I Have Tattoos. Here's Why They're A Bad Idea.

(upbeat music) Major news dropped this week. You no doubt notice the ground trembling beneath your feet and felt a violent blast of hot wind blowing across the country as the news of this event slammed into the planet like an asteroid the size of a stadium, leaving a gaping crater in the Earth's crust. The whole world was shaken. Everything changed. Nothing will ever be the same again. Congresswoman Nancy Mace got some tattoos. Now we'll put the images up on the screen for those who find the claim wildly implausible. There they are. Let's prove the pictures that Nancy Mace took to show the world her new tattoos. There are a lot of them on both arms. There's two whole sleeves of tattoos. There are some flowers and some religious imagery and some random phrases and also the word justice. There is no justice in the world, but now at least we have it on Nancy Mace's left biceps. So that's something. Now I know about these tattoos, not because I was seeking information about Nancy Mace's tattoos or Nancy Mace in general, but because multiple media outlets issued urgent reports on the subject, USA Today, the near post, Yahoo Newsweek, the Hill, the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, which evidently still exists. All put their best reporters on the Nancy Mace tattoo beat. There was so much conversation about the tattoos that snopes published a fact check title. Does Nancy Mace have arm tattoos? And there then follows an entire article to inform us that the answer is yes, she does have arm tattoos. That's it, that's the fact check. Now I have nothing further to say on the subject of Nancy Mace's tattoos in particular, but this breathtaking development did prompt another round of discussion and debate about tattoos in general. Everyone seems to have them now, if not everyone that a lot of people do. Recent survey finds that 32% of Americans have a tattoo. In fact, more women than men are now sporting tattoos. And more than half of women between the ages of 18 and 49 have at least one tattoo, more than half. Now that number drops off, drops off a little bit for women over 50, but Nancy Mace who is almost 50 is determined to pad those stats. Now back in the old days, only bikers and prison inmates had tattoos and they were all men. And now the average 23 year old college graduate who's a female has the kinds of permanent skin markings that used to be exclusively the province of large men with felony convictions. Now some people consider this a bad thing, a sign of cultural decline. Others say that it's a good thing. You know, it's a sign that the culture is becoming more accepting of individual expression. And you may think that I am in no place to litigate this issue objectively after all. I have a tattoo right here. It's the Cairo on my forearm that I got when I was in my early 20s. I have another tattoo across on the opposite shoulder that I also got in my early 20s. And in fact, I have a third tattoo. I have the words thug life printed across my stomach, but I don't like to talk about that one. So let's just call it two tattoos for the sake of argument. So will I now stand up alongside my fellow tattooed Americans, my brothers and sisters of the Inc, and defend the beauty and virtue of tattoos? Well the answer is in fact, no, I won't. I actually agree mostly with the tattoo critics. I think this whole tattoo thing has gotten way out of hand. Everybody needs to stop with the tattoos. Okay, it's too much. It's too much. Now to be clear, I'm not saying that I regret my tattoos per se. They're both meaningful in the sense that they obviously denote my Christian faith. At least I didn't get like a tribal arm band permanently branding myself as a guy who loved three days grace in 2002. At least I didn't get a Chinese symbol that it was popular for a while, that I was told means harmony or whatever, but really just means Kung Pao chicken with fried rice. At least I didn't get random words or designs. At least I didn't get a Disney character. So I'm not embarrassed by the tattoos. I don't feel the need to explain them, except for right now. My take on my own tattoos is this. I don't have any urge to get them removed, but I also would absolutely never get another one. If I could go back in time and a time machine, would I have still gotten these tattoos? Probably not. Mostly because if I'm going back in a time machine, I don't want to waste the day sitting in a tattoo parlor. But in summary, my tattoos are fine. They're okay. You know, I've got bigger problems in my life at the very least. Hot nights have a way of turning sleep into a nightly negotiation. 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I am as happy about the decision that my 23 year old self made in that tattoo parlor as a 40 year old man could possibly be. Things have worked out tattoo-wise as well as you could ever hope. And still it's just fine. It's okay. The tattoos didn't ruin my life. They have not invited endless ridicule. I mean, I am subject endless ridicule, but it's not because of the tattoos. I haven't lost out at any jobs because of them. And people don't stare at my tattoos and gawk and laugh and say stuff like, "Oh man, how many Yeager bombs did it take to come up with that idea?" Like, I don't get those kinds of comments. Instead, people, if they say anything about my tattoos, which they usually don't, but if they do, they'll gesture and say something like, "Oh, tattoo, huh?" And I'll say, "Yeah." And they'll say, "Cool." And that's about the extent of the conversation that this permanent mark on my body has generated. Which is to say, again, it's fine. It's fine. It's not awful. It's definitely not awesome though. It's not wonderful. It's not a thing that I feel amazingly great about. So my point is that if you are making a permanent decision, if you're doing something that save an expensive and painful procedure will be a permanent part of your physical appearance forever, something