Analysis Of Self-Expression Through Tattoos And Piercings

Josie Appleton’s piece opens with her introducing the fact that body modification has lost its mark of being taboo. Appleton then transitions into describing the different kinds of people that modify their bodies and why they do it. The fact that people used to mostly use tattoos to identify with a group and are now using them to define themselves is heavily enforced. The rest of the piece describes in great detail the different ways people use piercings and tattoos to better understand themselves and mark important milestones. The piece concludes with Appleton claiming that body modification should only be for fashion, because bringing significance to it causes problems.

Tattoos have played a role in human societies since their inception, as pieces of cultures and rituals across the world. To many, having a tattoo is an outward way of expression. However, the prejudice have not disappeared and are still greatly diminishing. In the article Inked Well, David Kirby examines the aspects of tattoo’s history, as well as tattoo’s iconic popularity among today 's middle class. Kirby’s stereotypical views on the tattooed “victims” quickly change as he goes on to interview some local tattooes of Tallahassee, Florida.

This article “On Teenagers and Tattoos” by Anders Martin, M.D. is an analysis of those children and adolescents who love to have tattoos on their bodies. The writer actually tries to explain the importance of tattooing for adolescents. He describes that by understanding the reasons behind the tattoos, the parents can better understand their children. The special quality of the writer is that he provides a completely different picture of having tattoos from the one that is prevailing among the parents. The style and format in which he wrote really gives the reader a better understanding of the text. In this text, Martin refers to the growing trend of tattoos, and why our young people is becoming a more permanent form of expression.

Did you know that the word “tattoo” can be traced back to the Polynesian noun tatau, which means “puncture, mark made on skin”? People get tattoos for a bunch of different reasons like for a family members death, childhood memories, favorite animal, and ect.. The law about tattoos that people always have arguments about is that minors(under the age of 18) must have parent permission to get a tattoo. Minors should not need to get parent permission to get tattoos.

The sociological imagination has been defined by C. Wright Mills (1959) as the “vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society. This in essence, refers to being able to look at the world around you from different perspectives and to think about things in ways that we normally wouldn’t consider. It’s a way of stepping out from what we consider to be comfortable in order to help us understand the world around us and the people that live in it. The behaviour that I choose to use social imagination on is tattooing.

Tattooing has been around for nearly as long as humans have been. For example, the oldest revelation of tattooed human skin was found approximately 6000 BC on the upper lip of a Chinchorro culture mummy from South America. The oldest direct evidence for tattooing in Europe is the body of Ötzi the Iceman, which dates back to the late fourth millennium BC. The argument makes a claim of value, because she firmly states her opinions in defense of body art. The essay was written on the 6th of April in 2010. It is important to note the time frame, because throughout time tattoos have greatly been embraced by millennials. According to surveys, more than one-third of Americans under age 30 have tattoos (Rottenberg 36).

Many people have a certain opinion when it comes to their standing on tattoos, whether they see them as beautiful pieces of art, or body mutilation, everyone subscribes to a different belief. Many people who see teenagers, believe that these teens are “troubled”, or impulsive and impressionable, which at that point in the brain’s development that may be true, but they never consider that maybe that teen is ready, or is willing to commit to the tattoo simply because it is something that has importance to them. Andres Martin, a child psychiatrist, wrote an article in a 2000 edition of the magazine “Reclaiming Our Children and Youth” about teenagers and tattoos, where he directly addresses the reasons that would support the ideas behind teens getting tattoos. Andres

Dubois also proposes a solutions to the Black community. For Du Bois, education is very important for black folk. In the society where  racism exist, education is the path to freedom. Educated folks will know how to lead the community to gain rights. Dubois come to this solutions with the approach of pragmatism.  Pragmatism is the philosophical doctrine that rejects the quest for fundamental foundational truths and abstract philosophical systems. Pragmatists argue that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge, meaning and value. Dubois using pragmatism to  approach to the problem of race. He suggests that by using pragmatist principles, we can arrive at the truth regarding race relations by seeing the injustice of racism and promoting social change. In his address during the Niagara Movement, Dubois emphasize that    “ And when we call for education, we mean real education. We believe in work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education. Education is the development of power and ideal.We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girl simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire.”

Underage tattooing is an increasing problem all over the world. As well as it being a luxury for teenagers, it is also a shared commonality that includes almost 75% of the world population, or simply just friends and family. Yet, as adults who have been through the - no longer - popular trend of tattoos in the early nineties, teenagers are bringing back the huge craze along with its dangers and consequences. We need to know that fashions from the past could possibly be in the past because of horrible outcomes in the end.

