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By infmom, March 4, 2010 12:43 pm

From the very beginning of time, no doubt, it’s been true that any part of the human body that could be tattooed, would be.   Until recently, though, eyeballs were only tattooed to cover up imperfections, and the work was done by doctors.

It is now possible, with the help of the right artist, to re-color the whites of your eyes.  The process has to be done with a syringe, not a regular tattoo needle.  Color is injected just under the surface and spreads out.  All reports indicate that this is an incredibly painful procedure.

Here is a recent story from the Huffington Post about a couple of guys who got the eyeball tattoos done in prison.  Apparently it is one way to prove how tough you are.  No kidding.  Given the decidedly nonsterile environment in prison cells, and the decidedly nontraditional equipment available to do the job, it’s a wonder these guys lived to tell the tale.  Whether they’ll still have their eyesight a year or two down the road, who knows?

Ordinarily my attitude toward body art and body mods is “whatever floats your boat.”  Tongue splitting, lizard spots, plastic beads under the skin, whatever.  But to deliberately put your eyes in jeopardy?  This is the only time I have found myself saying out loud, “What were they THINKING!!!”

There are quite a few web sites out there devoted to eye tattoos / scleral tattooing / etc.  I’m not going to link to them, because the few I looked at while researching this post made me queasy.  It’s my blog and I ain’t a-gonna make myself sick. 

What do you think about this?  Do you have any tattoos in less-common places yourself?
photo credit: dullhunk

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By infmom, February 5, 2010 3:44 pm

Ever notice how at this time of year, advertisers are all about “the big game”?  Seems the phrase “Super Bowl” is copyrighted and nobody can use it without paying for it.  Good thing the Super Ball was invented before the Super Bowl, hmm?

In honor of this weekend’s major wingding, here’s another bad-tattoo site:  Sports Worst Tattoos.  Don’t be eating those corn chips or drinking that beer while you look. 

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By infmom, January 28, 2010 11:34 am

Once you go looking for whoopsiedoodles by non-native speakers of various languages, the fun never ends.

I have a link to Hanzi Smatter (for Asian character stupidity) in my Blogroll, and it’s well worth a look if you think you really really want something in an Asian alphabet.

Today’s discovery is Bad Hebrew Tattoos.  It never ceases to amaze me the amount of trouble one can get into, not actually being able to write a language. 

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By infmom, January 26, 2010 1:09 pm

Image via Wikipedia

I”ve already talked about people who get Asian characters they don’t understand inked on themselves.  It appears that Asian languages are not alone.

Thanks to Tales of a Wayward Classicist for this lovely discussion of bad Latin tattoos.

It seems there’s no end to the stuff people don’t know they’re putting on their skin. 

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By infmom, January 12, 2010 12:47 pm

The Catster web site just posted an article entitled “Tatts on Cats?” Some nut case had a Sphynx cat anaesthetized so the cat could be tattooed with a picture of King Tut.

As a tattooed person and a cat lover, words simply cannot express my disgust.

What do you think? You can read the article here.
photo credit: Vironevaeh

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By infmom, December 5, 2009 9:08 pm

I put my name on the list for Dan Brown’s new novel at the library quite a while ago, and today I made it to the top of the list.

I have never considered Mr. Brown a world class novelist, although I’ve enjoyed reading his books.  But this time he’s lost me.  Oh, I’ll finish the book, but when you start off by having a character tattoo the top of his own bald head and then immediately slap makeup all over it…

If Mr. Brown wants to write about tattooed people again, I offer my services as a consultant!

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By infmom, October 26, 2009 3:02 pm

A reader recently asked if some tattoo placements were more masculine or feminine.  It’s an interesting question!

There’s no doubt that some tattoo placements seem to be associated more with one gender than the other.  The classic place for a man’s tattoo is on a bicep.  The “tramp stamp” (just above the butt crack) placement seems to be favored mostly by women.  Women seem to like bracelets and anklets while men like arm bands.

But as with everything associated with tattoos, where they go on your body is your choice.  My daughter has a fantastic arm band, an original design incorporating a red-tailed hawk (her great-grandmother’s totem animal).  I have seen men with great designs on their lower backs.  It’s all a matter of personal preference, and if some genders choose one place more than other, that doesn’t mean the other gender is out of luck.

As I’ve said before, one of the most important things you can do before you get a tattoo is to think about where you’d like to put it.  You have to take a lot of things into consideration.  Will the ink need to be covered by clothing most of the time so it won’t put employers off, or do you want it to be visible most of the time?  Do you want the ink on an area of the body that is known to be painful to tattoo?  Is your design so large that it has to go on a larger area of skin?  Those things, far more than any notion of “masculine” or “feminine” placement, are what you should be considering.

