Celebrity Tattoo Craze “Stupid”

By Kimbra McCaul
Staff Writer

You may not be a pirate or a Polynesian tribesman, but with today’s changing times and more open mind-set, the chance that you or some non-pirate you know has a tattoo is more likely than ever before.

Tattoos have been around for at least 5,000 years, with the first tattoos dating back to the Copper Age, but now more than ever you see celebrities, mothers, teachers and all sorts of people, wearing them proudly with little concern about what other people think.

Monica Painter got her first tattoo at 18, started apprenticing to be a tattoo artist at 19 and now, at 26, is covered with them. The aptly named Painter enjoys her job creating permanent art on others in the Bay Area.

“It’s good [that it’s mainstream], I mean, it gives me a job. Everything goes mainstream one-way or the other. Sometimes it sucks when you end up doing that trendy bullshit.”

That “trendy bullshit” can be more clearly specified by Painter as celebrity tattoos: exact replicas of what today’s hottest celebrities are getting inked on their bodies. The most popular was once the rosary tattoo Nicole Richie has around her ankle, but most recent requested celebrity ink has been surpassed in popularity by Rihanna’s cascading star tattoo.

“Celebrity tattoos are always popular,” said Painter. “So whatever Rihanna has is popular. That stupid star thing on her neck, people ask for it all the time.”

“Miley Cyrus just got some stupid tattoo on her ribcage and someone asked for that the other day,” Painter continued. “I hate knowing this stuff, but I just know it because people come in and ask for it and I have to go Google pictures of Miley Cyrus to look for the tattoo. It’s so dumb.”

Painter isn’t the only one who disapproves of the celebrity-tattoo craze. Hayward resident Jonathan Cullen takes pride in his tattoos particularly for their personal meanings and individual value. Cullen feels that when people get celebrity-tattoos, it shows “a lack of originality and imagination.”

Cullen, 19, had already decided what he wanted to get, though the decision to go through with it was quite spur-of-the-moment.

“I got it because it symbolized a transitory time in my life, and marked a constant reminder that ‘everything happens for a reason.’ It was a ‘Buddhist endless knot,’” said Cullen.

Now with six tattoos, Cullen has plans for more, but he believes the timing should be right. Like his other tattoos, the timing and meaning go hand-in-hand. The excitement of it all feeds the need for more.

“I think there’s a degree of an adrenaline rush,” said Cullen. “The environment and whole experience, including the pain, makes you feel alive.”

Still, some people feel tattoos will place a certain stigma on them, create an issue with employers, or just worry what society will think of them.

Bekky Malesich is a mother of two, and she has been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo for years; however, she doesn’t want anything bad enough to actually get it done.

“I don’t have tattoos because they are so permanent—it makes me nervous. It makes me nervous because I don’t want in five years from now to regret doing it,” Malesich said.

“I like them, I think they’re pretty and are a neat way to express yourself artistically,” Malesich continued.

One reason Malesich would now consider getting a tattoo is the recent advancement in the technology used in tattoo-removal.

This technology acts as the major difference between the tattoo culture of today and the tattooed renegades of the past. What was once considered permanent is no longer so.

Sailors used tattoos as a way to commemorate their time at sea, gang members use tattoos to show their affiliation and today people commonly use tattoos as an art form to tell something special about themselves.

“I like when people like the art that I do, like ask me to draw them something,” said Painter. “Or kind of give me an idea and let me run with it—that’s when it’s fun. When I’m not restricted—when I don’t have to do ‘I want this Rihanna tattoo.’ To me, it’s just another medium.”

“[Tattooing has] been around for so long, and I feel like my job will never be replaced by a computer or a robot. It was something for sailors, rebels and pirates. It’s more mainstream now. The history is really cool,” Painter said.

Over the course of time, their permanence has changed, yet the importance of a tattoo’s significance to its wearer has stayed the same.