By Megan Butter

Tattoos are becoming more and more popular everyday. Almost every where you go see one person in the room with a tattoo or two. Tattoos tell a story, whether they’re honoring a loved one that passed away, or were a trip to the parlor at 2 A.M. after too much to drink. They also tell a lot about the person wearing them, and shed a glimpse of light into their life. The big debate today is if they are professional for the work place or not. I feel that as time goes on, tattoos are going to become more accepting and you will see a business man with his sleeves rolled up and tattoo on his forearm. It’s going to be the norm, and people are just going to have to accept it, because there is nothing wrong with it, it is a form of expression of oneself on their body.

A recent study shows that 15-38% of Americans have some form of body art on them (Karim, 2013). Another said that 1 in 5 Americans admitted to having a tattoo (Kelly, 2013). Tattoos are a means of expressing yourself, and usually the people that get them are more extroverted than introverted. Men and women that have tattoos were shown to, “…had higher body appreciation, higher self-esteem, and lower anxiety right after getting new tattoos,” (Karim, 2013). Tattoos can give people higher self esteem because they want to show off their new ink. They feel better about themselves because they are letting out their artistic freedom. My friend, Alexa, has 3 tattoos. All of them mainly covered (2 on her back and one on her thigh). All of her tattoos have meaning to them, and she always has a big smile on her face when she talks about them and why she got them. The one she recently got was the birth flowers of all the members of her family and she was so excited to show it off. She is proud of her ink and it shows that having tattoos can be a conversation starter and confidence booster for those who have them.

A graduate student at Yale University, Mark Celano wanted to study tattoos and how people react to them. He himself has 2 tattoos and wanted to conduct this experiment to see how people reacted to those with body ink. He had people in a lab some with tattoos visibly, some without any tattoos. He wanted to see if the people without tattoos treated the ones with them any different based on body language, etc. “The study is specifically designed to assess if and how the presence of visible body modifications affect interpersonal interactions,” (Celano, 2014). While his research is not done yet, he is hoping to get some answers on to how society views tattoos.

Tattoos don’t mean that someone is uneducated, an alcoholic, or anything like that. They are a form of self expression, and if someone wants one then they should be able to feel the freedom to get it . They shouldn’t be judged because a lot of successful people have tattoos you just might not know. They shouldn’t change your opinion of anyone and if they do, you need to look in the mirror and think that you yourself is the one that needs the change.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24296713

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reef-karim-do/psychology-of-tattoos_b_2017530.html

http://www.yale.edu/graduateschool/publications/news/201210/research-psychology-tattoos-celano.html