Is he suffering depression Hola?...not a nice thing to have tattooed (in my opinion).

I would also draw to his attention (if he is wanting to travel overseas in the future) that it could get him into trouble in  some countries.

https://www.mappingmegan.com/illegal-tattoos-traveling-with-tattoos-countries-where-tattoos-are-not-allowed/

 

Hi Hola, I don't like tattoos, even small ones, but to have something like that on your chest is a bit of a worry.

Could be he's just saying that to have a few laughs, but it could have serious repercussions. I hope his parents can dissuade him from doing it.

Hola,

I think a lot of young folk have some trouble establishing who they are and finding some sort of personal identity which leads to the apparent rejection of the status quo and finds a voice in rebellion of a sorts, such as a tattoo of the type mentioned.

Our current society with all its rules and reguations promotes this sort of behaviour as compared to the freedoms most of us had in our youth. We might not have had all the trappings todays young folk have but we did have the time and the freedom to establish where we were a fit in this living business in a far less complicated environment.

I do not condone it but I can understand it.

Take it easy.

SD

I have a Tatoo, blood group and name descreetly placed on my shoulder blade, at least I think it is still there, I very seldom see it.

Thanks folks for your input. WHen I last saw his remarks on Facebook he said someone had nicked his phone and had put it up, I think he got a shock to see one of his relations had seen it. Lets hope he rethinks what his life long motto will be. A friend's son, who has been out of work for a long long time, got $800.00 from his parents on turning 21. He went a got a large Tattoo on the front of his leg, a large owl, what an idiot, and owl is supposed to represent "Wisdom". Oh, the young ones today are a problem.

 

 

 

.... can't see that it's any one's  "business"  personally?  Long as the person is an Adult -   it's their choices in life!  

Hola - may I be impolite to suggest to you that -  it is NOT  "Oh, the young ones today are a problem" .........

...it is old old stick in the muds / set in their own archiac  "ways" - that are the "problem"!!!

 Move with the times for heavens sakes people - stop "bagging" young people!  Heaps of them are simply amazing -    tatts. or not!!!  :-)

Foxy -  I'm not an old stick in the mud, I have the broadest mind and have seen much of life. It's just when you see your Sister's  grandson being irresponsible with a " stupid statement."  I don't care if he gets a Tattoo, he already has 2 others, and those large holes in the ears. My Grandfather had a Tattoo of his Mother on his arm and anchors on the calves when he was in the Army back in 1910. When you see some young people with Tattoos all over their faces and bodies knowing they are unemployable and go on Centrelink for others to look after them, that's when it becomes a problem. 

From the Australian in June 2013...an interesting article...about 1/3 of people regret having tats and want removed.  Sorry this is a bit long but dont read if not interested.

"LOOK at this," says Tony Cohen, reaching over his inks to pull a stencil from the wall. "Can you believe this shit? A guy came in the other day wanting a tattoo of Bart Simpson! Ya get some dumb ones, you really do. I've left it up there because sure as anything I'll get some other dopey bastard who'll want it."

In 1969, when Cohen was just a boy in the tattoo game, there were three parlours in Sydney's CBD, and one or two out west. In the good old days there was no Bart Simpson, only panthers and roses and hearts with an arrow through them. "Only criminals got tattoos back then, or that's what people supposed," Cohen says. "Criminals, bikies and sailors - the view was you only got a tattoo if you were a bad person."

The 66-year-old, who owns Sydney's oldest parlour, The Illustrated Man, has watched in amazement and delight as his fringe craft has turned mainstream. He keeps waiting for the tattoo bubble to burst, but it just keeps getting bigger, more colourful, more lurid. Australians are getting inked at a phenomenal rate - skin specialists I contacted say that 10-20 per cent of their patients have one or more tattoos.

