If you want to get a tattoo you have answer yes to the following question:

Have you ever been into a fight as an adult?

Otherwise you should reconsider.

The popularity of tattoos is at the point where you see a lot of skinny, frail men getting them. Before I came to Colombia I remember witnessing the jarring sight of an emaciated man wearing a horizontal striped shirt with a rainbow colored sleeve tat (his sleeves were rolled up). My suspicion is that men like him are getting tats to appear tough.

“I’m not going to work on building my confidence, go to the gym, or even approach girls. I’m just going to get this here outrageous tat and graduate to being a bad ass right away! Where my groupies at!”

The only man I know who is qualified to have a tattoo is Virgle Kent, the most violent, ill-tempered man I know. Do you have a friend who considers getting a beer bottle smashed on his head the warm-up to a fight? Well I do (true story). He breaks heads up and down 18th Street with frightening regularity and that’s why he’s my buddy.

Today’s tattoo trend is reducing the value of his tattoos. The only way to rectify the problem is if guys like VK grab tatooed betas by the collar and demand they laser it off. He can pull a Fight Club and take their drivers license and say he’ll visit soon to check on them. Or he can use a piece of glass from the street to carve up their tat right then and there, leaving the wannabe tough guy in a pool of his own tears and blood.

In twenty years, when even your mom has a tattoo, I’m afraid it will not convey the bad ass qualities as before (for proof take a look at what happened to the mohawk). Instead, only those who know how to cave in faces will be seen as cool.

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What about guys who LOOK like they can beat people up?

I’d include them into the category of dudes who can get tattoos.

I’m opening up my laser tattoo removal shop next week, I plan on retiring off of it within 10 years, 7 if the current crop of sorority chicks haven’t figured out how lame tramp stamps are yet.

thedcam’s last blog post: Road Trip Buddies, Aggressive Drivers.

ha ha ha ha, great you know you just put a target on my back. Now every beta will take shots to see what’s up.

Also only on 18th street, never in China town… them Asians are faster than they look, true story

I agree that the prevalence of tattoos has gotten out of hand.

But disagree that guys are getting them to play the tough angle. Tattoos these days seem to be more about playing the “creative/artistic/spiritual/independent thinker” angle; tattoos are the kind of thing people get “just for the experience,” like eating shrooms or backpacking through Europe.

This is a big assumption that mostly applies to people getting tattoos in prison. People getting tattoos to remember dead loved ones, or a mother getting tattoos of their kids’ names is just to look tough? Nerds get tattoos of video game characters they love so that they look tough? I can’t agree with you there.

Or you could go the Steve-O route and get a big-as possible self portrait on your back. Lol. Love it…and it will lend 100% of its effect to you looking batshit insane rather than tough. The only people that I give a wide-as-possible berth are the crazy/unpredictable. I’d never fuck with a lunatic like Steve-O…

VK’s been known to bust a head or two on U Street as well. Just sayin’.

(much apprecited, btw)

appreciAted

every time we go to adams morgan, VK is throwin bows. true story.

Ha.

I was going to write on this subject as well.

Remember the days when you had to be a hood or served jail time to have tattoos?

I do.

It was ten years ago.

- MPM

The G Manifesto’s last blog post: The G Manifesto in The New York Times.

i once kicked a cabbie’s car door. i think i earned my cad stamp (a mountain gorilla just above my pubes).

roissy’s last blog post: Why Do Some Men Bang Below Their Level?.

Once, I had a kidney stone. The urologist said it was too big to pass on its own and that they were going to have to cut it out. I told them no, and a few days and some blood coming out of my junk later I achieved victory.

I also have tattoos, but they are of neither kidneys or stones.

I can’t imagine why anybody wants something permanently stained on their body. I especially don’t understand the tattoo epidemic amongst women, unless you’re one of those uber-sexy suicide girl rocker chics.

roosh, i gotta say tattoos:toughness::game:alphaness.

men get tattoos to put on the air of toughness while they also adopt game to put on the air of an alpha. in a way, both game and tattoos devalue the toughness and alphaness of men who naturally have those qualities.

but we can make the case that bad tattoos (which most are) are like bad Game: they’re both really annoying and give us all something to laugh at.

Chuck’s last blog post: My Worst Hits.

this post would have been more pertinent 3 years ago. the popularity of tattoos has been waning for awhile now.

that being said, agreed.

yeah, but unless a guy is getting a butterfly or something sensitive like that, usually the tattoos have the effect of making them look a bit tougher. Guys can deny it, but they generally like this effect on perception.

Case in point, last night I went out in philly and saw a typical skinny art school vegan hipster tatted up from wrists to neck. You might think he’s tough at first glance. Then, if you look hard at his 21 year old baby face, and imagine him without the tats, he would look like a total geek.

