Scarred for life: Body art as advertising?
March 12, 2008
Josh Gregg
I was once standing in line at Subway, ordering an “Italian Sub,” and discussing which veggies I’d prefer to have on my toasted sandwich. Then, while looking at the jalapenos, I yawned and stretched both of my arms. The sandwich crafter stared at my arms as they were in the air. I realized that my tattoos were exposed. He asked me, “What are those?” and I stopped and thought about how I would explain why I found these images so important that I would tattoo them on my body.
I could have went into a lengthy discourse of how the femur on my left forearm, with a brief bit of Beethoven’s 6th symphony strung inside of it, epitomized my value in creative expression. “It is my attempt at understanding the subversive freedom of things inside of structure,” I would have said.
Then I’d tell him about the series of symbols that stretched down my right tricep. “These reflect the Epic of Gilgamesh in symbol form.” I’d go through the significance of each symbol, what relation they have to the story and what the story means to me. With my right sleeve rolled up, I’d talk about my value in friendship, and my questions about death and eternity and God.
While I thought about how I would explain these images, tattooed in permanence on my body, I looked behind me at the people lined up for their sandwiches. I decided it was best to say nothing. “Oh yeah,” I said, “I got these done a while ago. And could I get some jalapenos?”
Don’t get me wrong, I like my tattoos, and they have a lot of significance to me. But when that Subway employee asked me about my tattoos, I had realized that they were just advertisements for other people; they were another way to sell myself to another person. So I said nothing, I kept to myself and refrained from turning the messages that I love just into more billboards for people to read and then forget.
This whole discourse made me rethink tattoos. After they were printed onto my body, I had not even given my tattoos a second thought. In fact, after a few months, both of them disappeared from my head entirely. But others still constantly evaluate my tattoos, whether I realize it or not. It’s the same with your hairstyle, your choice of fashion or music or what posters you put up in your room.
And so I wonder about evaluations of our generation, and I wonder if all the images we will ever amount to will only be conceived as advertisement.
Now you go...
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