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They look cool you nerd

i got a temp tattoo of a black widow on my neck at a fair 10 years ago. it was awesome and i got lots of compliments. for the entire day, i was like, "they call me 'Spider'." very glad it was temporary lol.

When it's from a highly skilled artist, it's like wearing a painting. You're making a permanent blood commitment to art. Sure that's a dozen hours of mostly annoying pain, but then every time I look in the mirror my legs are just boring flesh. My arms get to be my favourite things in my favourite artistic style reminding me of the time I spend in my favourite place. It's a constant connection to those things that I can't accidentally wash off. A custom temporary tattoo version of that would probably be more expensive over time, more annoying to put on, and I wouldn't want to wear other sleeves or have have uneven/full body ones.

You're asking about the practicality but people don't really care about that tbh. Ask your question through the eyes of outward expression or even a neurodiverse perspective.

I'm autistic as hell and I have trouble with starting and holding conversations. My nerves start to crack and jitter whenever I have to start up a conversation or if I have to bother someone at random (this is more work related). Still though, I'm so bad at this particular thing that it takes deliberate effort if I'm not feeling confident that day, it sucks. There also some times where people start conversations with me and I feel so blindsided that my nerves get shot and I start to stutter.

For people like me and even other posters here, expressing ourselves through words and actions are much more preferred than vocal expression. Getting a tattoo does two very important things for me, I can express my love for my sister and I can have a cool focal point for my conversations if I need. My sister was the person who influenced my life in ways I can't even imagine, even to this day I'm still recalling our nights just shooting the shit and she would always get into topics that would be openly discussed here today. She'd be a poster for sure lmao. As for helping me in conversations? I get bright, beaming confidence whenever someone asks me about her. My words, my tone and the way I navigate topics changes me into an almost a completely different person. It's something I still don't understand about myself but I do know if it helps me get better at talking then I'm gonna do it.

I'm putting all that shit I wrote on my forearm in form of tree bark and a purple ribbon wrapped around it.

Not trying to be too sassy but I hope this is just a silly topic about permanency and not expression lol

A big part of the appeal for me is that it's NOT temporary and not something you have to tend to every day like makeup. You just wake up and your aesthetic is already partially complete, no effort. It doesn't smudge when you're active and doesn't have an awkward stage where it's partially coming off.

Doing makeup every day is enough of a pain in the ass that people who normally wouldn't get tattoos sometimes get tattooed eyeliner.

In the West, temporary tattoos are seen as toys for babies basically.

In other areas, temporary skin markings can have significant cultural or religious importance. The West has no culture remaining and no cultural events in which we would traditionally decorate and adorn ourselves in those types of markings. We are so alienated and our culture so stagnated that there's no reason we would ever congregate and hold meaningful shared cultural events, therefore temporary tattoos get relegated to toys for babies.

Permanent tattoos historically have also been used as signifiers of community, of joining a certain group or tribe or reaching a certain social milestone. In the West, again, that is dead and all that's left is individuals getting tattoos for individualist/aesthetic reasons to prove their "identity" to themselves and others.

i think i've met one person that ever did temps outside of the stuff for kids & festivals. it's just not something we tend to do, but i should think places with henna traditions & similar it's probably more common.

but practically speaking, i don't really 'get' the pros for temporary, i'm capricious as fuck about what i want in a tatoo, having to re-decide every two week or every event isn't actually that appealing of a prospect. the only kind of people i can really see getting the most of it are performers that can use them as part of costuming

I guess it's because permanency is just more meaningful to people, psychologically, anyway.

I don't get it either.

I've also seen very few tattoos that were actually good aesthetically speaking. Actually, I can only think of one person who I know with a track record of 100% exceptionally beautiful tattoos—but she has a degree in art history so that makes sense. If people got beautiful tattoos all the time then I'd understand and would probably appreciate tattoos more. I think most piercings look cool, so I'm not totally against body modifications.

But most people just get the absolute shittiest things permanently tattooed onto their body and blanket themselves in it. I truly don't get it.

I have one friend who is an adrenaline junkie and he explained it as getting excited from the irresponsibility of getting something dumb permanently placed on your body. That's the only explanation I've heard that makes sense to me, but I also doubt it's true for most. Maybe just peer pressure or trends or something? Work of seeseepee on TikTok?

I know fascists love to hate tattoos for different reasons, including misogyny, so I want to emphasize I think people should have the right to modify their body as they like considering that it's theirs. But when these trads say that people are ruining their natural beauty (I realize this is code for "White beauty") by getting ugly tattoos, I kinda agree in a very limited way. I see it like getting a bad haircut but permanently. Okay, Bryan, I understand it's your choice how you want to style yourself and you want to try something different, but WHY DID YOU MAKE IT PERMANENT?

Again, if they are well-made tattoos then I can appreciate them and the desire for them but I also realize my opinion doesn't really matter. If people want to get tattoos, that's fine, not for me and I don't get it.

Why does anyone do anything elective that costs money?

They enjoy it

I only have 3. One was total teenage impulse, but the other two are for meaningful things in my life. They both represent bonds to people that I love, and seeing them reminds me of those people and makes me smile. And when people ask about them, I get to talk about those people, which is also nice.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I bet way more people have worn temporary tattoos than have proper tattoos. (limited to living people)

I think its funny to see an very elderly person who got tattoos 60, 70, 80 years ago. I wonder what their tattoos looked like when both of them were younger...