I’ve been in adult fights (about 3), was a former state ranked wrestler, and have been through a lot of other shit, but haven’t been able to justify a tat yet. I almost punched a guy with a mohawk in the face this weekend though. He was a douche, and acting tough at a wedding I was at. That would have felt good… And he would have never seen it coming due to my lack of tats:D

I heard about guy who was not a Hell’s Angel who got a Hell’s Angels tattoo in order to look like a badass. Of course, some real Hell’s Angels saw it, and they took him down to the tattoo parlor and had a big black square tattooed over the unauthorized HA tattoo. Ouch!

“they took him down to the tattoo parlor and had a big black square tattooed over the unauthorized HA tattoo.”

He is lucky they didn’t remove it with a blow torch.

- MPM

The G Manifesto’s last blog post: The G Manifesto in The New York Times.

I wish more young women especially would consider getting a temporary tattoo if they just -have- to have one. A young woman’s firm, glowing skin is much more comely than a tattoo-practitioner’s drawings-stenciled upon her flesh.

Thedcam may very well indeed be making a great deal of money removing tattoos in the future. Tattoos on ageing flesh are decidedly less alluring than they are on supple, nubile skin. Personally I think a lovely young woman looks best just the way is…………..no tats or piercings (although some jewelry can add a nice touch, especially one of those little belly chains or ankle bracelets).

I think getting a tattoo is like putting a wing on the trunk of your car. Having a big obnoxious wing on your car irritates people and tends to invite people to race you at stoplights. In the latter case, if you’ve just slapped a huge wing on your ford escort you will be extra annoying and look like a big fool when even teenagers in a minivan can take you out.

Prior to the 80’s only the lower class had tattoos, and the only woman I ever saw with a tattoo was a carnival worker. The middle class didn’t have tattoos because they were worried about being mistaken for the lower class. The upper class (e.g., celebrities) distinguished themselves from the middle class via glamour and possessions.

By the 80’s, the middle class experienced expanded wealth, and nerds like Bill Gates made fortunes. Attempting to emulate the upper class, the middle class now wore designer clothes, vacationed in Italy, flew first class, built McMansions, and stomped all over Martha’s Vineyard. The upper class was in danger of being mistaken for the middle class.

Celebrities responded to this threat by dressing and acting like the lower class, secure in the knowledge that they had far too much status to ever be mistaken for the lower class. Celebrities began behaving badly, getting tattoos, wearing ugly torn clothes, fighting, and getting arrested. The first female celebrity I saw with a tattoo was Cher. She appeared on Letterman sporting a tattoo; he mocked her tattoo; she called him an asshole. I can’t imagine that scenario playing out between Lauren Bacall and Johnny Carson in the 70’s.

Attempting to emulate the upper class, the middle class responded with tattoos, designer jeans that were pre-faded and torn, shabby chic décor, casual Friday’s and then casual everyday, and public humiliation by behaving badly on reality TV. Today, everyone dresses and acts like the lower class.

Who knows what celebrities will do next to distinguish themselves from the middle class.

Nice perspective, Wilbur. And pretty much all true. I’m a middle/lower class kid that went to an elite private school with the upper class. I can tell you that tattoos would be ridiculed/heavily talked about if my old classmates were to see them. Although, it would probably be less than 15 years ago, because they wouldn’t want to be seen as completely unhip. But the venom would still be present in their snarky commentary.

Even if celebrities in the public eye (mostly originally from the lower/middle class) can get away with it, the old money upper class rules still apply among its members.

Lucky for me, I could give a shit about my old classmates.

Tattoos used to be a way of marking yourself out as different. Now everyone has them.

In order to be different now you need to not have any tattoos.

I am different.

[...] Roosh outlines the requirement for getting a tattoo. [...]

Tattoos can be a SWPL thing, too.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/02/10/121-funny-or-ironic-tattoos/

Roosh-
What about tattoos on fire, military and law enforcement personnel?

Haha! Me and my brother were just talking about this a few weeks ago. I find it really interesting how most PUA’s (for lack of better words) notice the same rising trends. We were talking about how guys that you would otherwise consider “nerds” are walking around with tatted sleeves while drinking a chai latte with thick rimmed glasses and a beret cap. Tattoos are viewed as nothing more than a trend now.

I’m starting a new trend. The factory paint aka no tats. Or better yet scars. I’m a Kung Fu instructor. Let a hipster take a staff to the head or a fist to the gut and then we’ll talk.

Dude I love your site and all but this is the stupidest thing I have read. Tattoos have many meanings to many different peoples. In some cultures they have religious meanings. For people like my grandfather and I, Men in the military got tattoos as a right of passage or to symbolize dead friends, and significant events at sea. Does a guy have to be able to crush heads if he wants a tattoo to memorialize a dead family member? I agree if your a some wimpy art fag you have no business getting tattoos of ships/anchors/swallows/mermaids when you’ve never served in the military and don’t understand the meaning of the ink you place on your body. However you don’t have to be a meathead to rock some nice ink either.

I was into tattoos since i was a kid. Way before i knew about it “being tough”. Agreed some just get it to jump on the bandwagon, but to me its art.

I came to an old thread, there is no middle class anymore