The other day I read an article saying tattoo shops are opening in shopping malls because they have become so mainstream. Soon it will happen again, I will have one of the things I hold dear, one of the things that makes me who I am stripped from me. It will be replaced with a label that reads “My generation.” Let me explain. 

I love computers and science more than I can describe in words. However quite frequently when I get asked for advice or fix someone’s computer I usually hear the following. “Wow, your generation sure is fluent with the computer.” This is when my blood starts to boil in my veins. When other kids had toy cars and trains I was disassembling motherboards. When they were just starting what they called “Chapter Books” I was reading MSDOS manuals. When they were playing outside I was dialing BBS systems. While they watched after school cartoons, I read Michael Crichton. Don’t believe me? Ask my mom, she still has a pin from an EPROM chip in her foot. (She stepped on it in my room at about 3 am one night) It feels like all my love and passion, all my struggle and work vanishes under the vail of  the “your generation.” statement. When I was in school, I chose the clothes that I wore because I liked them, the music I listened to because I thought it sounded good and so on. I was so happy when those days were over because (among many other reasons) I was constantly told I was a “poser” and just did the things I did to fit in. Sometimes it feels like those days are back. 

One of my other passions in this world is tattoos. I can’t explain it, but I have always been fascinated by them. Until a few years ago I never really talked about it (or could afford to get any) but I have had a love of the art since I was very young. I currently have two and much to my parents dismay, I plan to get more when I can. Many more. I have been collecting tattoo pictures on my computer for many years and have several thousand now. Then I start to read how they have become mainstream. At first I thought “ Great! Now there is no need to hold back or hide them.” Then it happened again, someone upon seeing my ink responded “Well, you are definitely the tattoo generation”.  My heart sank. It was as if I was just a ghost, a shadow of a person. No individuality at all, just an empty shell. 

Everything that makes me who I am,  gets a big “my generation” sticker slapped on it and in essence stolen from me. Even the fact that I am an internet entrepreneur gets the label. It’s like we live in a society that wants to group everyone together and abolish personality. Why the hell can’t people just be who they are without having to be part of a larger group? We are all individuals, it is our differences that make us alike. I would like to thank the media and all the others who use the “my generation” label for turning the world into one large high school lunch room. So what group are you in? After all, it seems that uniqueness is a dinosaur. 

Go back to your shops in the shady parts of town tattooed people, or we won’t be who we are much longer.

-TachyonXero

Geek and Tattoo lover till death.

P.S.: When all the girls with the “tramp stamp” tats and the guys with the tribal armbands and koi fish start hating theirs later in life, I will still love mine. Because I got mine to be more of myself, not to be someone I am not. Some people don’t like that I have them, and I am sorry they feel that way but I made a decision. I would rather regret a choice I made, then regret a choice I could have made. That’s why I have the words “live now” tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. I am myself, I don’t have time to be someone else.