The Tattoo Subculture in America Term Paper

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One of the most popular subcultures in America is the tattoo subculture. Over the span of roughly half a century, tattooing emerged from being a trend among sailors, circus performers and side show freaks to being body ink sported by bikers, convicts, professional athletes, actors, musicians, Millennials, hipsters, Moms, Dads, and just about everyone in between. Thanks to trend setters in popular media, tattooing broke out into the mainstream in the 21st century. What was once a shocking display of body ink meant to symbolize one’s difference from others has now become so common among people today that to see a tattooed person, or a dozen of them, in a restaurant is nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, for all its popularity, tattooing is still part of a subculture: professionals in the business world tend to avoid them or at least hide the one or two they have, and many parents still discourage the practice—such as the father of NBA player Lonzo Ball and actor Mark Whalberg, who has had his own tattoos surgically removed. So what do tattoos represent for people and why are they appealing to some? The fact is that many of today’s tattooed persons do not realize the significance of the tattoo subculture of days gone by. According to Tefts, “a subculture consists of a group of individuals who distinguish themselves from the overriding culture in some way, whether it be ethnically, morally, visually, attitudinally, etc.” (3). Yet many today get tattoos not to stand out but to fit in: Justin Bieber is a perfect example of an artist who suddenly needed to “prove” himself as an authentic artist by getting sleeves up his arms. Today, tattooing serves as a visual way for people to express themselves differently from the status quo. This paper will describe how tattooing came to America, how it led to a subculture, how the subculture is misrepresented today, how it became mainstream, what the outcomes for society from this subculture have been in America, and what a sociologist has said about this subculture. 

Tattooing came to America in the 1860s, when the first tattoo studio opened in New York City (Vanishing Tattoo). Owned by Hildebrandt, the studio was a favorite stop of circus performers and carnival acts, whose full-body tattoos served as “freakish” attractions used to drum up business in carnival industry. Hildebrandt’s own daughter was one such sideshow attraction with a full-body set of tattoos given her by her dad (Vanishing Tattoo). Overseas, the tattooing fever had caught on when the Prince of Wales tattooed a cross on himself. In the States, tattooing was mainly linked to similarly patriotic gestures: soldiers, especially in the Navy, got tattoos as mementos—ink to remember their unit, their home, a loved one. From the Civil War on up to WWI and WWII, tattooing was popular among those in the military. Tattoo artists in the 20th century began to arrive on the scene in earnest for WWII soldiers, putting eagles or buxom blondes on the arms of sailors, though circus per (Vanishing Tattoo).

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The first half of the 20th century was mostly spent getting sweethearts’ names covered up or indecent tattoos inked over with clothing: popular artist Charles Wagner was interviewed in 1944 after 50 years of tattooing and “he estimated that next to covering up the names of former sweethearts, the work which brought him the most money over the years had been complying to the Naval order of 1908,” which had forbade men from serving in the Navy so long as they had indecent ink (Vanishing Tattoo).

America has been at war since the Spanish-American War which began at the end of the 19th century, and so war was pretty much what was going on in America when the tattoo subculture got going. America was still fairly traditional in terms of values and roles up to WWII, and after the War, social revolution took off, and the second half of the 20th century was radically different from the first half. Tattooing in the second half stopped being tied to patriotic acts of valor (like going to war) and began being taken up by subculture artists—like musicians in punk rock and later hip hop artists: both viewed tattoos as a way of expressing their street credibility and their status as an “other” in society (Rapp 1). Tattooing in America became a real art once tattoo artists began creating more complete works of ink—as Rapp notes:

The American tattoo did not begin to enter this realm until the tattooists of the late 20th century made contact with tattooists in Polynesia and Japan and began creating custom and large?scale tattoos rather than the small and independent flash designs which had been the standard. The increasing skill and creativity expected from a tattooist has resulted in “tattoo artists,” most of whom have had formal art training in the same way a painter or other traditional artist would. The effects of this change were that tattoos became more legitimate as art because of the technical prowess exhibited and the expense involved in acquiring one. (18)

With the arrival of real tattoo artists who could style elaborate designs, the “other” in society could express his otherness with a proper aesthetic. But once this could be achieved, the “other” took on a significance of its own and ceased to be defined by its separation from the mainstream: tattooed people began to be an in-group of its own.

Today, the tattoo subgroup has been misrepresented in a variety of ways: tattoos have been associated with deviance and crime as people in prisons, punks and African Americans in hop hop and gangsta rap have sported tattoos as a sign of toughness (Rapp). Or as Tabassum puts it, “the dominant cultural….....

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