Being someone with a tattoo, my biggest pet peeve is when people say that your tattoo must have a meaning. Since a tattoo is a lifetime commitment many people feel it necessary to have a back story or something special that is significant to your life. Often, you’ll hear “what’s the meaning behind it.” For me, it’s easy because my tattoo does have a meaning to me, but for others it isn’t that easy.
People get tattoos for specific occasions, for family meaning, for empowerment, but often people get them just because they like them. Yet people think that there must be a significance behind it but why is that the case?
Many people around me have tattoos simply because they like the way it looks. If you see some piece of art and you really love it, why shouldn’t you be able to put that on your body without any judgement? It is YOUR body and you should be able to get any tattoo that you want.
Yet, there is still this huge stigma that people have with something that isn’t even theirs. I will often hear people say that the tattoo should have a deeper meaning to a life event or even a family member, although having a meaning is great and if it closely connects with you and your life that works out. It’s just the people with tattoos who got them just because they enjoyed it, shouldn’t feel as if they were in the wrong.
Your body is your own canvas, you have the right to put whatever you’d like on it without the opinion of someone else. You are the one who will spend the time under the needle and suffering through the pain.
People will spend months and even years thinking about what they want to get as a tattoo. They will put in a lot of money and time for something that will be on their body for the rest of their life. We can all agree that there are some tattoos out there that should’ve never happened and who knows what the person was thinking. But we also know that tattoos are a representation of someone’s character and they can mean whatever to whoever. If the person who has it likes it, it doesn’t matter.