Back to the top. As trends and fads guide the youth of America like a team of mules through Culture Gulch, the tragically hip have taken a moment to drink from a stream that has long been winding abreast. Tattoo River, they call it. Butterflies and barbed wire. Just as Bell Biv DeVoe, the art is in full effect, and bikers and pirates, like Seattle dwellers before them, must accept the fact that they have become mainstream.
Tattoos tell a little tale about each person they adorn.
Sure, the old ones drone on and usually forget the ending and then ask for soup, but the careful observer can discover the story behind every little needle prick. For belonging or individuation, the drawings become billboards for personality. However, tattoos have a kooky habit of being quite permanent. Still, the popularity of tattoos continues to climb. Where before designs were stereotyped as threatening symbols such as skulls, knives and the Promise Keepers logo, the new wave of designs are nonthreatening symbols such as roses, native designs and the seal of the Canadian Armed Forces.