When people with ‘quality’ tattoos are asked to justify them they’ll say it’s their body and they mean something to them and they’re not obliged to explain themselves. Which doesn’t stop them mocking the underclass’ lack of taste in tattoos - some other rules apply when they’re trying to raise themselves up by stepping on those beneath them.
The reason Channel 4 didn’t do a documentary about quality tattoos, besides their usual remit of providing people with a cheap sense of moral superiority over ‘gypsies’ and the mentally ill, is that tattoo ‘art’ is a masturbatory minority subculture of little interest to anyone outside it. I’d imagine it would be an hour of people showing off their admittedly nicely-coloured pictures of birds on their backs and saying ‘It means something to me’ but we’ll always be in the dark as to what exactly it does mean.
I reckon you can get the same sort of thrill of tattoos from actually masturbating, and without any permanent effect if you can ignore the baldness and hairy palms.
They want it both ways… They want people to think they’re cool and edgy for having tattoos and they also want it to be respected as legitimate art. The price they pay to hold that contradiction together is to make a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ tattoos and cast the bad tattoo people as subhuman.
I’d really despair of society if Channel 4 issued an apology to the Facebook campaign on the grounds that some people were offended that so-called ‘chavvy cunts’ were shown getting tattoos.
