View From The Porch: Signs that a fad has jumped the shark:

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Signs that a fad has jumped the shark:

When you can get your tramp stamp in the mall, twenty feet away from the people buying Snuggies and ShamWows, it's a sign that the fad has passed the fat point of the cool curve.

19 comments:

JD said...: Reminds me of George Carlin on the earring thing.

"Guys, you know the things with the earring? It's over. It was meant to anger the squares. The squares are wearing them now!"; 9:36 AM, March 09, 2010
New Jovian Thunderbolt said...: What kind of stamp do you have, Tam? Is it a Tribal or something Atlanta Braves related?; 9:56 AM, March 09, 2010
Tam said...: I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't look retarded on an old lady, plus I'm allergic to pain, so I skipped the whole tattoo thing.; 10:00 AM, March 09, 2010
Christina RN LMT said...: As a massage therapist, I can tell you that there are some truly HORRIFIC tattoos out there. If people start getting them at the mall, I can only imagine how much worse it's going to get. Not to mention how many tweens and teens we're going to see with tattoos. I shudder to think of it. And I have tattoos.

W/V "rusnesia" Everyone is busy trying to forget Russia's existence?; 10:55 AM, March 09, 2010
Joanna said...: I can't get over the "what's it going to look like when I'm 80" hurdle.; 11:14 AM, March 09, 2010
Earl said...: Tramp stamp -- okay, now I know so much more than earlier today, still had teenage dreams of a super cool dragon on my bulging bicept, Except it never happened, the tattoo nor the bulging, and teenage was so long ago.

wv ovese (contraction of Over, See?); 11:37 AM, March 09, 2010
Hunsdon said...: Not having ink: it's the new rebellious.

PS: Didn't George Shultz have a Princeton Tiger on his ass? I mean, you want to kill it for the hipsters, just sell it as "Be like George Schultz!"; 11:38 AM, March 09, 2010
atlharp said...: I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't look retarded on an old lady, plus I'm allergic to pain, so I skipped the whole tattoo thing.

Agreed,

I have come to the conclusion that most ink looks like crap. I have many friends that do tattoo work, and I always tell them that I hate about 90% of it. Especially portrait work....ugh that stuff is creepy. I agree, most of that stuff is now pretty lame.; 12:14 PM, March 09, 2010
Anonymous said...: I remember my Uncle Jake's tattoo shop outside the AFB in Rantoul IL. Little 10'x15' (not exact, I was 10 or so) sh#thole with one chair and a bunch of crap scattered around. Mall shops are just wrong. Larry Weeks; 12:30 PM, March 09, 2010
Midwest Chick said...: One of the funnier SNL skits was about lower back tattoo removal. It had a 'time lapse' picture of a tramp stamp that morphed from "Pretty Lady" to "Pretty Sad".

I'm an ink fan myself, but some people's choices just confuse me. On the other hand, mine probably confuse them too.; 12:35 PM, March 09, 2010
Robb Allen said...: I've got ink. Some I'm ready to cover up, some I'm happy with to the nth degree. I want more.

I've always loved tattoos. Had nothing to do with being rebellious, trendy, or edgy, just that I like them. I'm ok with the thought I'll have these when I'm 99. Hell, by then I'll be thrilled just to wake up without shitting myself, what's on my wrinkles will be far from my mind.

I follow two tattoo blogs - Fuck Yeah Tattoos and Ugliest Tattoos. The former for inspiration, the latter to serve as a warning.; 1:38 PM, March 09, 2010
NotClauswitz said...: I'm all for the Mall-Tat approach. It leads to standards: a set of ANSI industry-approved Photoshop designs, an old HP inkjet hooked up to a used GM robot-arm from a defunct car-plant: voila! An easy economic entry-point for identical entrepreneurs results in: McTat's everywhere for everyone, for cheap. Just park your Harley in a glass case out front for advertising - and the whole fad may die a crushing death - or merge with the Metrosexual fragrance-shops where it rightfully belongs.; 2:02 PM, March 09, 2010
Rabbit said...: I've never wanted anything on my body which I wouldn't hang on my wall.

I did consider getting an image of a tick, Ixodes sp. on my toe next to the scar left when i contracted Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but I reconsidered.

Tramp stamps, in certain circles I'm around, are also called VFR landing markers.

Regards,
Rabbit.; 2:47 PM, March 09, 2010
Timmeehh said...: Tattoos were never cool.

Now if you want to be a modern day rebel...

DON'T wear blue jeans! gasp; 2:50 PM, March 09, 2010
Anonymous said...: Tramp stamps, in certain circles I'm around, are also called VFR landing markers.

Just think: If she is hard to look at, you could turn the lights off and go IFR.

No, I have no idea where that came from, either.

Jim; 6:06 PM, March 09, 2010
John A said...: I fear I do not find tats attractive, except those which are actually art - and better off being hung at the Met.

OTOH, I occasionally consider getting one, with my blood type spelled out. As the rawest of Army recruits, I complained about - and got a new set of - dogtags replacing a "+" (plus/positive) with a "-" (minus/negative) which it seems are so easily mistaken for each other that even hospital personnel sometimes have trouble.; 6:15 PM, March 09, 2010
Geodkyt said...: John -- Unfortunately, whenever I think of blood type tattoos, I think of the Waffen SS.

BTW, your dogtags are SUPPOSED to spell out your blood type as "POS" or "NEG" (or "POSITIVE" or "NEGATIVE"). Just like your ID card, medical records, and the labelled units of blood in the hospital. At since 1954 through the mid 1990's at least.

BECAUSE people screw up "+" and "-" so much easier than "POS" and "NEG". And because, when they started adding Rhesus factors to the ID tag, there was no "+" or "-" on the standard embossing machine. (I'm still not certain that the current DoD embossing machines even have a symbols set -- unlike civilian dog tag makers.)

It was a written SOP for us when I was a Drill Sergeant to inspect the dog tags and ID cards of the new recruits for this little gem. We never caught any errors -- but we DID look. This was also when we checked the ID card against the ID tags, to make sure they agreed with each other. THAT we caught a few of. . .; 10:47 PM, March 09, 2010
ZerCool said...: I'm duplicating comments, I left the same one at Robb's:
I refer you to The Simpsons. Season 1, Episode 1. "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". Bart gets a tattoo ... from a shop in the mall. In 1989. Clearly, Mr. Groening was ahead of his time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to open up a Leftorium...; 1:19 AM, March 10, 2010
Anonymous said...: (suggested) edits:

"...I'm allergic to (unnecessary) pain..."

"Scorn (necessary) pain; either it will go away or you will."

Pity be the poor tatter who hurt Tams one too many times...

Which brings me to the one hypothetical tat shop I might patronize:

"Rat A Tat Tat...Tattoos for Gunnies."

And the one tat I might consider getting myself because it speaks volumes for me and would be cryptic to most:

JMB
(pbuh)

Al Terego; 10:10 PM, March 10, 2010