Steve Sailer has a funny post up about tattoos. I’m old enough to remember when tattoos had meaning. It used to be that a man got ink if he was a criminal, a soldier, a sailer or a carny. Criminals used ink to signal their membership in gangs and to advertise their violence capital. Even the baddest of bad men prefer to avoid violent conflict. Displaying the fact you will kill if provoked lets most know to avoid you. Even today criminal gangs have sophisticated tattoos to signal membership, past crimes, violence capital and position in the club. Hipster ink has nothing in common with tradition.

Warriors have been inking up for as long as anyone knows. It used to be that soldiers got their unit insignia and maybe some ink to remember battles or places they experienced. Barbarians in antiquity used tattoos as a form of ornamentation. Vikings, I think, even died their teeth. Sailers have long used ink to document their travels. A turtle standing on its back legs (shellback) for crossing the equator and being initiated into King Neptune’s Court. Again, this is a ritualized form of tattooing that has nothing to do with self-expression. It’s about membership.

I think the modern tattoo fad comes down from carny-folk who used tattoos as form of self-segregation. People who wished to live outside proper society would get all sorts of weird ink. When I was a kid, tattoos were associated with the circus. Even today, I will needle a young person with visible ink by asking them if they were ever in the circus. They are unaware of this connection, of course, and never get my meaning. Piercings are another tradition passed down from carny-folk to the modern hipster. When I was young, men with earrings were assumed to be homosexuals.

My sense is the modern tattoo trend is in reaction to the homogenizing effects of globalization and mass media. Regional and local weirdness is thrown into the blender of mass global culture. The resulting gray slurry leaves few ways for an individual to set themselves apart. Young people, who are wired to “peacock” for mates use tattoos and piercing to draw attention. In a world where everyone lives the same, thinks the same and believes the same, superficial decoration is all that’s left. Strangely, you never see people talking to one another about their tattoos.

Another possibility is the modern tattoo is a form of self-mutilation. Greeks and Romans associated tattoos with barbarians. Greeks would tattoo their slaves, for example, as a way to distinguish them from Greeks. The Latin word  for tattoos is “stigma” and had the same meaning it does today. The Romans would tattoo criminals as a form of punishment. Soldiers who failed in their duties, but not so much to warrant death, would be tattooed and sent off to the frontier. Perhaps self-loathing is at the root of a lot of this today.