When I was growing up, if you had any piercings, you were considered 'cool'. If you managed to get a tattoo, you were officially a badass. Now, it means nothing. The rebellious taboo behind getting pierced or inked is no more, and it's now considered as normal as owning a cell phone (sure, not everyone has one, but the majority do). What happened to individuality and rebellious acts?

 

 

I had my ear pierced when I was 11 years old by an independent piercer with a piercing gun. I took care of it daily, and it got infected and removed shortly after. Flash forward 3 years... the mom of one of my friends was a tattoo artist, and subsequently had access to the actual piercing needles used by those establishments for hygienic piercing. She gave me one (still in it's sealed packaging) and I went home and pierced my ear. This time, no infection, no problems, and I got hooked. When I turned 17, I decided to get my tongue pierced (this was back in 1995, before tongue piercing became as expected and normal as an abused girl ending up in adult films). By the time I graduated high school, I had done 7 piercings in my ears, and I had my tongue pierced by a professional. I was considered somewhat of a rebel at this point, but decided to add more to my 'image'. I pierced my septum and wore a bull-ring, followed shortly by doing 5 piercings in my eyebrows. Then came the tattoo. Not some skimpy little ink on my upper arm. No, that wasn't good enough. I wanted to really stand out. I decided I wanted to have my whole arm inked. At the time I did it, it was still considered a bit outrageous to have my whole arm inked. Nowadays, I don't even get an awkward glance. The typical response is "what's your tattoo of?", and once I show them, they shoot back with "well, I have X amount of tattoos too". Yeah, great. Congratu-freakin-lations.

 

 

Nowadays, I stick out like someone wearing a coat in the winter here in Chicago. Sure, there may be the few that choose not to do this, but overall the mass majority do... just like having tattoos and/or piercings. Sigh. So much for being a rebel. The real rebels nowadays have nothing pierced and no tattoos. Sadly, I do miss being that bit of an outcast. All you unoriginal people truly suck. Thanks for ruining something I truly enjoyed.

 

 

This rant written by Joe Rosendorf Jr.  This is merely an opinion based on personal experiences, and is intended to inform based on those experiences.