Being a little girl watching an abundance of movies and television shows, I always looked at the guy with tattoos on his arms and girls with piercings as bad people, just through their body art. As I got older though, I grew out of thinking negative things about people with different forms of self-expression they embodied. My new mindset started in 7th grade when I got my first non-lobe piercing on my cartilage, and from then on, I continue to go against my young belief. As I grew with age, I became more accepting of piercings and tattoos and equally conscious of the type of people who have body art. Shockingly, 18 years of age later, I can proudly say I am amongst this self-expressing group of people. I have 5 ear piercings, a belly button piercing, and a tattoo. So, I have come to think about if other people like me have accepted self-expression through time? What kind of people are involved in this self-expressing art? Why are piercings and tattoos on an upward trend among generation Y?
Now, wanting to add to my assortment of body art, I have a desire to get my nose pierced, but with one problem. I don’t have the approval from my parents, for reasons that include facial piercings being “unprofessional.” Are tattoos and piercings becoming accepted in the workplace through time? If they are, what’s holding me back?
Who are they?
Originally, I always thought the “bad” people were the ones who had tattoos and piercings, as I previously stated. Growing with age, I was quick to notice that not just the “bad” men and women, but also any other ordinary person can get a tattoo or piercing. Getting a tattoo or piercings has recently been the “thing to do when your 18” when having a parent consent is no longer present and adulthood is taken on. I feel that for this reason alone, teenagers and young adults over previous generations, and now generation Y, are wanting to go through with this attention seeking, specific type of body art. I think that moving into the future, teenagers turning 18 will want to go through with tattoos and piercings. I wanted to test my intuition and dig deeper into finding out if self-expression through body art increases, the younger people are. Through different types of sources and articles, I came across many types of data sets, some including piercings and some including tattoos. This particular press article published on March 16, 2006 titled “Tattoos and Body Piercings in the United States: A national data set,” stood out to me because it included tests about piercings, tattoos, and body art among a range of demographics. This press article was conducted by both Anne E. Laumann, MBCHB, a professor in Dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Amy J. Derick, MD, owner of Derick Dermatology, both from Chicago, Illinois. The intended audience are people wanting to learn more specific information about tattoos and body piercings among a variety of people in the United States. The objective of this article “was to provide US tattooing and body piercing prevalence, social distribution, and medical and social consequence data.” The “respondents were randomly selected using random digit dialing (RDD) to obtain a national probability sample within the 48 contiguous United States with approximately equal numbers of men and women.” The study included “500 respondents aged 18 to 50 years [old] between February 11 and April 18, 2004.”
This study helped me to identify different percentages of people who had both tattoos, piercings, and body art in general. The first area I looked as was the “Year of Birth” column found in “Table I. Distribution and associations of tattoos and body piercings.” I first noticed that in all 4 categories, “Has a tattoo,” “Has ever had a body piercing,” “Has had any body art,” and “Has had both tattoo and body piercing,” there was an upward trend of higher percentages associated with younger people. Other factors such as gender, ethnicity, income, and jail time, just to name a few, were additional categories tested among the people. Importantly, of people born in 1975-1986, 36% of people had a tattoo, 32% had a body piercing, 48% with any body art, and 20% with both tattoos and body piercings among the youngest group of people. In comparison, the older people born in 1953-1963, had 15% of people with a tattoo, 2% with a body piercing, 15% with any body art, and 2% with both tattoos and body piercings. The categories had drastic differences, all with at least a 50% increase from the 1953-1963 age group to the 1975-1986 age group. My initial thoughts were correct, such that through time the amount of people with tattoos, piercings, and other forms of body art increases, as shown in the “National Data Set” report. So the younger the age group, the more tattoos, piercings, and body art they have compared to that of older age groups; but why?
Tattoos Among Generation Y
While the “National Data Set” report did give a clear indication of upward trends of piercings and tattoos among younger people, we have to consider why this is occurring. My belief is that now more than ever generation Y is influenced by social media. I think that gaining attention from body art is important among most of Generation Y, like posting to social media. Equally, I think that through social media, seeing what is popular among our peers and celebrities has an influence on what we desire to self express. Through researching, the articles I found were short and biased, generally only for or against body art. The next source I chose to examine was an article by student Tanya Cruz in Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, from the Huffington Post Canada, and went in depth specifically on “The Power of Media” sub-section. The Huffington Post “is an American online news aggregator… that offers news, blogs, and original content and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news,” as stated from the article titled “The Huffington Post” from Wikipedia. The article found on the “Huffpost Style,” “Generation Y Tattoos: Millennials Drawn In As Interest In Body Art Jumps” from January 16, 2013, is intended for audiences both millennials and an older generation of people, who are wanting to gather more information regarding tattoos among millennials or generation Y.
The article initially talks about the power of the media, and how popular TV shows like “Miami Ink,” “NY Ink,” and “Ink Master” played “a huge role in helping tattoos go mainstream.” After Cruz interviewed with several tattoos artists, 2 reasons were formed on why people get tattoos. The first reason has influences to do with social media and specifically, celebrities. Tattoo artist Tara Zep, from New Tribe Tattoos and Piercings, reasoned that “copycat tattoos” are prevalent “women between the ages of 18 and 25.” These women get tattoos similar or even identical to the tattoos seen on popular celebrities, thus creating the so-called “copycat” nature. Wanting to put meaning into body art is the other reason why people get tattoos, says Pauline Zahalan, owner of Young Street Tattoos. She adds that “nine out of 10 people who go into her shop will get a meaningful tattoo” which can be as simple as “falling in love with a certain picture or design.” The reasons as to why millennials are getting tattoos was greatly influenced by the media when TV shows made tattooing look easy and less intimidating, which has been “keeping tattoo shops busy across North America.” Social media is influencing millennials in generation Y to be self-expressive through tattoos as seen from the information provided by Cruz in this article. Whether the idea of a tattoo came from a life event or something found on a popular celebrity, it is easy to observe that tattoos are increasingly gaining popularity among millennials as the interest in body art rises.
