um excuse me but this is an opinion based thread where a majority of people are saying they think tattoos are ugly just bc they are. So MY opinion is that c section scars are disgusting, which they are. I'll take a bad tattoo over a hideous c section scar any day of the week, thanks.

This might be the dumbest post on this thread.

I just don't like them, I'm not really sure why. To me they're just drawings on skin and it's not a look I like. DH has 5 from his younger days and hates all of them now.

I don't judge anyone having them, they're just not for me.

Most C sections are not chosen though are they? Neither of mine were, they were both emergencies, not a conscious decision to have ink permanently on my skin so I'm not sure it's a great analogy. My C section scar doesn't really bother me too much because they remind me that I have two lovely children. Having said that, plenty of people feel very personally about their tattoos (understandably) so I feel it's very much an individual thing.

I really don't care if people have tattoos but as the OPs asked Id say I don't like the look of them because they look ugly. I don't mind crazy hair colours or some piercings but tattoos generally look ugly. I really dislike it when people tattoo their faces or when they choose aggressive looking tattoos. In some countries tattoos are heavily associated with gangs and violence.

A small fresh one might look ok though I suppose.

I don't generally notice tattoos though as so many people have them.

C section scars are not exactly visible to the general public. You'd never know I had one unless I told you or slept with you!

I don't and have never liked tattoos, in general. I did get a small one, discreetly placed in my 40s though. I really like it and have had lots of positive comments about it from other people who don't generally like tattoos.

I really, really don't understand why people have something that can't be changed. It becomes part of their 'history' and they have to live with it, so for me it would be like having to live with that awful haircut I had when I was 15. Why not have a painting, item of jewellery, etc?
It's a fashion statement today, so presumably it'll fall out of favour - if parents have them, the kids won't?
Re the 'social scale' thing - on holiday in France I took the dch to a swimming pool and I sat on the side, watching. Half the people had tattoos, and I realised that they all belonged to Brits and the French didn't have any (that I could see). French so much more effortlessly stylish than the Brits in general, so why would they want to draw on their skin?

@Lattims83

re higher up the social scale
Total bullshit. My dad was the chief of psychiatry at his hospital in the States and he mentioned on numerous occasions how many new incoming residents had sleeves. He mentioned this to us because my brother and I both have a lot of tattoos. My husband is also heavily tattooed. We all have good jobs and make a lot of money. While my husband does come from a more common background, my brother and I both came from an incredibly wealthy upbringing, ie we will both get millions in inheritance. The only people "high on the social scale" who couldn't conceive of having tattoos are 80 year old white people. So either you are an 80 year old white person or are just severely out of touch with reality.

You are really wrong here - the fact you refer to "an incredibly wealthy upbringing" + millions in inheritance makes the point. Are you American?
Wealth or 'a good job' does not = higher up the social scale/ social status in the sense that @tescocreditcard meant.

Alan Sugar is incredibly wealthy but is not 'high up the social scale" in any sense. He's a lower class East Ender who says things like "you was a prophet". David Beckham - another example - very very wealthy but working class uneducated.

The Queen would not have a tattoo for example.

If you took the whole of UK society as a class based pyramid with the lower socio-economic groups at the bottom (note " lower socio-" not just economic - you can be a poverty stricken Earl in a liquidity sense in the UK) and the aristocracy (the Queen & the Earls etc) at the top, and super imposed onto it the frequency of tattoos especially sleeves etc, inevitably the bulk of high tattoo frequency would be in the mid to lower half of that pyramid. That's not to say no upper middle clasess or higher levels have tattoos obviously just that there is a strong correlation with working, uneducated, lower classes.

Raincloudsonasunnyday · Today 16:05

Western tattoos are a trend; there's no cultural heritage behind them.

Free men in some of the ancient Greek city states had them, to indicate their class and status in society. Most of the bog bodies, some dating back more than 4,000 years have them.

The Romans slagged the ancient Britons off for coming into town, half naked, to show off their tattoos, as well as getting drunk and fighting.

Sailors have been getting them for hundreds of years. Even WWI British officers were known to have had tattoos.

I find them ugly, grim and sorry to say very cheap looking.

That's fair comment, not everyone likes the same things. I've got some good ones and some bad ones, I got my first professional one at 15 and for me, when young, they were a definite two fingers to the world.

I just think they look rough. It doesn't matter what it is or where it is, it never looks tasteful and always looks common. That's just my opinion, I've never voiced it to anyone in person, and most of my friends are tattooed.

Why is being working class seen as a negative thing though?

Being "effortlessly stylish" doesn't automatically make someone a better person. That's all very superficial. Personally I don't aspire to be effortlessly stylish, I aspire to be kind, empathetic, helpful, etc.

I grew up with someone who was covered in them and he wasn't nice to me. Also he'd been in a borstal so they weren't nice tattoos. I guess it's transference for me.

The late Queen may not have had a tattoo, but George V did as did Edward VII, Princess Eugenie also does along with Prince Edwards grand daughter. Princess Stephanie of Monaco, and Crown Prince of Denmark also have tattoos as did the previous King of Denmark.

In the Victorian era tattoos were common amoungs the aristocracy. Its only more recently they have become less common in the "higher socio-economic groups".

But hey, heaven help the rest of us mere plebs if we don't follow exactly what the aristocracy do 🙄

I would have thought my ordinary sized house, non flashy car and having to work for a living would have made it obvious that I am not of a higher socio-economic class so why the fuck should I care if I did get a tattoo that it would mark me as not being a non-working, highly educated upper class person.

But then I find the whole judgement of working class people as lesser, and the lengths some will go to to avoid being seen as working class, more repugnant than someone accidentally thinking I must be working class because of the arbitrary judgement of a social marker.