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How Does Tattooing Affect Society?

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Humans have marked their bodies with tattoos for thousands of years. Recordings of the first known tattoo date back to 2000 B.C. on a famous Egyptian mummy known as Otzi, an iceman, who was found near the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 (Lineberry). These permanent designs—sometimes plain, sometimes elaborate, and almost at all times personal—have served a variety of different meanings. It is up to us to determine the reasoning and significance behind them. Studies have found that people cannot fully control the meaning of their own tattooed bodies. The social contexts in which they live shape the responses to and interpretations of their tattoos by others (Jones 266). Tattooing has changed tremendously in the past couple of decades; virtuosity—improved color and more details, expansive imagery—and socially, to the point where it has “fully entered the middle class,” (Heller). This is what has caused so much confliction as to why people get tattoos in the first place and the meaning behind them as well as the rising popularity. The very known and obvious reason that people get tattoos is that it is a form of art and self-expression. Some tattoo enthusiasts exhibit a broad array of tattoo expression through a discreet flower on their hip to full-body and facial tattoos. Tattoos are typically frowned upon by mainstream society. It is difficult to find a job now days if you have visible tattoos, since they require them to be covered up. Tattoos in the workplace can be

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