The practice of modifying one’s skin as a means of expression has been active for as long as 5300 years (Haskings-Winner, Collichaw, Kritzer, & Warecki, 2011). However, in modern day societies the stigma against body modification, including tattoos is still prevalent. To understand why people of a North American influence would subject themselves to this potential undermining, one must first uncover what motivates a person to permanently enhance their skin. Primarily, research into the topic, history, traditions, modern meanings, was conducted using printed resources, online databases, and online-published journals. Notes and condensed summaries of said research was used to create survey questions and a general audience was decided. Once the survey was conducted, the results were tabulated and analysed so that a conclusion could be determined. In this study, southern Canadians are questioned about their motivations to get tattoos, and results are compared to ancient tattoo traditions from other cultures to conclude that southern Canadians, more often than not, do attach profound personal meaning to their tattoos.

To obtain answers needed to addressed the research questions presented at the beginning of this study, the researchers conducted a one-part survey to comprehend and understand one’s perception towards people with tattoos. The results show that tattoos are becoming more accepted by the millennial. Even though only 1 out of 15 students appeared to have a tattoo, it turns out that 4 out of 10 females and 4 out of 5 male undergraduates express their will to be inked in the future. However, the results of this study contradicts the findings of Crespo’s (2008) study wherein women tend to consider getting tattooed than men. This might simply imply that perception on tattoos might have really changed.

The Merchants of Cool is a film that shows the life of millennials from a sociological perspective. The film took a sociological approach by filming what is happening in the everyday lives of the youngsters as the future approaches them. The main concepts of sociology is to study human society and social behavior which are viewed in this film at different situations in different outlooks. This paper will analyze the following sociological themes (culture, socialization, social groups, social institution, and social interaction) based on what was portrayed in the film. This film uses micro- and macrosociology examine schools, malls, and explore the "next big thing" that will catch the attention of their target on determining how society works from a range of topics at different levels of analysis.

Millenniums are the new trend-setters of this era. The younger generations started getting tattoos as a form of self-expression rather than following strict coming-of-age ceremonies as done since the traditional origins of this fashion statement. “Motivations for the acquisition of tattoos and body piercings seem to be diverse …however, most frequently ..[i]s the expression of individuality” (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02791.x/full) . Professor Violetta Skrzypulec-Plinta did a research study concerning the correlations between tattoos and body modification, age, and sexual activity. In this field experiment, she interviewed 250 adults, half of whom had tattoos, about their sexual behavior and found a trend. She found that the median age of people who chose to get tattoos was 23.5 years old, and were highly sexually active. “About 73 percent of people [got] their first tattoo between 18 and 22 years of age, and an estimated 40 percent of Millennials have a tattoo” per Pew Research Center (USA Today). This increase in tattooing in young people mirrors the trend of tattooing in the older people (men and women) during the Post-Modern Era. This shows how tattoos were getting more widely accepted in society, and anxiety over the tattoo’s symbolism was mostly

Jewelry is a universal form of adornment that has been around for thousands of years. Thanks to archeological evidence and ancient scholarly reports, jewelry and its purpose has been thoroughly studied. In North Africa, for example, prehistoric shells have been found with obviously man made perforations through the center, and it is estimated that they could date from as far back as 82,000 years ago. Throughout history, the act of wearing jewelry enables the wearer to express him or herself non-verbally, to showcase wealth, rank, political and religious affiliation or affections toward someone. Regardless of the gender of the wearer, these non-verbal expressions are easily understood. The purpose of jewelry remains the same no matter if a male or female is wearing it. “Especially in pre-literate cultures, most decoration is a carefully orchestrated collection of signs, each with particular meanings and overtones. As worn, jewelry constitutes a complex statement of social fact and personal fantasy, which other people in the same culture recognize and

Heraclitus once stated “the only thing that is constant, is change.”, nothing exemplifies fashion more than this statement. As a person that is constantly demanding herself to grow and change, fashion is the one thing that can keep up with me. It is the only constant in my life that I have a stable relationship with, due to its shape shifting nature which resembles mine. A part of change for me was always aspiring to be bigger, better, and bolder; I apply all of those concepts when it comes to fashion and design. In addition, fashion and creation were always a form of escapism for me as it didn’t cage me in ways; the freedom that came along with self-expression was a form of liberty I never knew I could experience. I was always a self-aware