Friday, October 19, 2012

My opinion of My Tattoo Addiction

For those of you that did not see it My Tattoo Addiction was aired by Channel 4 in the UK. It was billed as "This uplifting, warm and often eye-watering documentary discovers, through candid interviews, what leads people to go under the needle, and how fixing a bad tattoo can mean facing more than just the physical reminder of your past."

Within the first 6 minutes I was at the verge of pulling my hair out from pure frustration. Apparently the film explores the world of tattoos. Is saw it more as exploring the world of 4 people who seems slightly unstable. It was not representative of the world I know or the friends I have made through tattooing. Of course it was real, these people are real and their tattoos are real. Of course these scratchers and crazies exist but that is exactly what the true artists in the industry are trying to get away from. It portrayed tattoed people as emotional wrecks and artists as money grabbing criminals for want of a better explanation.

Lets explore our protagonists.

The holiday rep with the cunt tattoo - This started out promising. The guy realised he had bent tattoos and they needed to be fixed. He went to a studio called Abracadabra. This studio was called the "go to studio for cover ups". Well I have never heard of it and it didn't look like the type of studio I would enter. A bit icky, if you know what I mean. All was going well, the chest cover up of a website address for a boat party in Ayia Napa (Fantasyboatparty.com) was going well. Not amazing or breakthrough art but ok. Until it got to the point when our holiday rep turns up drunk. The artist was happy to carry on tattooing him. This artist I think is called Dave Fleet. Check out his gallery here. http://www.abracadabratattoo.co.uk/gallery2/Dave/
I really don't know an artist that would be happy to tattoo a drunk customer.

The Miley Cyrus fan - This 39 year old man has 17 tattoos dedicated to 19 year old Miley. He has been getting them since his divorce in 2009. Now, I understand the point of his artist when he said "he is not harming anyone" but let us add a bloody big YET to that. This guy had what I can only describe as Psychotic tendencies. I have no doubt we will be seeing him again on crimewatch and the news at 10. The artist Stuart Rollisson once suggested we kill the managing director of a publishing company. What a super chap.

Then there was the crazy cat lady - This story gave me hope. She was in Spear Studio. oh huzzah. She was getting tattoos of her 5 dead cats (why does she keep killing cats). Ok she is forgiven I like my cats. OOOOOOOOOOHHHH NNNNOOOOOOOO. She has opened a tattoo studio in her house, Lucky Kitty Tattoo Arts, what an apt name . There is no mention of where she has apprenticed or if she has studied art at all. But them we see that she tattoos her dad. The end result is what we can only describe as a black blob. Please stop Fran. Please go and get trained properly.

We travelled to Ayia Napa as acccording to this documentary the is where "most young people have the opportunity to get there first tattoo abroad". Do they really? I am not sure this has been well researched. They people we saw getting tattooed are complete fucktards that seem to enjoy drinking all the jagerbombs in the land before sharing chamlydia with each other. I hated them. I hated them deep down in my soul. The guy doing these did not seem to care for are art. He seemed to care about making as much money as possible from the drunk fucktards that probably deserved to be ripped off.

Last of all was the tribal face dude - This guy told us he was a nice guy but also owned up to trying to shoot his mum. Sometimes I feel like shooting my mum but I am not going to actually try it. I like they way he thought that 2 black tribal scorpions was better than one. The artist used the term "the blood is pushing out the ink" I have come to believe this means he can't put black in solid.

What was the point me writing all this. Well, it is to get you to do a bit of research. If you want to watch programs about tattoos don't watch this bullshit, don't watch Miami, LA, NY or London ink. Seek out Tattoo Age or The Gypsy Gentleman.

1 comment:

  1. Nice post - I agree with most of it, except to say that I doubt Carl (Miley Cyrus Man) poses a threat to anyone except himself. He said himself he wouldn't even want to be near Miley - that'd be "too much" for him. I think the real damage he's done is to his own chances of meeting someone real in the future - he seemed a decent fella, if borderline delusional, and was nice enough looking. He's been through an emotionally devastating time, splitting up with his wife and not living with his kids any more. The Miley Cyrus thing seemed a fucked-up way of dealing with all that; but as he himself asked: what happens when the obsession deserts him, as surely it must one day? Then he'll be covered in badly done tattoos of a face that means nothing to him anymore, and no other woman will go near him. I thought his story was heartbreaking really, poor sod.

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