To discourage my friend from getting a 'Manchester Bee' tattoo

[CircleofWillis]

My friend is from Manchester but moved to London 25 years ago. She wants to get a bee tattoo to show her support for the people affected by the awful tragedy and to give financial support to the appeal. She doesn't have any tattoos and has previously stated she doesn't like them. AIBU to want to talk her out of it as she may regret such a permanent statement in the future. Instead I want to suggest she think about just donating the money. I know it is her body and her choice but I feel she is being swept up in the emotion as some of her friends from home have posted their tattoos on FB. I don't have any tattoos myself but not because I have any dislike of them but I would hesitate myself before having a permanent reminder of such a sad event on my body.

£50 donation minimum and all proceeds go to the families - I think it's an amazing gesture and yes I could just donate £50 but I think this has really sparked something amongst the people here

My DIL has one, it's cute,to put it in context she is Mancunian and her sister was at the concert, luckily she had already left when the bomb went off. If she feels she wants one she should get one

I have googled 'Manchester bee tattoo,' and haven't found ONE that looks good

Very surprised by that - I am very into tattooing and follow a number of excellent artists on FB - the ones they have done are up to their usual very high standard of work.

I can't imagine everyone is getting them done by tattooists who aren't good at their craft

Mine is fairly hidden away

And you know - what's the worst that can happen with a tattoo if you don't like it? Cover up job/removal. It isn't the end of the world!

If you didn't even know a single person at that event who was harmed in that terrorist attack; I can't fathom why you would have a bee tattoo.

It's been explained though...

If you read the last thread on this, you would have seen somebody post who was actually caught up in this, bereaved and suffering. He/she was very angry at the people wanting to take on the grieving and that is how it was seen. The last point made was that they didn't want to see these bee tattoos.

If this bee is such a symbolic emblem of the Manchester work ethic and the industrial roots, why would anybody want to conflate that with this awful tragedy?

It doesn't really matter if people don't see the harm, if it offends just one person, a family member or friend who is actually grieving, then it's really not ok.

It's awful to see the mud-slinging. That has nothing to do with solidarity or remembering the victims and their families either. Since when has it been ok to denigrate somebody for their opposing view anyway? Hilda has her view; I guarantee you that some posters share it. Other posters have their own views and that's fine.

If she's always expressed a dislike of tattoos up until now I'd advise her to give herself a cooling off period and if she still wants the bee in three months time to go for it.

The bottom line is, if asked, I would discourage any friend of mine from getting ANY tattoo after thinking about it for less than a week, especially if it was their first tattoo. I would advise them to wait a few months at least, and see if they still want to do it. After all, there's no rush. The tattoo will be there for life, so waiting a few months is no big deal.

My advice would be exactly the same under these circumstances.

Since when has it been ok to denigrate somebody for their opposing view anyway?

Since they claimed their opinion to be fact rather than viewpoint, and in particular since they decided they speak for the bereaved families.

Gosh, MissShittyBennet, somebody claiming their opinion AS FACT is what makes up most threads here.

If people wanting bee tattoos feel able to speak about bereaved families then so can posters who don't feel comfortable about that. I posted about somebody who was very upset on the last thread that people were hijacking grief that wasn't theirs. (their words not mine).

We either accept that everybody has the right to an opinion, or nobody has the right.

One of the families involved has got the tattoo though. Also the Manchester bee was a big thing before this, and there were a lot of tattoos of them about. I guess what I'm saying is what one family thinks is opposite to another. There's no way walking past someone in the street you would know if their bee tattoo was 9 months ago or last week

I told my friend I posted on here and she sent me this link to partly explain how and why she feels as she does.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-bee-tattoos-sacred-art-13104992

She's an adult and it's her body, not your place to talk her out of it, unless you are her mother

There's no way walking past someone in the street you would know if their bee tattoo was 9 months ago or last week

Absolutely. My design was done and signed off three weeks ago. I just happened to have it done a few days ago.

The human drive to be part of a group is strong. Having not been part of many things in my life, I know how essential this is for psychological wellbeing.

I think the benefit outweighs the risk here. If she dislikes it later, she can have it removed; if done in lifelike size, a bee isn't really that big, anyway.

Unlike tattooing a man's name on your arm, it is not very likely she's going to feel ashamed of the sentiment that lead to her getting the tattoo later on.