Industry sources say there are now more than 50 tattoo shops in inner Sydney, and one on almost every suburban shopping strip. There's even a controversial proposal to open a parlour in the north shore suburb of Mosman, one of the country's richest postcodes. Across Australia it's the same and towns that have watched their post office or bank branch disappear have gained a tattooist or two. The inland centre of Wagga Wagga supports three tattoo joints.

On one of the days I visit The Illustrated Man, a chilly Friday afternoon, Cohen is hard at work on a colourful carp that is swimming up the muscular left arm of Alex Malcolm, a 22-year-old carpenter who's flown in specially from Adelaide. Cohen, who inked Malcolm's old man 20 years ago, is halfway through the carp and another design of a fearsome dragon on the carpenter's left shoulder. This is the type of work Cohen enjoys - big, manly tattoos "that you can see from the other side of the street". I ask Malcolm why he has chosen to spend his hard-earned cash on flights and tattoos that, when complete, will cost him more than $2000. "Why not?" he shrugs. Do the carp and the dragon you'll have for the rest of your life hold some special significance? "Nah, not really," he says. "I just liked 'em." Who knows if he'll continue to like 'em at the age of 42, or 72.

In the next chair 23-year-old Jessica, a chirpy receptionist, is leaning forward with her jeans pulled halfway down her bum as another tattooist works on a large tattoo on her lower back. The tattoo - her seventh - is of The Voice judge Joel Madden and his wife Nicole Richie facing each other lovingly, sort of. "It's like a skeleton version of them - I always wanted a skeleton-couple-kind-of-thing." On her lower hip she has a pair of swallows; on her left rib the signature of her favourite singer, Ville Valo, from the Finnish rock band HIM; on her upper back she has the band's symbol; on her left side there is a large picture of a '50s pin-up girl at an easel. Somewhere else she has the lyrics of Look After You by The Fray: When I'm losing my control, the city spins around / You're the only one who knows, you slow it down... She's not really a fan, but she likes the words. Also, she and her best friend both have a small star on the left wrist. So far, her body art has cost her $3000.

Apart from the tattoo on her wrist, which she often covers with a Band-Aid, none of the tattoos are visible when she's clothed. She lives at home and says her parents would probably throw her out of the house if they found out. Jessica is very cautious and always wears a singlet, in case her shirt rides up. "I don't do it to be rebellious but I didn't want to live my life not getting a tattoo just because my parents don't approve." She tells me her last boyfriend told her she couldn't get any more. "I basically said, 'You know what, it's my body and I'll do what I want'." As for the relationship, she told him: "You know what? Nah."

At the risk of sounding old and conservative, I venture on. "But will all this mean something to you in years to come, when Joel Madden is as hip as Billy Joel?" "I will just have to wait until I get older," she says, shooting me an 'as if' stare. "They mean something to me now, so, you know." Whatever.

But there are plenty of people who harbour regrets. And while a tattoo used to be for life, it's not any more. Clinics offering tattoo removal have fed off the growth in tattooing. Dr Garry Cussell, who owns a string of cosmetic surgeries in Sydney, tells me there are now 10 or so specialist clinics like his in the CBD offering tattoo removal, and 50 other places, such as hairdressers with a laser machine, that also remove them - not very well, according to him. And, like a yin and yang on a muffin top, some tattoo parlours now also offer tattoo removal.

Cussell picks up a chunky three-dimensional model depicting a cross-section of the skin to explain how tattoos are removed. The laser is attracted to the pigment in the ink. It hits the tattoo pigment under the skin and breaks up the particles into sizes that can be absorbed by the body. Different frequencies and lasers are used to attack various pigments.

Scientists in the US have devised the "Kirby-Desai scale" to estimate how many treatments it will take to remove a tattoo. Black tattoos on fair skin are the easiest to remove, while coloured tattoos on dark skin are the most difficult. Because there is often burning and blistering, treatments can only be conducted every six to eight weeks. An average tattoo could take eight to 12 sessions to remove, at around $350 a session. The rule of thumb seems to be that whatever you outlaid for your body art, it will cost 10 times as much to erase it - and be patient, it'll take 18 months to two years.

