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For years, tattoos have been the representation of rebellion for a counterculture that wanted to be different, but are tattoos rebellious anymore? Popular culture would want you to write off tattoos as today’s trendy accessories that the youth use to trivially express what they think they want to show to the world. Rather than being flourished with cliché tattoos, PCC students have their own unique stories and reasons for getting their tattoos.
Tattoos ranged from practically meaningless to extremely deep.Pat Walker, 26-year-old English major, was practically a canvas, with vibrant and colorful tattoos on his arms and legs.
“My tattoos are impulsive,” Walker said. “I used to think they had meaning, but I know they really don’t now.” Walker was opposed to the idea that his tattoos made him rebellious.

“Tattoos started as a rebellion, with guys with shaggy beards in the 60s” Walker said. “That’s not me.”

For others, like 20-year-old fire technology major Robert Khachatryan, their tattoo means remembering a lost loved one.
Khachatryan lost his cousin seven years ago to cancer, at the age of 18.
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It’s in memory of him,” Khachatryan said. “I asked my family first and they said it was OK.”

Walker and Khachatryan were not the cliché examples expected, but they were relatively ordinary, with back-stories that many people have for their tattoos.

Skateboarder Jimmy Doung, a 23-year-old English major, had a passage on his arm that seemed to be etched into his skin with an oversized typewriter. His tattoo reads, “We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.”

“My tattoo is for me and no one else, that’s why it’s inside my forearm,” Doung said. “I always forget about it until someone reminds me.”

With such an insightful message regarding our observant human nature permanently printed on his forearm, his comment was ironic and contradictory and showed how abstracted he was.

Kimi McPheeters is not a student at PCC, but is a member of Christians on Campus, and meets with students on campus to discuss Christianity.

Her story about her small tattoo on the top of her foot wasn’t an expression of art, tribute or even obscurity; it was a story of insecurity.

“My tattoo had a lot to do with peer pressure,” McPheeters said. “I did it before I was saved because I was dissatisfied with my body and tried to find a way to feel beautiful.”

“I’m trying to find a way to remove it,” McPheeters said. “It is a glimpse of who I used to be.”

Many people regret tattoos, usually saying that they were young, drunk or stupid, mostly in jest. But, McPheeter was genuinely despondent over a small flower design on her foot.

After speaking to students, it is clear that the impact of permanently marking your body is a unique experience for everyone.
The message of tattoos is not about rebellion anymore, it’s about an individual’s personal meaning for getting it, whether it be as noble as covering up a surgical scar or as one student put it, “I got it cause it looks hot.

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