Every now and then, a negative comment or email comes along that I need to reply to.
Today is one of those days.
A few days ago, I had an anonymous comment left on my post 10 Things You Should NOT Do When Going to Get a Tattoo. With its incorrect grammar, spelling errors and disrespectful tone, I moved it to my spam folder and went on with my morning. It remained in the back of my head, and after talking to Hubby and a few friends about it, I decided it was time for another Letters to Tatted Mom segment.
So, without further ado, this will be a longer post, but completely worth it when you get to my reply to this guy below. First is his comment to me, unedited and in all its glory, and below that is my reply to him. I hope this guy ventures back onto the site to read my reply to him... seriously.
[Dear Tatted Mom]
LOL..sounds like a typical snooty, spoiled, a-hole w/ no idea how business works or how to run one--i'm guessing you don't own the shop.
i agree w/the no brainer logistical tips here, but half of the stuff here is naive & just plain elitist garbage.
have you ever thought of the fact that the $40 guy's location just might be bad? or that he's trying an
incentive? How about that it might be a slow tourist season for the shop that doesnt need apts. at the time?
these are not "signs" of quality, LOL..you sound like that horrid joke of a shop "jade dragon" in chicago, who'll try to justify their outlandish prices by their name, & disuade ppl from going to other shops by scaring them into thinking a cheaper place will give them "aids" (lol...really, like just skip the HIV part & go straight into aids?)
lastly,#7--where to begin...
you're providing a service for a paying client, it's your JOB to give them what they want..if it intimidates you to do straight lines & geometric designs (like it does most newbs & bad artists), & do alot of them in one sitting--it says more about YOUR lack of talent & steady hand more than anything, as it's easier to fix "artsy" pictures if you f-up.
you proclaiming your tasteless opinion on tribal being bad over other styles, or out of date? ROTFLMAO. Again, besides personal "taste" (in your case, lack there of) not getting invloved w/what the CLIENT wants...Tribal IS the most elegant, and tasteful style, especially considering it's simplicity & ability to enhance parts of the body (vs. covering them up with hundreds of clown color flowers, skulls, stupid portraits, & cliche dragons)
then again, you, w/your bright pink hair, & your hundreds of mismatched tattoos cant even begin to understand what taste actually is..i bet your house has the same mismatched, no-style furniture, w/ clothes, junk, & trinkets strewn all over the place, lol.
way to go encouraging the already tasteless masses, (like yourself) to get stupid, multi colored portraits, cliche animals, and the names of their crush done instead--bravo
Dear Anonymous,
First, I want to thank you for commenting on my article. As stated in the piece, the list was a compilation of ideas from several tattoo artists, including several managers who ran tattoo shops. But as you wanted to focus on me and my tasteless, elitist, mismatched house having self, it looks like you want to play the "I Assume I Know Everything About You Based on One Thing You've Written" Game, so let me see if I can give it a try based on your comment above...
Your work, perhaps?
From ill-use.com
You are either in prison doing tattoos with cigarette ash and a machine run with a Bic pen and a walkman motor (how did you smuggle that in, by the way?) OR you taught yourself how to tattoo after buying a kit on ebay, and are thankful when you get $40 for a whole arm of tribal. Real tattoos come in pretty colors now, not just the homemade black ink the guards can pass on to you or that you can cook next to the crystal meth in your kitchen. Anyone who states that tribal is elegant is basically saying, "All I can do is tribal" and anyone who says "clown color flowers... stupid portraits and cliche dragons" has probably tried to do a realistic flower or portrait, screwed it up, and now sticks to tribal because that's all they can do- solid black bullsh*t.
Yes, the $40 guy's location is probably bad, but charging people $40 for a tattoo isn't going to get him out of that bad location. I worked for a shop that ran incentives, too, and it was $10 off a tattoo of $100 or more... not 'come in and we'll tattoo you for what it costs to set up'.
A friend of mine and I agree that tribal is an elegant form of tattooing... if you live in a tribe situated in the middle of a jungle, or are a direct descendant of such people. Tribal tattoos originated as a form of marking people's statuses for everyone to see, so you could look at someone and say 'Hey, that guy's a fisherman' or 'That guy has 5 wives and a huge... yeah'. And anyone who sits through being poked with a stick covered in berry juice for 18 hours deserves to let everyone that he's the leader of that tribe. Huge rites of passage were done when someone was tattooed in a tribe, and no, heading out with the boys to get drunk afterwards at the local bar doesn't count. It was an honor. But whiteboy model who works out in the gym for 8 hours a day and wants to accentuate his awesome muscles with black tribal patterns is NOT a descendant of these tribes- he's just a douche.
I wasn't aware that I was a "snooty, spoiled a-hole" who spreads "elitist garbage", so thanks for bringing that to my attention. I mean, I have driven over the bridge to go shopping at the Goodwill in the foothills, where all of the rich people take the crap they don't want anymore, instead of shopping at the Goodwill that's near my house and in the ghetto, so I guess that does make me an elitist.
I looked up this "horrid joke of a shop" Jade Dragon in Chicago that you make sound like a bunch of idiots, and all I can think is that you must be tattooing in Chicago, and are jealous of them because these guys are stealing all of your out-of-the-back-of-your-car business. They look to be real tattoo artists, and no, I've never stepped into their shop or been tattooed by them. As you failed to present me with a portfolio of yours to base my conclusion on, and their portfolios are on their professional website, I'd have to go ahead and say they could tattoo circles around you (nice, pretty, geometric circles in color ink, by the way). The color portrait of Salvador Dali, full color Asian half sleeves and full color backpieces are full of... what's the word? Oh yeah, TALENT. And the fact that they have been in business for 33 years means they are SUCCESSFUL, not that that they suck ass. Show me your portfolio for comparison (and not some cut and pasted off of Google rip-off) and we'll talk then.
My hair is red, not pink, and your lack of being able to clearly see that has me wondering if you aren't color blind, which would explain why you only do black tattoos and bash color tattoos.
Yes, it is my job to give the client what they want. It's also my job to myself to not hate my life to the point where I'm an angry, disgruntled tattoo artist who sits around at night and posts ridiculous comments on other people's blogs to make myself feel better about my prison-tattooing-$40-tribal life (hypothetically speaking, of course). If hating my life means tattooing tribal on people, then I won't do it. I will pass it on to an artist who would be happy to do it (as the article stated). You wouldn't go to Joe Capobianco and ask for a kanji tattoo- he specializes in pin-ups. And I specialize in tattoos that don't suck, i.e. non-tribal pieces.
And lastly #42 (you were just picking a random number above, right?) as far as "encouraging the already tasteless masses" to get what you call "stupid, multi colored portraits [and] cliche animals", if Nikko Hurtado's recent color portrait of Steve Jobs, or Mike Devries' gorilla tattoos are examples of "stupid" tattoos, as you say, then count me in... I'm a tasteless tattoo lover, and I don't think a single person who ventures onto this article would argue with me.
In conclusion, while normally your comment would have been deleted and I would have never thought about it again, your ridiculous statements about tribal and how color tattoos are tasteless
warranted a reply from me. As you posted anonymously instead of as a person with balls who would have given me an email address, a link to their portfolio, website or blog or even a name so I could google them, to back up their ridiculous statements, I chose to pass your comment, as well as my reply, onto the masses to get their opinions on the matter.
May your future be filled with many colorful flowers, realistic animals, dragon sleeves and other full-color pieces that you will have no choice but to turn down for $40 tribal...
Sincerely,
Tatted Mom
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