The following post is brought to you by fatcat's desire to over-analyze trivial topics, don't read if you get bored easy or think you'll get riled by someone who has no tattoos bitching about tattoos for a full page.The permanence itself is part of the allure and mystique. A lot of creativity goes into the conceptualization of design knowing its permanent. And a lot of fail happens when people don't think it through.
Semi-permanent ink makes all that stuff trivial.
Exactly my point.
No tattoo is really permanent, its just whether you want scarring or not when you decide you want it gone.
It seems dumb because its really fake bravado. Faux self destructive rock and roll for people who want to (metaphorical) face paint and seem 'edgy' and 'alternative'. (not the artwork but the idea that a permanent tattoo means more than a temp or an airbrush)
Why is it that a 3 year temporary tattoo would be seen as any worse than the same ink on a permanent tattoo? because its not really about the art but about the ego. You could get the 3 year tattoo redone every 3 years till death, its just as permanent because
you've made it permanent, an undying commitment to the art and what it represents.
Its as dumb as marriage. The idea that somehow its unfavorable or cowardly to accept that people change over time, and you might want to change your life and have something different. Divorce and tattoo removal scars are the same gross monument to this immature obsession with fake permanency.
How many people have covered up tattoos of ex-lovers names is a fucking beauteous example of this.
Is saying, "I will be the same person I am now for the rest of my life" meant to be a good thing?
it seems a weird attempt to inject some artificial importance. its not enough that you have artwork, its gotta be 'permanent'. its not enough that you're in love, its got to be 'permanent'. (the unmentioned subtext that if you actually changed your mind later on you'd just get a divorce or ink removal)
The only permanency of marriage is every day you wake up and decide you still want to be with this person. The only permanency of a tattoo is every day you wake up and decide you still want it on your arm.
In fact the commitment is greater with a temp-tattoo, because there'd be no bad reason to keep it. If you have a permanent one, then one day you might look down at it and think, that looks kind of sad, or that doesn't really represent who i am anymore, but you won't remove it cause it costs too much and would leave a scar.
Plus temp-perm ones look cooler cause they get redone more often so the ink stays crisper, more colorful etc.
Or maybe im just being a kiljoy, i dunno.