Tattoos: Not Just For Dirtbags Anymore

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If you like the idea of tattoos, specifically, if you like the idea of really bad tattoos, man um, we put together a gallery of thirty seven I think bad tattoos. So if you search thirty seven really terrible tattoos are should come up in Google first, where you can go on our site and search tattoos. I think at the very least, it will make you feel better about what you think. It's a bad tattoo. Yeah, man, there are some bad tattoos out there, so it's a pretty cool,

little funny gallery. Yeah, man, it's this whole tattoo thing. They're bad ones, there are beautiful ones, they're weird ones. It's the whole culture is just so interesting. I think, like we we should do another gallery of like I don't know, like, have you seen these photo realistic ones? Now, we'll put together another gallery. Man, some of that stuff is just unbelievable. Yeah, there's some great ones. Um. So yeah, but bad tattoos are pretty hilarious. It's always nice to

laugh at someone else's expense. Yeah. So, um, the photo realistic tattoo, that's a fairly recent event. Yeah. But tattoos themselves, they're pretty old. Yeah, Like I was happy to go back to the nineteenth century. You're like, no, no, we need to go back way further than that. Well, they have some evidence that's it's it gets super interesting in the nineteenth century. But um, the oldest physical body, the Iceman, Yeah, let's see, has tattoos. Um they are rock Yeah. He

had a tramp stamp. Um. Now, he had a black cross on the inside of his left knee and six straight lines on his lower back and then parallel lines on his ankles, legs, and wrists. And they think because they found joint disease under the tattoos that they thought it was supposed to relieve pain. It wasn't necessarily like artistic. So was it a cross like a crucifix or a plus sign because he lived a few thousand years before Christ, probably a plus line. It wouldn't have been like a

Christian thing. Maybe he was way ahead of his time. He was a seer. Yeah, well yeah, and a pretty good hunter too. Yeah. Um, the earliest tattoo that is, uh, they were just sort of abstract patterns for many years, and we're talking about the Ice Age, you know. Yeah,

they were like um Jackson Pollock back then exactly. But there was one um of an actual thing, the god best b e s the Egyptian god of revelry, and they found have found that on Nubian mummies, females dating back to four So it's like the direct predecessor of people who get Coco Pelli tattooed on them. What is that he's like a bringer of good times. Yeah, he's got a common thing south He's yeah, the dude the flute. You've seen him a million times. Really, Yeah, he's like

a southwestern uh Indian motif I'd probably recommence it, huh yeah. Um. And then of course the Greeks and the Romans, they were kind of ahead of the game on everything, and they used to tattoo criminals and slaves. Yeah. I saw that, so like FuG for fugitive on their forehead, so in case they ran away, they would be forever known. Yeah. Tattooing used to be um a punishment in some cultures, like the Greeks and the Romans. Um. Some Native American

tribes tattooed slaves too, Yeah. Yeah, And I mean the whole premises is like, well, it's basically like branding cat. Yeah. If you're a runaway slaving, you encounter somebody who's also a slave owner, and they see that your faces tattooed, but you're out walking by yourself, they may grab you and take you back. Yeah. And of course that played out, uh with Jews in the Holocaust and World War Two. Yeah, and I saw that it's sort of a trend now

for modern Jewish people to get that as a tribute. Yeah, it's in their family. Yeah, that was really interesting. Or um gaze today get pink triangles, which was a symbol for homosexuals that was tattooed onto them and by the Nazis and World War two? Is that where that came from? But now it's embraced Yes, interesting, Um, But yeah, the Nazis gave tattooing a bad name in like world round, but it had a real direct impact on the decline of tattoos in America for a while because of that. Well,

let's go back a little further. Like I said, nineteenth century. Um, the tattooing, we talked about it in the Maori episode. We talked about tattooing because they were pretty closely related to the progenitors of tattoos, tribes from um Uh Polynesia, that's right. And the word tattoo is comes from a Polynesian word to tao, which basically means to strike. And they think it's on a monopeia. And a guy who sailed with Captain Cook through Polynesia, a botanist named Joseph Banks,

was the one who introduced the word tattoo to the West. Yeah, and previous to that, they had, you know, when they were exploring explorers were exploring the South Pacific in Latin America, they saw tattoos, but they had known the moors and the more tattoos head tattoos. So they weren't like super knocked out by seeing tattoos, they were like, oh my god, what are they doing. Nor did they adopt it because they didn't. They didn't care about assimilating. They were just

kind of conquering. Yeah, not like, hey, that's neat, maybe we should try it. And but the the idea that sailors, the ones who visited Polynesia were sailors, they were the first ones to adopt tattoos themselves. And that's where the idea of sailors and tattoos going hand in hand came from, like back to the very beginning. Yeah, they were the original Westerners to get tattoos. Um, and sailors haven't always been part of the mainstream very frequently. They're like basically

mercenaries at sea or back then they were as well. Um, they were criminals on the run. They were kind of

fringe dwellers, not entirely, but more than the average joe. Uh. And so since sailors got tattoos, and also they were copying those tattoos from primitive people's tattoos almost out of the gate when introduced to the West, became associated with the marginalized um dirt bags eventually circus folk and yeah, um, there was one named the Great Constantine, Prince Constantine, and he was he basically it and spent a significant amount of money getting his whole body tattooed, eyelids, penis, the

whole shebang, um, and ended up making a thousand dollars a week in the eighteen seventies with with P. T. Barnum Circus, which is twenty grand a week in two twelve dollars just from being tattooed. But he was still a circus side show performer. So there was this long standing association of tattoos with fringe dwellers in the West that lasted until like the seventies or eighties. Yeah, and the idea that it was associated with the criminal element.