Body Art in the Workplace
One of the main factors that restricts people from wanting to get certain tattoos or piercings is the fear that they may come across as “unprofessional.” This is especially prevalent in my life, as I have my parents convincing me that facial piercings will hold me back from a job in the future. As I have grown up though, I have noticed the commonality of people having piercings and tattoos in the workplace. I think that self-expression has reached such a level that it is common to see tattoos and piercings among workers in almost any setting. For these reasons I believe that body art and self-expression is more accepting in the workplace, and becoming more accepting as time progresses, and for my next source, I wanted to discover if my views are actually true. When researching sources, it was quick to find that most sources agree with body art being unprofessional so I ended up picking two sources that opposed each others beliefs.
The first source I found was an online press article found on “The Daily Free Press,” which is the student run newspaper at Boston University. This press article published on October 2, 2014 by students Navraj Narula and Olivia Deng from Boston University titled “Tattoos, piercings becoming more acceptable in various work spaces,” interviews with different students and older professionals regarding tattoos and piercings in the workplace. The purpose of this press article was to see the difference views that professions have on body art, and is intended for an audience that are current students or students going into the work place soon. Debra McCullough, “manager of student records at the Boston University School of Education,” was the first person interviewed in this press article. She gave her opinion in that she would “have no problem with tattoos and piercings as long as it’s not a big, gaping hole in your face. A visible tattoo is fine as long as it’s tasteful.” Narula and Deng then went on to say that “preferences” of body art “vary from one industry to another.” In one setting, some retail stores find it “commonplace” to have body art among its workers as it can be part of the “style” they are trying to sell, giving retail store Urban Outfitters as an example. Another setting is the fast food industry, where “appearance is even less restrictive” says an interviewee Jay Rivera, cashier at McDonald’s. On the contrary, “associate director of marketing and communications at the BU Center for Career Development,” Eleanor Cartelli, disagrees saying that it is important to stay “on the conservative side” and remember that “one represents the company or organization.” In all, the fields of workplace and the level to which you are applying at make a difference in whether or not piercings and tattoos are acceptable.
While the previous press article leaves it up to the workplace and their policies to determine if tattoos and piercings are acceptable, the article “Are tattoos and piercings professional” states the contrary. This online article posted by Erica Garnett on March 11, 2014 was published on “The Massachusetts Daily Collegian” which “is a student operated newspaper that is published at the Pennsylvania State University” from “The Daily Collegian” article found on Wikipedia. The purpose of this online article was to educate the intended audience of students, the unprofessional aspects of body art in the workplace. Instead of this article talking about the flexibility of body art as the “The Daily Free Press” article, it is firm to siding with the unprofessionalism that body art has in most professions. While the article primarily does acknowledge the fact that “popularity of piercings and tattoos [continue] to grow,” Garnett is quick to judge the unprofessionalism of body art. An excerpt from an article “Free to Be You and Me?” written by Mary Catherine Beach, M.D.,M.P.H, and Somnath Saha M.D., M.P.H, “facial piercings… seem inconsistent with professional standards of appearance.” Garnett talks especially about the unprofessionalism of tattoos and piercings in the medical field in that “patients… find it uncomfortable to be seen by a doctor that has a visible body piercing or tattoo.” It is also brought up that the professional world “neglects the involvement that tattoos or body piercings can have,” and like similarly stated from “The Daily Collegian” article, body art “in the workplace depends on the culture of the company.” While Garnett finishes by saying that tattoos and piercings continue to be looked down upon, she believes that “once [our] current generation is in the position to hire the next generation of... employees, we will have loosened the restrictions” on body art.
Through exploring different types of academic articles and a series of data involving body art among people of different demographics, I was able to find the answer to my initial questions. The online press report “Tattoos and Body Piercings in the United States: A national data set,” led me to see that through time, the number of people with tattoos, piercings, and other forms of body art increases. In addition, the article from “The Huffington Post” gives reason as to why generation Y has become more interested in body art, and why tattoos [specifically] are gaining popularity. Lastly, I discovered through my concluding sources that preferences of tattoos in the workplace depended on the field of profession. With this, I’d like to comment on Erica Garnett’s quote from “The Daily Collegian” that “patients… find it uncomfortable to be seen by a doctor that has a visible body piercing or tattoo.”
To conclude my research, I ran a search on “doctors with tattoos” and looked for an article showing the opinion and perspective of a doctor. The last source I found from “The Do” website in an article titled “Is the world ready for tattooed, pierced physicians,” Carolyn Schierhorn considers why generation Y battles between “free expression vs. professional conformity.” To OMS III and “very heavily tattooed” Amanda J. Hersch, self-expression and tattoos did not put a stop to her dream of perusing a physician career at the Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Parker, Colorado. “RVUCOM does not discourage self-expression” and accepts body art in clinical settings which especially attracted Hersch to the college. While it’s added that at certain times she uses “more discretion,” she is “not afraid to be” herself and is “optimistic that she will find acceptance in her future years.” And so I thought; tattoos are a form of self-expression, why should body art be any different than the color of socks the doctor wears per-say? Where do you draw the line?
