My tattoos don’t have any special ‘meaning’ and they shouldn’t have to

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babe  • 

My tattoos don’t have any special ‘meaning’ and they shouldn’t have to

They just looked cool to me, tbh

Like so many things, tattoos have become generally acceptable by mainstream society — but only if they follow certain unspoken rules, chief among them that any and all ink must have emotional significance.

“This is for my grandpa who loved rabbits”

“I listened to this song a lot when I was going through a hard time”

“These flowers grew outside my childhood home and now I can take them with me everywhere”

It’s awesome that your tattoo gives you feels. Seriously, it’s great to have a permanent reminder of things or people you care about. But why are those kinds of tattoos, no matter how huge or impulsive or (sorry) poorly done given an instant free pass to a no-judgement zone?

I have two fairly small tattoos located in pretty concealable but the number of strangers who who insist I’ll “regret something meaningless” is shockingly high.

Tattoo #2 ???⭐

A post shared by Amanda Ross (@itsamandaross) on Jan 14, 2017 at 2:58pm PST

Maybe I just liked how it looked? Why is that a crime?

For a while I tried making up fake emotional significance to try and “prove” that my tattoos were valid. But now I realize it’s all trash. Nobody has to prove anything, especially when it comes to extremely personal, permanent decisions that will only affect us.

Though I gotta say, I’m really glad I didn’t take this one Brooklyn tattoo parlor up on it’s offer to give me a $13 Pepe tattoo back in 2014. That I would have regretted.