Tattoo Nation
The tattoo craze bears out that Americans are the most proactively ugly people on the planet.
The subject of this essay deviates from my usual commentary on foreign affairs, writing and (very occasionally) murder. It concerns a disturbing popular fad that makes one wonder whether this nation has fallen so deeply into mindless narcissism that we indeed are a declining superpower.
The subject is tattoos. I stopped by Walmart this afternoon to pick up a few things. Now, let's be frank. One does not go to Walmart expecting to see edgy Brangelina scrutinizing the red velvet cakes in the discount cart, nor Beyonce or Scarlett J. pawing through the frozen pizza freezer. Walmart denizens generally are hard-working blue collar folks and plain vanilla bourgeoisie out for the best deals at greatest convenience. You don't find these people browsing tofu and arugula at Whole Foods. Ken & Barbie they are not. Nor are they ardent fashionistas out to strut their bella figura. But let's face another fact: the highest concentration of proactive American ugliness - apart from your local county fair - can usually be seen at Walmart.
So, my very unscientific visual survey of summer-clad Walmart shoppers (and staff for that matter) revealed that I was in a distinct minority: the tattooless one. I saw all manner of "body art" on display on jiggly cellulite, sunken hairy chests, stout calves, flabby upper arms and sagging breastlines. One must try to discern the manner of ink art furtively lest one be taken for a sex offender in the making. But my visual snapshots revealed proclamations of love to Mom, paramours and Harleys; clown faces, political and religious statements, as well as cryptic messages comprehensible only to those fluent in Mandarin. (A comedian once quipped: "I wonder if Chinese sport tattoos spelling out in English: "Water" or "Peace.") Some of the tattoos were elaborate multicolored graphics. Others were small and fairly simple, usually arrayed in a constellation of other small and simple tattoos splashed across a neckline or down a back or midriff. I stopped and pondered: will my health insurance premiums skyrocket ten and more years from now as skin cancer rates soar? Thanks Obamacare!
There's a social truism: when edgy gets adopted by the hoi-polloi masses the edge is gone. I'm old enough to remember long male hair, facial hirsuteness, raggedy dress and open promiscuity passing on from The Stones, The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin down to college students, thence to Billy Bob and Mary Sue stacking shelves at Montgomery Ward and Agway. The cool was gone. And the unwashed masses in tie-dye and sideburns, psychedelic sunglasses and sans bra were merely pathetic copycats, legions of the unoriginal grasping at superficial artifice to show, yes, they too, were cool and cutting edge just like John & Yoko. They, too, were "original," their lives, too, held special meaning. Trouble was, their aping that era's glitterati was nothing of the sort. They were just ordinary folks facilely, or desperately, seeking to express uniqueness through vacuous identity theft. Copycatting devolving into mere japing until the cool wore off and onto the next fad. So it is today. People are sheep. Most follow the herd.
But tattoos are forever. Yes, there is a painful and costly medical procedure to remove ink embedded in human skin, but I expect very few of today's tattoo zombies to be able to even afford the procedure after the fad fades and they're paying mortgages, or collecting social security and possibly facing the necessity of appearing semi-respectable in the employment market. They'll be there at Walmart, their once avant garde dermis art now an unrecognizable red, white and blue blotch on sagging, wrinkled skin. That fetching 19-year old female cashier with "Jezebel Loves Jazz" emblazoned across her alabaster upper chest in bold blue Harlow font will one day be a plump Janie Paycheck balancing two little snot spewers on each hip while trying to organize dentist appointments in her iPhone and standing in line to pay for Great Value frozen dinners and Faded Glory school clothes. Will she look at herself in the mirror when home and think, "Was I out of my mind?"
I've traveled all over the world and I can say, hands down, esthetically speaking, Americans are the ugliest people on the planet (followed at some distance by the Russians). Their in-your-face-obesity, ubiquitous baseball caps, tank tops, ghetto shorts and gum chewing make them stand out like sore thumbs in foreign populations. Now add tattoos. Passengers disembarking a U.S. 747 at a foreign city resemble nothing less than Blackbeard's crew debarking the Queen Anne's Revenge. Call it assertive ugliness. The eleventh in the Bill of Rights.
When will the American tattoo mania fade? God only knows. In this observer's opinion, not soon enough.