that will literally brand you, something that will potentially impact how other people see you and perceive you and treat you forever, then that decision in order to be worth it must have a much, much higher ceiling than just, it's fine. Because the floor is much, much lower than it's fine. The floor for a tattoo is embarrassment, humiliation, looking like a jackass or a moron, depending on what tattoos you got and where you got them. And even if you don't hit the floor, like the more likely stratosphere where most people will end up floating, is just kind of looking like a bit of a trend following nerd. And that was never a possible outcome of tattoos until recently. You know, it used to be that even if you got a terrible tattoo that ruined your life, at least you were rebellious. And now that's gone because everybody has them. So the most likely outcome is that you've just sort of branded yourself with a 2020 trend that will not stay trendy forever because trends never do. Eventually tattoos will be the equivalent of somebody dancing the macarena in 2026. At best it will have kind of a ironic nostalgia vibe. But more likely you'll just look like a weird dork. Now tattoo apologists will say, as I noted, that tattoos are all about individual expression. But they're way too common and trendy to be individual, like saying that your tattoos are a form of individual expression, it's like saying that your blue jeans are a part of, or a form of individual expression. Now your blue jeans might look fine or they might not, but one thing they will never be is individualistic. And at least with the blue jeans, you can take them off and change them, getting a tattoo, it's like picking out your favorite style of blue jeans and making a blood oath to only wear those jeans, including in the pool, in the shower and to bed for the rest of your life. A stylistic choice, which is what blue jeans are and what tattoos are, should never be permanent. There is no upside to pledging yourself to that choice until the end of your days, whether it's jeans or a haircut or a t-shirt or a little fun design on your skin, it is a style choice. And you have to allow for the fact that at some point in your life, your style might change. Now, what about expression? You know, tattoos are most assuredly not individualistic at all anymore. Are they at least a form of expression? Well, sort of, yes, but only in the way that bumper stickers are expressions. You know, I often think this about bumper stickers and I think it was Louis CK that had, or somebody has a bit about this, which I'm sure is more insightful and funnier than what I'm about to say. But picking back on the point, when you put a bumper sticker on your car, you are engaging in expression. But you're signing yourself on to that particular expression, whatever it is, which will be conveyed to anyone who happens to be behind you in traffic, whoever that is, for as long as you own that car. Now sure, maybe you find a bumper sticker that's kind of funny, but could any bumper sticker joke possibly be funny enough that you want to tell it to every single person you ever pass in traffic for the next 11 years? Like it's just not possible that anyone could ever put something on a bumper sticker that justifies that level of commitment and repetition. So for example, I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, no airbags. We die like real men. And it was kind of funny. I admit, it was the first time I'd seen that. And I saw that and I thought, ah, funny. But is that joke really so funny that you need to go around telling it to everyone? Is it people a day for years? Like you would never do that in person. You would never go to a party, introduce yourself to 27 people and open with the same joke. Like you go up to one person, hey, I'm Bob, but you know, I don't have airbags. Yeah, I die like a real man. Then you walk across the room, hey, Bob here, guess what? You know, I don't have airbags. And then you go over to the person standing by the veggie tray, hey, names Bob, I don't know if you heard about the whole airbags situation, yeah, I don't have them. I die like a real man. Like eventually the joke gets old is the point and actually gets old really quickly. So if fixing it to your vehicle in a manner that cannot be removed without taking paint with it makes no sense. So the bumper sticker is expression, but it's a stock, cliched expression that is conveyed the same way to everyone forever, which makes it hardly expression at all. And tattoos are the same, but worse, because they're on your body. And they're requiring medical procedure to remove if they can be removed. Again, you're expressing something, but it's a stock, cliched pre-packaged thing that you're announcing to everybody forever always, which is to say it's hardly expression at all. It's like hallmark card expression at best. And you would never commit yourself to only one hallmark card for the next six decades. So why would you commit yourself to a design on your body? Here's what I can tell you, as a 40-year-old man cursed to live with the stylistic choices of a 23-year-old man, I never wake up and look at my arm and say, "Oh, glad that's still there." Thank God. Thank God that's still there. I am so happy with that decision. No middle-aged adult feels that way about the tattoos they got when they were younger. None of them. That kind of tattoo euphoria cannot be maintained if you ever experienced it at all. Instead I generally wake up and I don't think about it. In fact, I go days and I forget that I even have the tattoo. And when I remember, I shrug my shoulders and I say, "Yep, so there's that." And anybody in my vicinity asks me why I'm talking to my own arm. Anyway, the tattoo is not worth it in the end. If you want to spend 700 bucks on something, go buy an iPad or a used couch or dinner at five guys. The tattoo is not a worthwhile investment for anyone, including Nancy Mace. And that is why tattoos are today canceled.