And even like if you the worst of a criminal you had, the more tattoos you had, basically, well, yeah, you know that that whole like phrenology thing, like you you could supposedly look at a person or measure your physical attributes to tell what your moral character was. The people thought like tattoos were just an outward sign of that. Yeah, like the more tattoos you had, the warriors you were, which is kind of like people still think that, Like if you see a biker dude with the more tattoos

he has, the more of an outlaw he is. Yeah, I mean, it's never been more accepted than it is today, and it's still with certain people, you know, kind of unseemly. Yeah, and placement also counts too, Like if you have something that stops at your wrist, you're you're basically saying like, I'm still trying to be a part of normal society because I can wear long shirt sleeves and no one

see my tattoos. If you have a face tattoo, you basically said like I don't care about being a member of society, yeah, you know, yeah, or or you know, having a job at spread at least you know. But those said nextel, is that even still around? I think it is no idea how that popped into my head. Yeah, I think it is. Okay, I think I've seen a

billboard here there's some serious buzz marketing. Yeah, all right, um, But there's this weird little anomaly in history where in the night during the Victorian Age the late nineteenth early twentieth century um into the Edwardian Age, if you want

to get technical, there was a trend among the upper class. Yeah, this is really remarkable to me that like, even while the people who had tattoos were the lowliest of the low as far as Western society went, not even just you know, working class people like the criminals, fringe jewelers, circus freaks, prostitutes were the ones with with tattoos, all of a sudden, Uh, the elite of the West, and we're talking like royalty in some some cases adopted tattoos

as a status symbol. Yeah, and for a pretty interesting reason, um quality. Well yeah, once Japan, Japan was kind of closed for business for a couple of hundred years, so most of the Western world, and they turned around the open sign in eighteen fifty three, and it turns out they had some remarkable tattoo artists in Japan, and so the quality went up, and then they weren't you know, like the street tattoos that you would see. And so the the elite of Europe would go to Japan, sometimes

even royalty to get tattooed by these masters. What's that one guy's name, Uh, Yoshisuki horrid Toyo. Very nice, Yeah, they said, um, there was one quote from a guy named Van Dinter. Did he write a book? I think he did. I think this article we're talking about an article by um Agnazaka Marzak. Yeah, um, she's quoting, uh like sociologist and anthropologists. Yeah, and thanks for this article too, because that helped us piece together the history for sure.

But um, yeah, visiting Japan without being tattooed by say it Oh Yoshiasuki horrid toyo was like visiting Rome and not seeing the pope. So it was a big deal. Yeah, and it was weird in that fashion trends tended to go from the top down and this came from the

bottom up. Was different. But it was like you if you were an elite Western European um and you had a tattoo like it, Like you said, it was just stood in start contrast to the to the work some of the like criminals were getting homeboys with the criminal in the street all of a sudden, right yeah uh. And I mean just the average person looking at the two side by side could be like, well, this is obviously a much more elaborate, much more detailed, much more

expensive tattoo. So the tattoo among the Victorian elite. Um it's it was expensive because number one, you had to travel to Japan to get it, let alone the cost of the tattoo. Uh. And then secondly it was very time consuming. Again you had to travel to Japan, but you had to sit there for a very long time. Because this is prior to the advent of um a tattoo guns, motorized tattoo machines. Um. So somebody used a needle and just kind of stabbed it in and out,

maybe a couple of times a second. Yeah, for many, many, many seconds, for many days, I would imagine, right, So the average worker couldn't afford the time to sit there and get a tattoo. They couldn't afford the expense, but they also couldn't afford the time. So if you had a very elaborate Japanese tattoo that you went to Japan to get it said, I'm a very wealthy man of leisure, especially if it was dollar signs on your forehead, right,

you know, we're in your eyelids. Uh. But things reversed in when the first machine was invented by Samuel O'Reilly, which we'll get to in a minute. But um it democratized tattoos. Yeah, basically, you know, poor people could now get tattoos that look pretty good, and then the elite were like, well, we don't want them any more than right. But I didn't see anywhere what the elite did with their tattoos. If they just lived with them, or if they tried to get them taken off, well, they probably

wore like more clothes. Yeah, they're already wearing a lot of clothes. Were a lot of clothes. Um. Yeah, like you said, the two gun was invented in eight nine one, but even before that, in the United States, the first professional tattoo shop had opened almost fifty years before. A guy named Martin Hildebrandt opened a shop in eighteen forty six in New York City where else, and most of

his clientele was military, especially sailors. And um, it was here that this this association with the military, soldiers and sailors getting tattoos developed and became popularized in America. Yeah, it became. Um they call it the Golden Age of tattooing between the end of w W one and the end of w W two. And um, that's because it was linked to patriotism, and uh, it was you know, to see a soldier with a tattoo with the an anchor and like the United States of America like the

flag or something. It was very cool. It wasn't looked down upon at all at this point. Yeah. But there was another article I read too by Audrey port Cella that had a lot of this and stuff, but it was more expansive and yeah, I think she was saying like America loved its soldiers, and so anything associated with soldiers America loved too. Like you couldn't poopoo it tattoos, right, but you didn't even want to. It's like a lovable mark of a soldier, and a soldier just beat Hitler.

It was winning the war, so you you would love their tattoos too. It's why we tolerate parrots because sailors walked around with them on the shoulder all the time. Otherwise parrots. Yeah, I worked at a place at Exotic Birds. Did you know that parents in the wild travel and flocks. Yeah, I never thought about that because you only see them like by themselves. Maybe they're sharing a cage with one other parrot you seem in l a in Pasadena. Oh,

I've never seen that it's pretty cool. I was shooting one time, in shooting parents, shooting a TV commercial as a p A, and I saw a flock of parrots. I think they were parents. That'd be bizarre. It was really weird because I just thought, get all that money flying around, right, did you jump after him? I caught like four of them. Um, they didn't survive. No, So you said, the golden age of tattooing happened between World War One and World War Two, And we already talked

about how Hitler of course screwed it up for everybody. Um, and it declined after World War Two. But also during that time that golden age, not only was it like patriotic sailors and soldiers who were getting tattoos. Um, people were having their kids tattooed in the thirties. I had never heard this because of the Limburgh baby. Yeah, like social Security number statute on their child. Yeah. And then other people got there just like grown ups got their

so security number tattooed. Apparently because they placed a tremendous amount of import on those things when they first came out. But can't you think, like, after seeing it a few times, you're gonna be like I didn't think I was going to be able to memorize the string of numbers, but it's in there, and now I have a tattoo too. It's definitely weird. Were soldiers sometimes we get there, you know, name, rank and date of birth or serial number. Sure? Yeah, um.

