people with tattoos used to be a genuine sideshow attraction, a real anomaly. barnum and bailey would feature them. they were not humbug. people were awed by it.
one of my jokes i’ve done at standup, which usually gets a good laugh, goes like this:
when i was a little kid, and i saw a guy with a tattoo, i thought: ‘wow, look at this guy’. …..now i see a tattoo and all i can think is ‘this guy once had $200″
this sometimes gets a laugh and sometimes not. i don’t care that it does. part of me can’t resist social commentary, even at the expense of my own happiness.
what is the deal with tattoos? do you have any? why? where? what does it mean? why does that meaning …… ‘mean’ anything?
i’m seeing tattoos on more and more people lately. and as i tend to do, i wonder what it’s about.
a sleeve, a tat that goes across the top of a girls’ chest, something huge on only one of some guy’s pectoral?
when an act of self expression becomes so commonplace, does it lose it’s meaning?
is it possible that this form of self customization is a response to a world of seemingly endless variety of personality and a reaction of the seeming anonymity of it all? does social networking and the narcissism that is fostered in that environment have anything to do with it?
you tell me?