People want to be rid of their tattoos for all sorts of reasons, Cussell says. For some, they hinder employment prospects; others just don't like the design. Some people want a partial removal so they can have a new tattoo applied. "I had a guy come in the other day with his boyfriend," he says. "He was fairly keen to have a woman's name removed from his chest." The deletion of the love that was to last forever is a frequent request. One tattooist told me he once had a request to put a line through the name Michelle and the words "Shit happens" tattooed beneath it.

And then there are the famously bad spellings, mistakes and just terrible tattoos. The cricketer Michael Slater had the number 356 tattooed on his body when he was, officially, the 357th person to make his test cricket debut for Australia. The former Penrith rugby league fullback Jarrod Sammut took off his shirt at a training session to proudly reveal his new tattoo - in big, bold letters across his chest it said: "Justify Your Existance".

But nothing beats the Geelong Cats fan Neville, who flew to Thailand in 2007 after his team's AFL triumph. He drew a picture of the tattoos he wanted on a piece of paper, along with instructions, and after 15 beers he sat down for five and half hours to prove what a loyal fan he was. It didn't quite end up as he'd planned. On his left arm, above the Cats mascot, the tattooist inked: "Left Arm, Night Premiers 2006." On his right arm, above another cat, instead of "Day Premiers 2007" what Neville got was "Right Arm, Gay Premiers 2007." He was prepared to show his tattoos in photos, but not his face.

Cohen tells me he is always fixing up other people's poor work, but admits to some mistakes of his own. Once "a big chubby chick" came in wanting the name "Tony" tattooed on her. "She said, 'Whatever you do, don't write 'Tiny'." Of course, she left, fuming, inscribed Tiny. Another time, when Cohen had his studio up at King Cross, a US Marine came in "full of piss and bad manners". He pointed at the tattoo he wanted. Cohen asked him if he was sure. He was adamant. Whatever you like, buddy. "The next day he came in and nearly tore my head off. I'd given him a Union Jack - he'd wanted the rose that was next to it."

Cohen has inked tens of thousands of people in his career but there are some tattoos he refuses to do - on the face, neck and sometimes on the hands. "I won't do any Nazi stuff either," he says. "If they come in wanting that, I send them off to the Jewish Museum." He's uncomfortable, too, with memorial tattoos, which are now popular; he was halfway through a portrait of a baby on a woman when he asked how the kid was going. "'He died six months ago,' she said. It's a bit creepy, but dead husbands, dead parents, dead kids, dead dogs - we've done 'em all," he says.

More than half his current customers are women and the old tattooist is worried about the female trend of having tattoos that spill down their shoulders and onto their forearms and hands. "I just wonder if they are going to love them in years to come."

It didn't take long for the love to fade for Emma Kayzer. She got her first tattoo at the age of 16 when she and a mate visited a man doing them from his home in Kings Cross. "We didn't think of the dangers, the health risks; we just thought, 'Oh cool, we're getting a tattoo, isn't this great'." She had "Rad", as in radical, tattooed on her inside lip and "Punk rock" tattooed on a limb. She then had a succession of tattoos. Her ex-boyfriend's brother bought a tattoo machine off eBay and "began tattooing himself and everyone else, usually on the weekends after a few beverages". She's got swallows on her stomach. She's got the name of her then boyfriend, Jessie, below her left breast - but, of course, Jessie got himself another girl. A wave breaks on her foot. Among her 16 tattoos is one of her car, a VW Beetle. The symbol on her finger that once spelt peace now screams embarrassment. She's got lyrics from songs that now seem out of tune. The yin and yang on her back is no longer in harmony.

At 20, Kayzer, from Sydney's northern beaches, is in the process of having them all removed. "I guess that as I have grown, they just haven't grown with me," she says. Besides, she was a little squeamish having to explain to new boyfriends who Jessie was. It is costing her between $500 and $700 a session and will require eight to 10 treatments - a lot of money for someone working in a doggy daycare centre.