And then apparently in the mid fifties, the Secretary of Defense said, you know the US my my experience an attack from the Ruskies. So just to make sure that everybody can get the medical care they need, maybe we should all get our blood types tattooed on us. And some people went out and did it. Is that why you have a negative on the back of your neck? Yeah? Pretty cool. It's a band reference. Actually, are we going to talk about our tattoos at any point? No, I'll

talk about mine later. If you want to hear about mine, I you have to do is go listen to that judge John Hodgsman. That's true. I can't remember the episode number though, Sorry John. All right, so let's move on to the nineteen sixties. Things went downhill fast because outbreaks of hepatitis and tattoo parlors were shut down. Like in New York City, they were banned between nineteen sixty one and nineteen on the seven and in Massachusetts they were illegal.

Tattoo parlors were illegal up until two thousand. Yeah, which is hard to believe. And remember in skateboarding we said like once skateboarding came around in ninety nine, it never ever really went away and just pushed underground. The same thing with tattoos, And every time it fell out of the mainstream, getting a tattoo became even more of a symbol of rejection of society, which you know, made it

even cooler. Um. And while it was forced underground and and made illegal by those bands in the sixties, um, it was taken up by again fringe groups like biker gangs, Chicano gangs. Remember the zoos Suit Riot. So it was one of my favorite shows that we've done. It was a great one. Um. There was like I don't remember if we talked about it or not, but there was a whole aspect of it where gang tattoos or tattoos

became associate with gangs. From the zoot Suit Riot, like the press reported on these groups of Chicano boys who all had Chicano style tattoos, which is beautiful stuff. By the way did you look it up? It's like that that lettering with the amazing flourishes. Yeah, mostly just black, right, or like photo realistic um shaded black and white or well just black like you said, images of like the Virgin Mary or praying hands or it's awesome, or like or a fallen gang member, Like it looks like a

photograph basically. Yeah, is that what photo realistic needs? Yeah? Okay, but the that became associated gang tattoos, especially like Hispanic gang tattoos um or Latino Yeah. Sorry, Uh, they became associated from the zoot suit ryot. Yeah, that's pretty cool. You should listen to that podcast. Uh was it just called the How zoot Suits Work? No? I think it was like did did zoo suits start a? Right? It was one of those dumb ones where we asked the

obvious question that we're going to answer. It was really good though. I think it was one of those where people are, like, zoot suits. You did a podcast on sut too. It's turned out really just super interesting in the history of l A, which has a lot of

black spots. Yeah, good point. Uh so in the nineteen seventies things came around a bit um because of the counterculture and uh civil rights movements and black power and gay gay rights movements and women's lib and they're all these causes now that people began to tattoo on their bodies just to show uh unity and or just you know the hippies of course, with mushrooms and marijuana leafs and you know, keep on trucking our crumb stuff. You have the trucking dude. Yeah, rainbows and flowers and all

sorts of things like that. So it became a little more common, but it was still on the fringe. I think, um through the eighties really, don't you think pretty much, and then all of a sudden Americas just kind of loose en up about it a little bit. It seems like it. I think what happened, is it a cross that threshold that all things that are part of the counterculture cross, a co opting of it to where it's no longer part of the fringe of enough people do

something that generational shift happens. Yeah, and and more than ever, it's become part of the mainstream. Like there's going to be an enormous amount of tattooed grandparents in like thirty forty years. Like yeah, neck tattoos, like just plain old

grandparents with neck tattoos. Can't wait. Yeah, I can't either, right, exactly want to live that long to see all that, But um, yeah, that's it's become extraordinarily tolerated and more and more and more ever since the eighties or nineties, but up to today, it's just like, I can't imagine there being more of a critical mass of people getting tattoos in there are now, And as a matter of fact, I've predict it will probably become past a in the

next couple of years because so many people are getting tattoos. I think it's already getting a little pasta, don't you. I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of fisterism, you know, yeah, I can see it. I do know. One of the new trends um and I hadn't heard of this either, are a UV sensitive inks, dude, So like, you have a tattoo that you can't see unless you're

under a black light. At a rave, I saw a very cool tattoo with that technique, and it was not photo realistic, but an amazing illustration across the upper back of a person of Yoda brandishing a lightsaber and the lightsaber had the uv inc. Everything else is tattoo, but the lightsaber glowed under black light. That's pretty it was amazing. Yeah, you'll have to send me that. Yeah. Um, and then

another Uh. I don't know how new this is, but um, breast cancer survivors that undergo massectomys sometimes will have reconstructive surgery and have three D nipples tattooed on their newly reconstructed breast. So it's like a combination of scarification and um and tattooing. Well basically, you know, when you get the breast reconstruction, you don't get a nipple with that, so they'll just tattoo one on. But how do they like three D perspective or like they raise the skin perspective? Yeah,

just like artistic talent. I guess I have no idea how they do that stuff. So that's kind of cool too. All right, So that's uh, pretty good overview of the history, I would say, so, And uh, I guess let's get down to the nitty gritty about what a tattoo is after this message break. All right, what what's a tattoo? It's actually pretty simple, um, and it's exactly what you

think it is. Tattoo is basically, um, just a needle that's delivering ink through the needle into your dermis, goes through your epidermis a couple of millimeters in your skin into your dermist. Because your epidermists, uh, well you shed it. It's full of dead skin cells eventually and regenerating skin cells. Your dermists is comparatively stable. So when you stick it with some ink, it's the ink is gonna stay. And so you're seeing through the outer layer of your skin.