Ollivander that's lovely

Gosh, MissShittyBennet, somebody claiming their opinion AS FACT is what makes up most threads here.

And people telling them it isn't makes up a lot of the responses! I mean, that's pretty standard issue on here.

If people wanting bee tattoos feel able to speak about bereaved families then so can posters who don't feel comfortable about that. I posted about somebody who was very upset on the last thread that people were hijacking grief that wasn't theirs. (their words not mine).

Right, but that's not what Hilda was doing. It should be obvious to anyone posting about this by now that the bereaved families are not a monolithic bloc and thus have different views on this. With that in mind, her comment about it being insulting to the victims and families was inappropriate because she doesn't have the right to speak for them as a group and also because she was wrong. Some of them have been clear that they feel the exact opposite.

It's really quite important to be clear here that hilda hasn't been pasted simply for having an opinion. She could have said she didn't like it without doing the things she did. Unfortunately she chose not to do so. Had she phrased herself as you did, she would have been responded to differently: I don't agree with your points, but you have managed to make them without doing as Hilda did.

What's to not understand? The donations are about the families directly affected. The bees are about our community and the collective cultural identity that we're so proud of.

I don't have the tattoo. Not yet anyway as I have an appointment to give blood that I intend to keep. But I'll be incorporating it into a cover up of a tattoo I have that I've pretty much always disliked.

My points were absolutely correct which is why I've had such a nasty response from certain posters. They go ballistic and abusive because their attention seeking and faux grief is seen for what it is.

If people want to tattoo themselves to show how much they 'care', that's their business but I'm not going to feed their delusions. They're a part of a public performance piece. It's no different to the screaming and crying when Diana died. Just a different method of using other peoples tragedy as attention seeking.

I hate tattoos, and have lived in Manchester for less than a decade, but still I considered it. It's unity.

It's the concentric circles of grief, isn't it?

The people who were actually wounded and the families of those killed and hurt are in the first, most important circle.

Those who assisted the wounded and dying directly or who saw what happened close up are second.

Those who fled the arena without seeing much are third.

Those in Manchester who experienced the tragedy second hand via the media are a distance away from all three, in fourth. Yes, there is an element of collective pain here - a place that is wounded - but it is also not really their tragedy.

I think the issue is that this is something so personal: a tattoo is inscribed as part of you, onto your body, it becomes your visual identity. I think in some cases that's a claim that isn't quite in keeping with the distant relationship those people in the fourth circle have to the tragedy. I'm sure some of the grieving families find it touching and comforting, and others find it an annoying depersonalisation of their pain. I'm not sure the potential pain to the latter really outweighs any other factor. Giving all of the money directly to the families concerned would surely always be a better use of it?

My points were absolutely correct which is why I've had such a nasty response from certain posters

Yet again......your issue isn't that you present a differing point of view. Your issue is that you conflate opinion with fact.

Then there's the discussion of the people who get the tattoos as a homogenous mass - why is it attention seeking? I have countless tattoos - mostly covered much of the time. Nobody would know unless I stripped. Now THAT would be attention seeking

My points were absolutely correct which is why I've had such a nasty response from certain posters. They go ballistic and abusive because their attention seeking and faux grief is seen for what it is.

Meh, maybe they just think you're a knob.

My points were absolutely correct which is why I've had such a nasty response from certain posters.

Given that you said the tattoos were insulting to the families of the victims but we know some support it and at least one has actually had one done themselves, this is quite obviously incorrect. By definition. You have had a pasting because you presumed you could speak for the families of the victims and because you were wrong.

And I don't have a tattoo and won't be getting one, so this could not possibly be about me responding to any criticism you've made of me personally. It's about you being full of shit.

Those in Manchester who experienced the tragedy second hand via the media are a distance away from all three, in fourth.

People in Manchester haven't experienced it via the media, though.

You are talking about a city where hundreds of thousands lived close enough to hear the explosion go off, and where we all then had to go about daily life knowing the network was still at large and could be living next door. That's not experiencing it via the media, that's experiencing it in our daily lives.

You can make the point you're making about circles of grief etc and there being a distinction between being bereaved and simply being in the place where the event happened whilst also understanding that if you lived locally, you were experiencing something in person. That basically, there is another circle between the rescuers and people whose only involvement was via media. If you still think those people shouldn't be marking it in any way (and obviously bear in mind that some people getting tattoos fit into your two closest circles) that's ok, but do think about the distinction.