If where you want your ink is a place favored by the opposite gender, that’s your choice.  You are, after all, decorating your own body in your own way, so who cares if someone else thinks it’s in the wrong place?  Just get the very best tattoo you can, with personal significance, and then sit back and enjoy your beautiful decorations.

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By infmom, September 29, 2009 12:49 pm

I take an art class once a week at the local community college, and I get there on the bus.  I didn’t think it was necessary to buy a semester parking pass for a class that meets once a week, plus the fact that a bus pass costs $2 and a parking pass is up to $60 these days.  (Local city bus, half the time the fare boxes are broken, so the 10-ride $2 pass often lasts me for most of a semester.)

When I get on the bus at about 7am, it’s smashed full of high school kids.  I am not a morning person, so most of the time I don’t notice much about my surroundings.  I’m too busy trying to hang on as the lead-footed driver lurches from stop to stop (no chance of any kid actually getting up and letting the old lady sit down, believe me).  But last week I noticed something.

High school kids with really bad tattoos.  I mean REALLY bad.  Wavering lines, ugly pictures, gang style calligraphy that looked like it was done by someone who had lost their eyeglasses and was staggering drunk.  Girls with illegible writing on their necks that had already spread out and changed from black to blue.

I wonder how many of them will think that ink reflects who they are in five years.  Five years is not much when you get to be my age, but the difference between 18 and 23, yeah, that’s significant.

In five years, those kids are going to be paying for the tattoo removal clinic’s new offices.  They are going to be sitting there day after day getting that glop zapped off them.  No matter how cool they think that stuff looks now, when they’re out there trying to find a job, they’re not going to dazzle anyone with that kind of personal adornment unless they want work in a biker bar.  They probably won’t be hanging around with the same bunch of friends who thought that ink was such hot stuff.  There goes one major incentive to keep it.

I remember how sure I was at that age that what I wanted inked was what I should have, forever.  A cute little flower in green ink behind my left ankle on the inside.  I used to draw it on my skin with a green pen.  Now that I’m old enough to have a tattooed daughter who’s herself old enough to have children, I look back at my green flower and smile.  It wouldn’t have been a disaster to get that permanently inked (had there been such a thing as a tattoo parlor within 200 miles) but it sure wouldn’t have been something I’d show off with pride.  If I’d gotten some of the ugly junk I saw on the bus I’d be looking for someplace to buy a burka.

There’s a reason why people younger than 18 can’t legally get tattooed.  A very good reason.  But the problem is, as with so many other things in life, making people wait till they’re a certain age means that the minute they pass that birthday, off they go.  And these kids definitely went.

Have I turned into someone who ought to be yelling at kids to get off my lawn and get away from the tattoo parlors?  Do people not spend time planning what they want any more?  Is this the resurgence of the “if it feels good, do it” generation?

Ugh.
photo credit: GORGEOUSBOO

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By infmom, August 13, 2009 11:46 am

I suspect there are not too many other grey-haired ladies driving around town in geezermobile Buicks (OK, we inherited it, we didn’t buy it, honest!) and blasting the reggaeton station on the stereo.  Well, what can I say?  I like reggaeton (I’m amused that not long ago I was one of only a few Gizmodo readers who knew who Wisin & Yandel were).

Of course, that station is geared toward, shall we say, a younger audience than the classic rock station I also listen to a lot, and thus the products advertised are somewhat…  different.  The other day, in among the ads for acne products, boob jobs, trade schools and so forth I caught one for a product used to fade tattoos.  And when I heard the product name I could not believe my ears.

Wrecking Balm?  They want us to buy a product called   Wrecking Balm?  Ye gods.  No matter how much I wanted to get rid of a tattoo, I could not imagine putting anything called Wrecking Balm anywhere near my skin.

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By infmom, May 6, 2009 5:50 pm

I was watching the “Ancient Ink” show (for the third time) the other day, and musing about how we humans seem eternally determined to decorate ourselves permanently.

Some of the methods ancient people used to decorate their bodies were incredibly painful (for that matter, some of the methods modern people use to decorate their bodies must hurt just as much). Cutting the skin and rubbing ashes into it, sewing lines under the skin with sinew coated with soot, branding, pounding pigment into the skin… yes, people have to be very determined and very brave.

And yet there’s evidence that our ancestors did it on a regular basis. We don’t know for sure why, or whether the designs were purely decorative, ceremonial or or medicinal purposes. We don’t know why paint, beads, feathers, etc were not enough and why a permanent mark was the only possible choice. Speaking as someone who wanted a tattoo for 30 years before actually getting one, I can say that the urge to get these permanent decorations can be both strong and lasting.

People in the modern world get tattoos to decorate, to acknowledge life milestones, to show membership in a group, for protection and to demonstrate our spiritual beliefs. We don’t want temporary decorations–we want something that will for all intents and purposes last forever.

Watching the host of “Ancient Ink” and the other people in the documentary go through the most painful processes to pay homage to human tradition gave me the sense that as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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