Because remember in the myth busting episode we talked about how blood looks blue because you can see through your skin. That's how you see a tattoo. Uh. It does fade a little bit over the years, of course, it's nothing that like your tattoo is gonna look great when you first get it, and over the years is gonna look worse and worse. So you can get it touched up. But um, apparently the elbows, knuckles, knees, and feet are more likely to fade over the years. Um and I

don't think we even said the needle. Uh. It's runs were like a sewing machine. There's a motor and you've got a foot pedal and you've got basically between fifty and three thousand times per minute this needles bobbing up and down like a song machine. I guess you want the one that's going three thousand per minute, not the prison model at fifty per minute. Yeah, that's probably pretty painful. Well, it's funny you bring up prison, like, can we talk

about that for a second, prison tattoos. Yeah, yeah, so chuck in prison, you don't have a tattoo gun that goes three thousand punctures per minute. I guess is what you call it? Punks per minute? Yeah. Um, Instead you have things like a toothbrush with a staple that somebody took out of a magazine attached to it, or um, a mechanical pencil. Yeah, and you use like pen ink or maybe they harvest the ink from a newspaper. Yeah. Um. There's a lot of like really horrible ways that they

give prison tattoos. Yeah. They actually there are prison tattoo guns that you can make. Um, it's not always just like one individual puncture at a time, like they'll take an old tape player and use the motor from that to make one. But you see, you know how fast the tape player motor goes it's you and fast forward. Yeah, uh so that's not great. And I've seen where they use like boot polo, burn boot polish and get the

soot that or melt styrofoam. Yeah, that does not seem like it would take to the human body melted styrofoam or plastic, it would be poisonous. And most of them are, you know, gang emblems or they they all generally have some sort of meaning like why they're in there maybe, or who they're associated with or I don't want to be associated with. Yeah, but it's get the opposite gang with like a circle and a slash through it. That's

a common prison tattoo. And then for needles, they'll use everything from like springs from a pen to like a guitar string, Yeah, guitar strings. Big. Yeah, it's just kind of very d Y I D I Y d I Y. Yeah. For the most part, those of you out there listening to this podcast are not going to be getting prison tattoos. If you get a tattoo, you're gonna be going to

a tattoo parlor and going to use that. That gun that was invented first by a guy named Samuel O'Reilly, and he actually modeled his invention after an invention by Thomas Edison that was basically like an etching pin. And this guy said, you know what if I just modified this a little bit and had some ink go through some a tube system, we could use this as a pretty great tattoo gun and bam. Even today, like it's

basically the same. Yeah, I hadn't changed that much. Now I saw that somebody uh invented one in two thousand. It's pneumatic. He uses compressed air, and it seems like fast. It's very lightweight. Uh, it's um just you can take the whole thing and just throw it in an autoclave and sterilize it whole. You don't have to take it apart the next wave, I guess, because I think most of them are electromagnetic now most of them. Yeah, I think that's the only one that's not interesting. Um, all right,

I guess we should talk a little bit about sterilization. Maybe. Yeah, I mean we just explained tattooing aside from the artistic talent. Well, no, you do, like part of the artistic talent is is when you're drawing on a sheet of paper, you're all of the shading, all of that stuff. It's all on this, you know, basically flat two dimensional surface. When you're dealing with skin, you have to be aware of how deep the needles going. You have to select your needles based on, um,

you know, what kind you want. Like there's needles have different tapers which makes some point you're not pointy, different diameters, and then they can be grouped together depending on what you're trying to do to create big lines, rounded lines, all that stuff. So you have to understand what you're doing with needles. You have to have artistic talent, although not by law, and then um, you have to be you have to be I guess well versed in using

human skin as a canvas. Yeah, I've seen uh. I think sometimes they'll practice on like watermelons and candle ups and things like that. There's an artist for themselves. I can't remember his name, uh Vim DELVOI with the W and his website addresses h vim delvoy dot b E w I M d E l v O Y dot b E. It's one of the better websites on the Internet right now, frankly, next to stuff you should know dot com. But he has a art series of um texidermy pigs that he's done, like elaborate Chicano style tattoos

all over. It's really neat looking. You gotta practice on something. Yeah, you know that this guy is selling what he's practicing on. You know what I'm saying. It's like you can buy one of those tattoo pigs for tens of thousands of dollars. That's weird. So um. But so the point is is a tattoo artist has a lot to take into account, include just safety precautions to Yeah, all right, but let's go ahead and just talk about what you're what's going to happen when you go in there. Okay, you're gonna

walk in there, you're gonna be drunk. Supposedly like it's illegal to tattoo somebody who's in toxic that's true. I think it's up to the shop. From what I've seen, I've seen people. I've asked tattoo people, would you take too a drunk person? And they have And I guess it depends on who it is, but the ones I know have answered yes. I think there are some states that it's against the laws tattoo somebody inebriated, so you're

not drunk, you're sober. You go into your tattoo and you're going to uh maybe you have a design already at the go, that's what I would recommend. Or you can go in and look at the myriad posters on the wall of what they call flash, which are all the uh the clip art of tattoo world, just the kind of ready to go like hey, I like that barbed wire arm band, or I like that Japanese symbol

for something that I don't understand. Yeah, that's very dangerous supposedly. Yeah. Um. And then you know, you'll pick out your your design or you come in with your own like I said, and then they will draw it on your arm um with uh the or stencil it or draw it um with the medical grade pen sterile medical grade pen. Yeah, this is before the tattoo. A good tattoo shop should give you the pens. They're not going to reuse them. They shouldn't. It's they're supposed to be sterile, so you

can take it home. Um, So they draw it on your skin. They then they start tattooing, basically just going over that outlining it is the first thing they do they call it black work. And the reason also that they draw it or stencil it on your skin first is because your skin stretches during the tattoo process. So as long as they're following that, it's gonna go back to the way it looked before the skin stretched. But if they don't and they just do it without a stenciler,

without a drawing, yeah, it's gonna turn out weird. I imagine there's some free drawers, don't you think artists that are like really so good that they can just invent something. Sure they can in the moment, but then they should stencil it onto your skin because you can't predict which ways the skin is gonna stretch. Yeah, I guarantee you there's people out there that don't stencil I wouldn't go to a non stenciler. Um. So Josh is all about the stenciler for good reason. Um. So they're gonna do

their black work. They're gonna outline it. It's just a little single tip needle at that point. Um, the ink is pretty thin, and this is basically just to get your your basic outline going, so you know, you know, it's not super it's not shaded or outline or or thick at this point right and then to use different a different needle, often a combination, a needle that will be um stacked or flat around or whatever. And they commenced with the shading, and the shading is um. It

connects all of the black work. It fills in any lines or gaps. There's a gap in the work is called a holiday. I thought that was kind of funny. And that's like either it didn't take or the artists missed that part, and the shading part is supposed to um cover that up and connect all that to make

sure there's no holidays. But we should say, if you pay attention to the tattoo artist, if it's a right handed tattoo artist, they're gonna start doing the outlining the black work UM from the bottom right and work their way upward to the left. And the reason they do that is because as they're doing the tattoo um they need to clean off the blood. They're constantly wiping tattooing, wiping tattooing exactly, and if you do that, you're gonna

wipe off the stencil. So they work their way up the stencil rather than down where they would smear the stencil and it would be problematic. That's right in between each um step two, you're gonna get it cleaned and wiped off, and then they're gonna restart again, like for the shading and then what comes next, which is the coloring um it's gonna you know, depending on what you want, you might if the Kano style is not always colored in.

