If you came of age in the 1960s and decided to get a tattoo, you probably did it to show that you didn't want to belong to the rich trendy establishment.
But if you came of age in the past ten years and got a tattoo, you probably did it to show that you did belong to the rich trendy establishment.
Tattooing as a form of self-expression has moved from the domain of heavy metal "bad boy" rock stars, military lifers, and Harley-Davidson road hogs in the 1970s to being common among film stars, athletes, and pop stars. From Sir Ian McKellen to Angelina Jolie, Mike Tyson to David Beckham, and Eminem to Brittany Spears, tattoos have become mainstream.
Dating back to King Harold II, who died in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, and whose disfigured corpse was identified, legend has it, by the "Edith and England" tattooed on his chest, even members of the various royal houses of Europe have indulged themselves in the colorful art. Princess Stephanie of Monaco is only the most recent in a long line of them.
Life Magazine, in 1936, estimated that about 6%, or ten million, of all Americans had tattoos; in 2003, according to a Harris Poll, nearly one in six, or about fifty million, given today's population of three hundred million, is sporting them.
And only last year, in 2006, the American Academy of Dermatology reported that almost one in four of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 50, and more than one in three of those between 18 and 29, have a tattoo.
Tattoos, in other words, are hot. And with the burgeoning demand for them, there is a burgeoning demand for tattoo parlors. But anytime there's money to be made, there will be those who want to make it in the easiest way possible. So if you are considering getting a tattoo of you own, you need to watch your own, possibly soon to be decorated, back.
