That Tattoo

tl;dr - Launching a new site called That Tattoo, that interviews people about one or more of their tattoos.

So what prompted this? I was in Berlin recently, having a glass of wine on a bar patio. The couple at the table next to me were Americans and one of them had an excellent tattoo on his arm, that captured my interest. As they were getting up to leave I mustered the courage, I am at the English end of Australian polite and introverted, to ask him where he got it done and what it meant.¹

Generally I don’t want to bug someone about their tattoos, especially asking their meaning, as its intrusive and sometimes even unwelcome. I get comments about my tattoos two or three times a week and I have friends, especially women, who get comments more regularly, or even people touching their tattoos. That’s a distinctly shitty experience.

So I got to thinking there must be a way to ask folks about their tattoos, the backstory, and the tattooist without making them feel uncomfortable. I was struck by the comparison with another site I enjoy a lot: Daniel Bogan’s UseThis. UseThis is a collection of interviews of people about the tools they use in their daily lives. I thought, why not have a site that is a collection people’s tattoos, their meaning and backstory.

Introducing That Tattoo. That Tattoo has weekly (I hope!) posts detailing a tattoo or tattoos, their backstory/meaning and anything else the recipient would like to share.

I’ve been lucky enough to find a small group of folks to get started, that you can see on the site now. I’d love to get more submissions from people. If you’re interested please send an email or DM me on Twitter.