Sometimes it's just like outlines, but sometimes you gotta have that thing fully colored in. And that's when it gets super painful, right when they're going over this thing over and over and over and you think, my god, is it not fully colored in yet? And then they say we're almost there, and then you feel a little lightheaded and you feel like you might want to pass out.

And I mean, depending on the tattoo you're getting, if you're getting like a huge piece done, like they may just do like the outlining in one and then the shading in another and then the coloring in another, like three different sessions. Yeah, and over a span of days perhaps or weeks or months, Yeah, depends on what you want. Yeah. So then after all that, after they do each process or each session, they're going to clean your tattoo and

bandage you that's you on your way. And like we said, it depends on how you tolerate pain to Some people say it doesn't hurt at all. Some people have a really hard time with it. Well, it also depends on where the tattoo is. Yeah, that is hugely important as far as pain is concerned. Yeah, bony areas are are tough, um and hurt. And I found the inside of the armpit, like a really fleshy area is super super painful. Is it.

Like if you get an arm band or something, the inside of your arm hurts a lot, but on the outside, like over muscle, it's not nearly as pain not as much like I would say like a shoulder and like upper back, like those are not going to be as painful. But you know, it feels like it feels like somebody's drawing on you with would be with a pin that yeah, with a b stinger sort of what it feels like. And it's it's fairly mild. But um, like I said, it depends on who you are. Some people are just

like it's no big deal at all. I remember the first one I got, I was a little I got a little lightheaded, um and he he said it was common, he said, doesn't mean he can't tolerate pain. It's just like an unusual but like bodily reaction. Huh yeah, Like it's just like stop if I pass out, Like you'll stop winning this guy tattoo. So. Um, after they bandage you up and send you on your way, they're going

to issue some advice for caring for your tattoo. It's not like you just go home and forget about it. Like there there's a process that takes place and um, you you kind of need to be on top of it. Depending on the tattoo parlor you go to, you could get very different and sometimes contradictory advice. Um. But for the most part, they're gonna tell you to remove that bandage that they put on after an hour or two

to let the tattoo breathe. You're gonna want to keep it clean and wash it every once in a while with lukewarm water, um, and a little bit of antibiotic soap. Antibacterial soap. Yeah, um, but you want to do it gently and when you dry it, you want to pat it dry. You don't want to rub it. I don't want to rub You don't want to take a bath. At least, you don't want to submerge your tattoo. And you also don't want to let the shower just beat

down on it. No, and if it starts to scab up a little, uh, just sort of let it run its course. You don't want to start picking its scabs and it definitely yeah, exactly, but it should scab it flakes over right eventually. Yeah, And when that happens, then you're supposed to put on lotion. I was always told like you put on um neosporin or something similar the whole time, But apparently these days they say, don't use any kind of ointment because it can actually leach the

color out. Yeah. I've gotten two different sets of instructions, and that's a little distressing, right, Like who's right? Yeah, I mean these are from like pro tattoo parlors. Some say use ointment, some say don't. The ones who stay use ointment. They say keep a thin layer on at all times to keep it from scarring. Others say, don't

do that, just keep it clean and dry. Um, and then as it starts to flake, you can put on like a nice like light lotion to keep it moisturized and then it will help the flaking process, and then everything will come off and your skin will literally flake off, scab off. And once that happens, your tattoo is complete a few weeks after you went into the tattoo parlor. Um. But in the meantime, you want to stay out of

the sun. You don't want to go into pools, and again you don't want a bunch of water dousing your tattoo now. And you're also gonna have to start buying clothes that show off your tattoo. Right, you're gonna want to go cut off the sleeves of all your t shirts. That's right, You're gonna wear a little half shirt if you have the very popular lower back tattoo. Basically, you want to start dressing like Mac from It's Alway Sonny in Philadelphia. Exactly. Do you want to go buy your

first pair of dickies? Yeah? What else? Um, that's about it. Okay, maybe we're a hair product too. Uh. Tattoos range in price greatly from depending on what you want obviously, and how detailed it is too, how good of an artist you're working with. Yeah, Well, it's one of those things where it's like you pay for what you get for sure, Um, I had. I've got a pretty bad tattoo on one arm from this lady in Arizona, and it's not even

and I don't even want it anymore. You can get them removed, I know, but then it's like why, Like what's the purpose? It's it's under my short sleeves. It's like, no big deal. But I'm definitely of the seventeen that regrets it. And it's not a regret like I don't wake up every day and wish I didn't have it, But yeah, I kinda wish it in there when you're launging at the pool. Yeah yeah, and yeah, that's as

far as I'll go with that. But you can always wear like a black armband and just if anybody asked to feel like you're one of my friends died, yeah, you know, you just cover it. Oh just yeah, Chuck's got bad luck. His friends are always good, right, Um, but you know they can be like fifty dred bucks for a little tiny one. Um, if you want to get that Georgia peach on your butt, it's big. Supposedly, Yeah, I saw two thousand pew um survey found like the

average cost of a small tattoos forty five bucks. Yeah, But if you want like a revered tattoo artist, like you go to l A or New York or uh and you know you want Cat Vonde to give you a tattoo. I can't imagine how much her hourly rate must be. Yeah, she probably charges by the hour, don't you think. Well, most of them do, especially for a big piece. Really. Yeah, see the ones I've seen, they'll just look at the piece or maybe they just have a sent so how many hours it will take? Right?

