Why are tattoos so prevalent these days compared to 2000's?

They are permanent hence tend to accumulate, rather than ebb and flow like other fashion. If only a small % of people per year get a new tat, eventually most will have something.

Accumulation and passage of time doesn't explain why a larger PROPORTION of young people have tattoos.

Accumulation and passage of time would only explain the overall increase in the gross number of tattoos.

It's an awful trend that needs to go away. Why people feel the need to literally wear their insecurity on their sleeve is beyond me.

On some people it can look good. Personally I find it almost always misfires when people who aren't living an alternative lifestyle- particularly women and nerdy guys get tattoos.

What's quite amazing is you don't even see poor people without tattoos anymore. Where did they even get the money for a tattoo and do they realize they are cutting off any chance of upward class mobility they had?

Millennials self hate.

I don't get the lack of foresight. About what else do they think, "This thing I think is really cool when I'm 23, I know I'll still love when I'm 83"? Especially given the hassle of having them removed.

Normalization

Poor people want what upper classes have. Nothing amazing or surprising there. It's success signaling using status symbols that wealthy people fall prey to, as well, also with opportunity cost. A few thou dropped on tats isn't keeping them from better education or better neighborhoods, though.

It is a way to signal to others that you'll do things you'll regret later.

Low IQ and moral debauchery is why.

I thought that tattoos was prevelant in my home state of Utah as a counter-culture to the LDS (Mormon) culture that permeates the state.

I think Facebook and instagram have contributed a lot too.

All actions swing away, so in a few years, tats will go away among adolescents.

I'm so thankful I never got one

It's like an outbreak.

It started with Marcus Camby and his Chinese letter tattoos in the late 90s. Then it spread to the rest of the NBA. Then it jumped to the NFL. In both cases the players took it to the next level and far exceeded simple Chinese letters.

Then it made it across the ocean and infected European soccer, starting with players like David Beckham. After a while it made it to bearded, flannel wearing, beer drinking American bros. Then it mutated again and started to infect chicks. That's about where we are now.

Ummmm.... Ever hear off barbed wire tats? Asian characters? College mascot tatted on the side of your upper thigh just below your short shorts? Olympic Rings? Alan Webb?

Been Around wrote:

Ummmm.... Ever hear off barbed wire tats? Asian characters? College mascot tatted on the side of your upper thigh just below your short shorts? Olympic Rings? Alan Webb?

Lower back “Tramp Stamp”

Continuing my analogy from above, Olympic rings and the running feet things that walk-ons to the college XC team got were like common colds. They might infect at a low level, but don't really spread easily because they are niche. It was only when players in high visibility sports started getting creative with their skin (i.e. putting things on there that had nothing to do with their sport) that it mutated into an outbreak.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:

Poor people want what upper classes have. Nothing amazing or surprising there. It's success signaling using status symbols that wealthy people fall prey to, as well, also with opportunity cost. A few thou dropped on tats isn't keeping them from better education or better neighborhoods, though.

What (and not WT...)? The lack of a few thousand dollars, even the lack of several hundred dollars, can make a critical difference at many points in our lives. I was thinking just minutes ago before I spotted this thread that the lack of money for a security deposit on an apartment could prevent someone from accepting a job offer, or getting a laptop computer for school or work (some job descriptions specify that job applicants should have their own computer, sometimes with certain types of software) for just a few examples.

Further, tattoos are not something usually, in my view, anyway, associated with "upper classes."

Funny how people equate blank skin with some kind of intrinsic good. It doesn't matter. A lot of people have poor taste in what they get, but at least the end of the day markings on skin don't make a difference to a person's value. People have sought to mark their skin for thousand of years across many cultures, so there obviously some utility to be gained for some people. Haters gonna hate.