How do tattoo parlors feel about everyone wanting to get tattoos these days?

Not all seem to be as happy about it as you might expect.  The Priceonomics Blog took an in-depth look, asking some local tattoo parlors about the increasingly-popular phenomenon:

Despite the rebel associations of tattoos, artists recognize that what they do “changes people” and they exercise that responsibility wisely. Every tattoo artist we met described talking with teenagers who came in asking for tattoos on their face, hands, or other visible areas. Tattoos aren’t as taboo as they once were, but even with adults, artists recommend that people don’t get tattoos in visible places unless they’re established, retired, or in a more welcoming industry.

Why give up the possibility for profit? “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Paul Stoll, owner of Body Manipulations in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood told us. “You don’t want to go home knowing that you changed an 18 year old’s life for the worse. Tattoos should be empowering. They should change people for the better. They shouldn’t be a mask.” Paul asked for a face tattoo when he was young. The artist told him that he’d do it if Paul still wanted it in a year. He never got it.

Read on.

[Photo]

11 Responses to “How do tattoo parlors feel about everyone wanting to get tattoos these days?”

  1. GG says:

    “These days”? Like, the last 20 years? When I got my first tattoo in 1992, they were already mainstream enough for this 18-year-old, not-very-rebellious college girl to be getting one…

  2. d says:

    time to start a tattoo removal business.

  3. yup says:

    are you fucking kidding me?

  4. Dude! says:

    Worst repost ever!

  5. Black Poison says:

    it’s so terrible.