But if they're doing like a whole sleeve or something like that, or your whole back and it's gonna take multiple sessions, they charged by the hour and it reaches into the hundreds easily. But then you get to walk around and say, Cat BONDI did my tattoo, right, I met her because she tattooed my back. I gave her six thousand dollars, right, good for her, that's what I say. Um,

so that's the cost, that's right. And when you get a tattoo, unless it is one of those ones where you're in a state where they can tattoo you drunk legally and are willing to, and you go in and just get a tattoo while you're drunk. If you're planning on getting a tattoo, it's a good idea to do

some research. I really think about it. Folks like fine, fine, Well, I mean, if you've thought about it and you want to get it, you want to find the best tattoo or just you can afford, um, because it's gonna be on there for a very long time. Not only are you paying for artistic ability, you're paying for technical ability to ideal lee. So somebody who can do a really good tattoo can make it look exactly like you want it, but can also make it stay, keep it from fading

over time, just basically keep it looking sharp as well. Yeah. Um, So, like you said, you get what you pay for with tattoos typically. Yeah, and that goes for safety to Um. We've been dancing around this, so I guess we should just go ahead and talk about it. Huh. Um. Since you're working with needles and there's blood, there are dangers of course, like hepatitis. That is a real thing that has happened. Um. Any kind of blood infectious disease could

be spread. Um. There have been zero reported cases of HIV via tattoo at this point, the CDC says, but that doesn't mean in some random situation that could possibly happen. But if they're following the protocols of safety, which is a three pronged approach of sterilization, disposal materials, and then hand sanitation and just basic sanitation, then it's a pretty low chance of any kind of hepatitis or anything like that. Right, Like, you shouldn't be scared, but you should be aware of

the kind of tattoo parole you're walking into. And it's not just like a blood born pathogens it can all. You can also get like a skin infection from a dirty tattoo parlor too, But any tattoo parlor with its all is following the same blood born pathogens rules that um, hospitals and doctor's offices used. And UM, So if you go into a tattoo parlor, what's gonna happen when you sit down and you get your you start to get

your tattoo done. Um, there's gonna be a whole lot of stuff laid out on a tray that looks basically like a surgical tray, surgeons instruments tray. Yeah, a good artist will explain all this stuff to you as well, right, exactly what they're doing, why they're doing. And there most of the packages, the needles, the ink, the ink cups, all of this stuff are all prepackaged and sterile packaging that is opened in front of you. And they're all

single use, right, It's all supposed to be thrown away afterward. Uh. And then in between uses the stuff that isn't reusable, like the tattoo gun, the tubing system. All this stuff is supposed to be put in what's called an autoclave, which uses um, heat, pressure and time. Uh two totally kill any organism on this stuff, on this equipment, like nothing's left alive. So there's like a process where they

put this an autoclave. It looks UM. Some of the least expensive ones look like a well, yeah that's where pressure cooker that sits unlike the oven. UM. And they'll put it in for a certain amount of time something

like UM, I think two fifty degrees for thirty minutes. Yeah, you've got two methods um to fifty fahrenheigh it under ten pounds of pressure for thirty minutes, or if you're in a hurry, you can crank up the heat a little bit to to seventy under fifteen pounds of pressure for fifteen minutes, and both of those will uh killed everything. It's pretty interesting that they put the different parts into

special pouches that you seal up. And the pouches have these indicator strips that show whether the stuff is sterile or not. Yeah, and the indicator strips are actually made in some cases of UM little microbes that will germinate I guess due to the steam that they use. Um if it doesn't reach a certain temperature. Really yeah, so uh if the strip and when they germinate, they change color. So if the strip is a certain color after X amount of minutes or whatever, that means the temperature wasn't

reached in those instruments, aren't sterile. Wow, isn't that cool? Yeah, it's very cool. Um you Uh the FDA doesn't regulate tattoo ink, which is uh. I was a little surprised by that. UM. And apparently you could experience burning with an m r I because of metallic pigments. Well, you have to take out like piercings and all that stuff when you're going into m R I because it's a huge magnet. Yeah. I just had an m R I yesterday. What my first one? What? Yeah? Are you okay? Yeah?

My lower back okay? But have you ever had one? No? It was really weird. How long were you in there? For about twenty five minutes? And it was you know, the things no more than like three inches from the tip of your nose. So bad news if you have any kind of claustrophobia. Well, there's open Mr. I. But I hear you pay for him, you know what I mean? This one was closed. I would probably lose it and it costs me a hundred and fifty bucks. That's not bad.

No good insurance. Um. And of course the first thing I wanted to do is scratch my nose as soon as I went in there. And you just have to suffer through. But it was the thing that was remarkable to me was the noise. Isn't it like a clicking sound? Dude? It's also it felt it sounded like you were in a German dance club. Yeah, and it varied. There were all these different noises, but it would literally be like and it's super loud to give you earplugs and um,

really yeah, man, I had no idea. I didn't either, like they slid me in there and they would be like A are aren't but super loud no, And then something else would come in and go, we are we are, we are weird. This is nice, It's really cool. And it would you know, it would change sounds like every like couple of minutes, right when you got bored with it. It's like a new It was just weird. Man. I had no idea it made noises like that. And what I couldn't figure out I have to look into it

is what that noise is like? Is it a mechanical thing going on? I don't know. Have we ever done one just on m R I. No, I'd like to know. I know we've done it. I'm like using MRI s is like lie detectors and stuff like that. Um so, did you could you feel your tattoo? Is it burning? No? But I don't know if they were concentrating on the lower back. And I don't have a tram stamp, so

that was no problem. The reason it burns is because some pigments, some tattoo pigments, are metallic, and so the m R I being a huge magnet, draws the metallic pigments. I guess towards the the top of the skin that creates a burning sensation. And also apparently you know there's um tattoo um makeup, permanent makeup. Yeah, you can get like eyeliner tattooed or you know what have you, and that supposedly can actually mess up an m R I

of a person's brain because it's often pigments. So if you get a cosmetic tattoo of eyeliner, then you're screwed for your just don't have any neurological problems. What's good advice anyway? Uh, if you want to go give blood, there might be some restrictions if depending on how recently you've had your tattoo and what states you're in. Um, the American Red Cross, if you have had a tattoo in the past year, UH, doesn't accept your blood unless

your parlor is state regulated. And apparently most states don't regulate them, so it depends. I saw that there were a lot of regulated states. Are three that have they're just like do whatever you want, North Dakota, New Mexico, and Washington, d C. Like are all just basically like, we have no regulations whatsoever. Interesting, a lot of states don't have state regulations, but they'll have like local ordinances.

