Tattoo artists make a permanent mark on your skin by inserting ink in between the dermis and the epidermis. In contemporary times a tattoo is commonly sought out for decorative purposes.
While we tend to think of tattooing as a modern phenomenon, the tattoo has existed since prehistoric times. In the last 150 years, a number of human remains marked with a tattoo have been discovered.
A 5000 year old Siberian was discovered in the Alps in 1991 and the body had 57 tattoos. In the late 19th century the mummified body of an Egyptian priestess was discovered by archaeologists who determined that she likely lived around 2000 BC. They found she had been tattooed on her arms, on her legs, and below the belly button.
Also, in Japan scientists found clay figurines painted with markings that look like a tattoo that were more than 3000 years old. It is important to note how these discoveries come from all over the world, demonstrating the ubiquity and significance of the tattoo in many cultures.
In modern times the tattoo has been showcased in 20th century pop culture. Movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean featured swaggering pirates decorated with more than one tattoo. More recently, on VH1's reality-based TV show Rock of Love, one contestant had her heartthrob's name tattooed on her arm when she was in a drunken stupor. Unfortunately, she was not chosen by rock 'n roll star Brett Michaels and had to endure the shame of having his name permanently tattooed on her body.
These stories illustrate some of the negative connotations society assigned to the tattoo. Since the 1960s mainstream America associated a tattoo with counterculture groups such as gangs, motorcyclists, and rock 'n roll band members. Followers and members of these groups are stereotypically connected with violence, drugs and lewd behavior.
However, in the last decade a shift in public opinion regarding a tattoo has taken place. Tattoos now appear on professionals, parents, and affluent teenagers.
Some sociologists see the rise (and subsequent acceptance) of the tattoo as part of a pattern of rebellious behavior. In the 1960s, baby boomers grew their hair out long. Once that became passé in the 1980s and 1990s, piercings became more common. Sociologists suggest that as adults adopted many of these cosmetic changes, teenagers felt that the last means of rebelling involved permanent alteration of the body for shock value. Eventually, however, this too gained social acceptance as people became more inured to the sight of a tattoo in the suburbs.
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