[In this second part of my article on the tattoo industry and culture I wrote mainly about how the industry has grown with the general perception of tattoos being more positive than before.]
No matter the reason for getting a tattoo, it is hard to go anywhere nowadays and not see a person with a tattoo.
A study done this year by Harris Poll found that 21% of American adults have at least one tattoo. This is up from 14% in 2003 and 16% in 2008. This study, which was conducted by surveying 2,016 American adults online, found that the age group with the highest percentage of tattooed people was that of 30-39 (38%). And for the first time since the organization first asked the question, more women responded to having a tattoo than men (23% compared to 19%).
Altogether, Americans spend an estimated $1.65 billion on tattoos each year.
Brian Brenner (tattoo artist in Dayton) said that tattoos have become more popular because of television shows and avant-garde people of the 1990s.
“It’s very desired to be tattooed now,” he said, “because people have tattoos and tattoo shops in their living rooms with shows like Miami Ink and LA Ink and all that.”
Another area in which tattoos have gained popularity in the limelight of the media is in professional sports, particularly basketball. There is a Tumblr account, nbatattoos, on which the owner gives percentages of NBA players with tattoos, and through this individual’s observations of pictures and video 55% (235 of 431) of the current NBA players have tattoos.
On top of having athletes and celebrities drawing attention with their tattoos, Brenner also said that a few years before tattoos really became popular, there were some ordinary people who got tattoos, which turned into conversation-starters with their friends. When people started finding friends and acquaintances with tattoos, body art just seemed to catch on, so much so that in 1997, the U.S. News and World Report listed tattooing as the sixth fastest growing retail business.
Though tattoos have become more prevalent as of late, many people still have negative feelings toward tattoos. The Harris Poll from this year that pertained to tattoos also took in some figures of how people without tattoos view permanent body art. The report said that at least two in five people without tattoos find people with tattoos to be less attractive (45%) or sexy (39%). Also of those surveyed, roughly a quarter said that people with tattoos are less intelligent (27%), healthy (25%) or spiritual (25%). And half of those without a tattoo say that people with tattoos are more rebellious.
These sorts of perceptions have been present throughout most of the roughly 5,000-year history of tattoos. In ancient times, getting tattooed was a religious ritual. Some of the most intricate and skillful tattoos of those times were those of the Polynesians who saw tattoos as being a display of their spiritual power or life force. Eventually, from prominent ancient civilizations such as those in Egypt, tattooing spread all over the world.
The old, negative perception of tattoos that many think of today is that tattoos were a thing of sailors, criminals and circus sideshows, with that of criminals being possibly the most unsettling. Criminals were known for their tattoos, both professionally done and homemade. For them, tattoos were a display of autonomy and identity. Then for those belonging to gangs tattoos became significant because it showed commitment to the gang as well as some information about the individual, such as beliefs, time in jail or people killed.
The prevalence of tattoos and tattoo parlors in middle-class areas show the tattoo business has legitimately come a long way since the notorious connection with criminality.
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