Almost all states um forbid tattooing miners without a parent's consent, and in some states it's even a felony if you tattoo a minor um And then other states have state regulations where like the Department of Health regulates tattoo parlors.

And in most regulated states, which is most states, uh, tattoo artists has to be licensed, which basically means like you go take a health class and then pass an exam, and then your licensed tattoo artists, which means again there's no no study of artistic ability, no testing of artistic ability. If you can pass this health exam in most states, you are a bona fide tattoo artist who can charge money and make people very very angry when you finish

your shoddy work. Yeah, well, you can't regulate that. You can't, you know, say you can't open this art gallery because you're not a good painter. No, it's true, you know. Um, but I see how it affects other people. I get that, right, But it's subjective, right, it totally is. I understand what you're saying. The The good news is is that as tattoos have become um more and more widespread and hence more and more lucrative. A lot more people have been

coming out of art school and getting into tattoo. They're not necessarily self taught there, they're formally trained artists who are doing tattoos. You can probably make more money quicker as a tattoo artist out of art school than you can selling your paintings. I'm sure the incomes more steady, for sure. All Right, there's a few more things we can talk about. Uh, you hit the car medic tattoos there. Um,

if you're a vegan, there are vegan tattoo parlors. Good luck finding one because they're not super you know, abundant. But those are so expensive. But a lot of tattoo ink is made with bone jar and that is burnt animal bones. Um. Sometimes you use the resin of shelack beetles in the ink um and sometimes like the soap and stuff they use it. If you're like really vegan, you're not gonna want them to wash your skin. Was

something that has been tested on animals. Even sometimes they'll prep the area by rubbing a piece of raw chicken breast on it. I mean there's also you'd be very surprised. You would never notice it unless you're a vegan though. Um, I wish people could have seen you doing. I guess that was good. Uh. And then of course you've got the henna tattoo, very popular in Indian culture but also

apparently very um dangerous too. I didn't realize this. Well, it can be um natural Hanna is derived from a plant and that's Hanna da and that's light orange and kind of like kind of a rust color. And that is safe because it is natural and it will it's

a temporary thing. It's a temporary tattoo. My friends Seema, when she got married at her you know, before her wedding the day before, all the bridesmaids got these like amazing henna tattoos and she gets the most, you know, the bridesmaids got some, but she was like all over her like face and arms and hands, really gorgeous stuff. And it's you know, a big part of the culture and heritage. But um, black henna contains synthetic ingredients including P P d Oh, you're gonna try and pronounce that

P phenyl and D mean P fenelna diamine. That's not bad feneline diamine. I did it p fenelne diamine all right, three times PPD. And that is cold tar. It's found in coal tar and it can cause permanent scarring and really bad reactions. So if you go to get a hand of tattoo, um use natural or in chenna, yes, or if you're a kid, get some cracker jacks. Have you seen the Octopussy, the James Bond movie. I never have, as I saw it the other day again and maybe

the worst movie tattoo I've ever seen. It looked literally like a cracker jack's tattoo that they put on this lady. First scene it's it's an octopus, and you know, James Bond has her in bed and remark remarks about it, and it had a close up shot shot of it and it's literally like peeling off at the edges. Did they dubb in? Like? Weren't his? His Bond movies have not aged well, by the way. Which one was it? Roger Moore and that? Yeah? I love those. I think

they're the best. Yeah. I know we talked about this, but I urge you to go watch Octopussy. No, but I watched um liveing like die the other nights. That was pretty good. Yeah, he's like inexplicably so really in that one. Yeah, he's like real weird, like David Foster Wallace being interviewed by Charlie Rose or something. He's like looking at everybody out of the corner of his eye. It's weird. Interesting. Yeah, right, there's something wrong with runch

and more. During the shooting of that one. We've got a few stats and then I guess we can cover removal. Um. About one point six five billion is spending the US on tattoos each year. Um, that's this is PU by the way to that's the two thirteen PU pole. So you know it's quality, it's reliable. Um, fourteen percent of all Americans have at least one two Um, if you're between eighteen and twenty five, thirty six percent. And I'm surprised it's a little bit older. Six to forty year

olds have the most. Now of forty year old Americans have tattoosh. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty high. That's close to half. Yeah, four ten And I mentioned that seventeen percent have some regret. I think five percent to cover up the tattoo with another tattoo, and eleven try uh complete removal, which is what we're at here, and well almost we're almost there. Um, there's there's twenty one thousand tattoo parlors in the US, so again, take your time to go find the best

one that you can afford. Sure, and not just the best artistically, but make sure when you go in everybody's wearing gloves. All of the stuff is sterile, Like they're not joking around with with the blood borne pathogen rules, like they're being serious, because it is serious, because you're getting punctured several thousand times a minute, and every one of those puncture wounds is an opportunity for an infection.

You don't want a skin infection, So don't take it lightly, and don't go to a tattoo parlor that takes safety lightly to Yeah, and I don't want to discriminate against new businesses, but in the case of a tattoo parlor, maybe you should look at one that's been around for a little while and has a good reputation. I don't know if i'd go to one on the opening day, you know, unless they're giving out a real great discount. Um, so chuck se people regret their tattoo have some regret.

I don't know if that means, because only eleven have it removed, So I guess the other six percent are like me either, Like, yeah, I guess we'll just keep it. Yeah, so chuck. Prior to the eighties, people still wanted tattoos removed, Yes, but there weren't lasers available, lasers to what we used today. That's right. Prior to this, getting your tattoo removed basically meant you're just gonna scar over that area pretty much.

