I understand tattooing is alot more mainstream now with alot of celebs having ink and stuff but back in the 70s and 80s still alot of people had tattoos right?
I’m having a debate with my friend he says only criminals got tattoos in the 70s and 80s but I know alot of navymen and armymen and women and pals who have lots and lots of tattoos.
What is your opinion on that?
For example he claims the teardrop or borstal dot meant something in the 80s and not now but I don’t think it has lots its meaning in any shape or form because as soon as you see someone with it what is the first thing that comes to mind prison the same as the dots on the knuckles (ACAB) and the swallows in the UK I mean.
Same as hands and face tattoos depending on what it is but there never will be socially acceptable.. right? :rolleyes:
well there was a time when the only people who got tattoos where service members and criminals, but it sure as heck wasnt the 70’s and 80’s…. more like 40’s and 50’s i would say. from what i have seen and read, tattooing started being more common and mainstream in the late 60’s, and gets more and more popular as time goes by. face and hand tattoos are still considered unrepresentable in most places, which is a shame. but there are a lot of tattoos that do still have criminal meaning, such as the teardrops like you mentioned, dots on knuckles, spider webs… people still get those to signify certain crimes commited and time in prison, etc…
Yeah thats what I was trying to say to him, my grandad has swallows with his name on one hand and my nanas on the other and he explained to me what there meant but now lots of prison inmates getting them meaning you have done your bird you have done your time.
Will face or hand or neck tattoos ever become socially acceptable?
The thing is with some tattoos though like swallows, spiders and webs lots of people get them because there like the look of them I know a few 😀
So would you say in the 70s and 80s it was nothing unusual to see people tattooed compared to now?
well i wasnt around in the 70’s, and i was VERY young in the 80’s, so i couldnt really tell ya if tattoos where just as common then than they are now. however i can tell you tattoos have gained in popularity since then, and grow more and more popular every day.
as for head and neck tattoos, it isnt likely they will be completely acceptable to everyone any time soon, but we can hope our generation will change that for the next.
yea, swallows originated with sailors… no idea how people get prison from swallows… and yes people who are not criminals do get tattoos that have common meanings in the criminal world… thats just a fact. usually those who get tattoos that have criminal meaning are just getting them to look “cool” or “hard”, unless they got them for ACCOMPLISHING the meaning, in which case they probably are hard and should be avoided. haha.
google can come in handy to researching tattoo history and the origins of certain designs by the way.
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