She says around half of her friends now have tattoos and her decision to have hers removed has been met with derision from some of them. Her opting out has provoked some rejection by the clan. Disdain for cool has consequences. She tells me that with the rise of home tattooing, some of her mates have truly awful tattoos. "My flatmate's friend wanted the word "respect" in big cursive script on his arm, but I can't believe they could get it so wrong. It says 'Respert'. He's left it there as a kind of running joke."

But what has caused this great herd of humanity to suddenly veer off and have a red-hot branding iron seared onto their arses? It is a yearning for belonging, according to Adam Geczy, an artist and academic at Sydney College of the Arts, who has studied tattoo culture. Traditionally, tattoos were a marker of initiation into a tribal society or a sect, like the Yakuza, or the mark of a man of the sea. "We are now living in a culture where people don't know where they belong," he muses. "Generations X, Y and Z are constantly in contact on Facebook and Twitter, thinking it is a community, but it is a void. If you go out and choose a Maori tattoo you have the luxury, and the shallowness, of initiating yourself. You are not being initiated into a clan, you are initiating yourself into yourself. You are giving yourself a kind of fetishised sense of belonging."

Geczy says the great growth in the number of people being tattooed, particularly women, is also part of the pornification of society, which has come with the internet age. He argues there is a strong link between body modification and porn. "So you have a prim girl who has a small rose on her shoulder - it's a wink to say, 'I have desires'." He continues: "Look, most people work in pretty boring jobs and have a problem with being interesting and having interesting identities." They see a tattoo as a way of making them seem more interesting. But it is all built on a false premise, he argues, and in time many people who have tattoos will live to regret their decisions. "Besides, it all looks hot when you are young but when you're an old man you look like an ageing stud." And, he ventures boldly, "There has never been, on a woman who is middle-aged, a tattoo that looked any good."

Al Fraser, a 42-year-old truck driver from western Sydney, is currently going through the financially painful process of having his tattoos removed. He got his first one at 16, thinking it would get him into pubs. He got another when he left the army at 25 - barbed wire wrapped around his forearm. He's now happily married and his tough-guy days are long gone.

He was told it would take eight sessions at $350 a session, plus about $30 for numbing cream each time, to have the two tattoos removed. "I'm a bit cranky, because it has cost me a lot more than I thought," he says. "They sucked me in." He is now up to his ninth session and there's a few more to go. The two tattoos cost him $220 - their removal will cost him more than $4000. "When I see all these young people with tattoos all over their arms and necks I think, 'Gee, that's going to cost you a lot of money some day'.

"I'd been thinking of having them removed for ages," he says, "but the icing on the cake was when I went to take my five-year-old daughter off for her first day at school and she said to me, 'Dad, can you please wear long sleeves.'" It almost broke his heart. It's a moment most of Generation Inked is yet to face.

.....who on earth would ever bother to try to even read all of that? You couldn't find anything a tad "shorter"???     lol lol  ....argh

RAPHAEL,    i have put my mobile onto pre emptive  text,   can you tell me how to get out of it please,      i did it once before but cant remember  how i got out of it,    im stuffed  without my phone,   

DONT BE A SMART ARSE WITH ME,      i wont ask for your help again, lol,lol,    i know nothing about phones,     i ring out and text,    and thats it,    that is all i want to do,     i dont live my life through a phone,    like some do,    it is a nessecary object to me,  

Back to tattoos 

Guess we have all heard of the Rose tattoos on breasts that later end up being hanging baskets but

Frogs on breasts end up with time, age and sagging and end up looking like wrinkled Toads! Thankfully they are normally kept covered up.

It is good that we all are able to express our opinions in this country ...we may not all agree on certain subjects  but we sure have a right to voice them.  So glad I was born an Aussie :)!