Dermibration it's basically standing off your tattoo slowly. Not to be confused with micro dermabration, which is still in use today. Dermibration is basically like using a cheese cheese greater. Then most isla come at somebody with a cheese greator to get rid of their tattoo. That sounds right. Uh, cryosurgery, which is where they freeze it off. It sounds pretty painful as well. Yeah, and then there's just regular old surgery cutting it off, Yeah, where they cut out the part.

And if it's a big old tattoo, they're probably gonna have to do a skin graft. But at least you don't have a tattoo anymore. Yeah, but thankfully now we have lasers and um, you've even used this right. Hurts like the dickens. It hurts as bad as getting a tattoo, if not maybe a little more, depending on what's it feeling. It feels like somebody's frying bacon right next to your skin. It doesn't smell like it. It hurts like the bacon

grease is jumping off onto your skin. It hurts bad. Um, But I mean like it's nothing that you can't tolerate. But a lot of places, um that do laser tattoo removal will also offer like a local anesthetic. I'm too cheap. I just buy my thumb and like I can make it through it. Not like some like huge pain tolerance guy or anything like that. I say, I have read as far as pain threshold goes, your average pain and your cheek on the cheap side, it's me and a nutshell.

What how many treatments did you get? Uh? So I've reached a point where I'm like it's faded enough that it's I've shown that, Yes, I'm I want to get rid of this tattoo. The problem is the place I was going and here's a little key for you. Basically, uh, anybody can buy a laser and charge whatever they want for tattoo removal. Fortunately, we have a friend called group

on that these laser tattoo removal places frequently used. So look for a group on first um and get like a package that you can get them for as cheap as like two or three sessions for fifty or sixty bucks, which isn't bad at all. Um. I went maybe six times so far, and I would say it's two thirds of the way gone. The problem is the last laser place I went to say, um, like we've reached the limit of lasers. You should do micro demon bration. I

don't particularly believe them. But I haven't gone and found another place yet. So you're deciding now what your final steps will be. Well, my final steps will be like getting more laser removal. It's it's it's not guaranteed, like any place will tell you, Like, I can't guarantee I'm going to get this all the way off, and if it doesn't come all the way off, then I'm out

a bunch of money. So I'm now looking for a place where I feel comfortable trusting their expertise, and that place says, yes, we can get this off with laser. If not, then I've got to look into micro demon bration. And then how does the laser work exactly? Doesn't it just bust apart the ink so it disperses. It's exactly right. The laser um is a tune to the pigment. Apparently, green is the hardest to get rid of. Blue and black are the easiest to get rid of. And uh,

the lasers, there's different lasers used different um crystals. I guess to target pigments selectively. And it's just your synthetic pigment and it's not gonna it shouldn't affect your body's natural pigment. And it goes in and breaks it up, and um, those little pieces of pigment are absorbed by your immune system and spit out in your sweat along with all sorts of the detritus from your cells and all that. That's pretty cool, Yeah, awesome. I think I

might look into that. It's it's I mean, and again, the pain is not intolerable. There. If you go in the first few sessions, they're gonna get rid of it.

Like it's going to like go away. Dramatically. It's just as it gets further along, it gets more difficult, and you have to have somebody that really knows what they're doing, knows what kind of laser to use, what pulse setting to use it on, and isn't gonna overcharge you, all right, So really think about it before you get one, folks, because it's gonna cost you money and pain going in and then later on money and pain. If you want

it removed, that's right, And that's tattoos. If you want to see some really weird stuff, you can look up Gregory Paul McLaren or a k a. Lucky Diamond Rich. He is the world's most tattooed man. He's tattooed every part of his body, including eyelids, inside of eyelids, inside of eyelids, under his foreskin, inside of his ears, mouth. Wow, he's completely tattooed. If you remember those two twin hitman I'm breaking bad, Yes, one of them has tattoos on

their eyelids in real life. And I've read an interview with him and he said they used plastic spoon over his eyeball and pulled the eyelid over it and then tattooed. I'm like, I think that's worse than the tattooing part, like having a plastic spoon against your eye with your eyelid pulled over it. So that's how he did it. And if you want to see something even weird or go look up uh stalking Cat or Dennis Avner a

V N E. R. And this is a guy. He's dead now, but he had plastic surgeries and modified his body along with facial tattoos to look like a cat, like a tiger. And have you seen that bagel body modification that's big in Japan. They go in and pump something in to create this round protrusion on the forehead that's hollow in the center, so it's like a bagel head. It's it's very odd they've always wanted a bagel head. There's like this the strange trend in Japan. That's like, yeah,

we should do one on just body modification. People take it to like super extremes these days. Let's do It's got whiskers, wow and planet. So he's basically like Rob low In behind the candelabra, exactly weird. Al Right, well that was tattoos. Everything there is to know about tattoos. Um again, go check out our website, look up a thirty seven really Terrible tattoos and it'll bring up a

pretty cool show for you. Um and uh. If you want to know more about tattoos, search tattoos uh in the search bar at how stuff works dot com and will bring up this article by Tracy Wilson. Uh. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this horrific amputation Yeah from Amber about her father. Hello, gentlemen, I just finished listening to the

podcast on amputation. Of course, it was wonderfully informative as always, but I have a bit of anecdotal information which you may or may not enjoy. Why I am not an amputea. My father was. You discuss how they prepped the patient in terms of uh. Anesthesia for a digit, you get a little numb, for a limb, you go all under. Nineteen eight in Columbus, Ohio, my father had the lower half of one leg amputated due to complications from diabetes.

Since he was a diabetic who did not take care of himself, his heart was not strong enough to be put under, and so at the age of thirty eight. He had the heart of a ninety eight year olds And what they did instead of and it's desia was perform a spinal block and then put him headphones on his head so he could not hear the saw cutting through his bone. He didn't. He did make it successfully through that surgery, but sadly passed away that November as a result of his diabetes. And this was in the

nineteen eighties. And uh, that is from Amber Nicole and she said, feel free to share this. It's pretty awful. Yeah, well thanks Amber. We're sorry to hear about your dad, but yeah, thanks for sharing it with everybody on the path to diabetes. Maybe this will make you think twice seriously. Uh, if you want to warn your fellow stuff you should Know listeners based on your own experience. We're always happy to pass along good info. You can tweet it to

us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email of Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can hang out with us at our website, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works. Dot com