I Was Mistaken.

Dear Anti-Tattoo Facebook Page,

Okay, I continued reading you Anti-Tattoo Page. You are attacking. The further I go to try and find some sense the more I see why people are peeved. And the more I realize that the resulting bickering is justified. Make your page private. You are indeed entitled to an opinion. You are not however, entitled to make others feel like crap for not sharing it.

Sincerely,

You Totally On Your Own

No Body Mods You Say?

Dear Anti-Tattoo Group on Facebook,

I want you to know why people who have body mods are invading your site and now making you feel 'attacked'.

This is your 'About' statement:

"This is a group for all those people out there who, like me, think that the modern trend of having an image permanently etched on your skin is a bit silly."

This is that statement in reverse:

"This is a group for all those people out there who, like me, think that the backwards trend of not having an expressive piece of art on your body is a bit silly."

Do you kinda feel attacked a wee bit? Do you feel like, by that statement saying not having body art is silly, that that statement is actually calling you silly? Do you feel like there was a lot of 'that's' in that sentence? Good, me too. Here's the thing. You probably should be more careful if you don't want a retaliation. I visited. I was a tiny bit offended and I don't have a tattoo. But I have one I have been designing since middle school (note I am now a college graduate) that actually means a lot to me. I want it as an uplifting reminder that I can make it. On a bad day when I don't think I can make it I want to look down no matter where I am and see that reminder etched into my skin that I have beaten the odds and I can again. Because let's friggin' face it, reminding yourself in your head doesn't always work. Sometimes the brain is a bit unreasonable when under stress. So, I can understand why people are getting upset with you. Although, I support groups that bring people together under a common opinion, totally do, there is this itsy bitsy line between having an opinion and begrudging others their choices. And on a few occasions, you cross that line by one bus trip, a taxi, and a jog if not the occasional airplane flight to another country. If someone wants to get a memento of a dead family member so that they can always look at it and remember, they shouldn't happen upon a facebook page that basically tells them "that's silly" or at all down grades the strong emotional reasons behind there choice or that tattoo simply based on the fact that the individuals belonging to the page... just don't like them. My mom doesn't like tattoos. I don't call her backwards. I am fairly certain I will get one one day, and like that time I showed up with pink hair at Thanksgiving, she'll look at me and state "I don't think your funny" and move on. Why? Because I'm still her little girl. I'm not ugly. My personality has not been altered. And I'm not going to get mad at her because she wasn't piss her pants happy to see my pink hair. I didn't expect her to like it. I like it. She respects that I like it and that I have a right to it just as much as I respect and acknowledge that she has the right to not like it. That's the line. Right there is that glorious perfect line between opinion and begrudging. Equally acknowledging each other's opinions without judgment. Another example if you're still with me: My sister on my tongue ring. She does not like my tongue ring. At all. But this is how she handles it: "I couldn't imagine doing that to my tongue. It grosses me out." She does not say this: "I can't believe you did that. It's so gross!" One of these statements is going to make me feel like I am being judged and lectured. One of these statements is going to make me feel bad or pissed off. Can you guess which? Find that line yet? You don't like tattoos. That's fine, nothing wrong with that. Don't have any. But don't strongly express that opinion and use terms like 'silly'. Part of having an opinion should also be attempting to at least understand the other side. People are getting peeved with you not because you don't like body mods. They are getting peeved because they have personal and deeply emotional reasons behind their body mods that you are basically shitting on. No one likes to be shit on. No one likes to have something they feel strongly towards or something that took them a lot of consideration so heavily and easily belittled without any respect to their feelings. No one cares that you don't want to get tattooed. And if they do, they're ass hats. And once again, I noticed that not all of you fall under this. There are quite a few of you that just don't want tattoos because you personally don't like them and you aren't being meanie heads. Kudos. Some of you are actually being reasonable and truly just want to talk to people that don't want to get tattoos because, hell, it's becoming a socially acceptable thing these days and you want some common ground with people. Understandable.

Now here is my extra nugget part. There were a few of you though that where are like "I have friends with tattoos" acting like that made you a little less discriminatory. I'm totally sure that the white supremacy groups when being confronted about their views occasionally will say "I know some black people," but we all know the hidden mental continuation "but I don't want them having equal privileges." Knock off that I-have-a-friend-that's-like-that-shit when being confronted by an opposing opinion. Your opinion is the one you obviously hold in the highest, so having a friend that is opposite your opinion just makes you sound like you came off your thrown and chose to overlook the obvious flaw that you detest out of the kindness of your heart. I'm certain you don't mean it like that, but that's what it can come off as when three comments prior you were talking about how 'disgusting' body mods are. Your friends with them might feel bad if they saw that. Don't cross that line, and you'll find the people that are attacking you really are, probably, just jerks, and not people who feel attacked by you and are simply trying to make you acknowledge that they aren't bad people because they chose something contrary to what you would. And there is a couple of you, and I'm not going to post your names on here, that are fucking obnoxious. There, I said it. I have attacked you. I acknowledge that I have attacked you. Why? Because I have read the amounts of vulgar, rude, and downright degrading things you have commented about people with body mods. I will be swearing here. So if you also have a strong aversion to this, move on now. The people you are insulting, the only basis of attack you have is a piercing or a tattoo. That's fucking it. There's for retaliating? being treated like dirt for simply having body mods. You are whining about being thought of as a minority and yet you insult and attack others over, not who they are or what they have done as people, but how they look? You act as though the choice to get body mods is someone what encompasses that person. That simply choosing to, I will use one of the words I have seen used, 'mutilate' one's self automatically means they make bad choices and are therefore wrong. Now I want you to think seriously about a small statement I found on your page "...art is in the eye of the beholder... not everyone views [body mods] as art..." And some people fucking do. So, they view it as art, and are choosing to put it on their body. And they are horrible because of it? You have no sympathy from me. None. This isn't some sort of enemy in the trenches bullshit. Also, stop with the whole 'I have the foresight to know that getting tattoos young will just mean I will regret it when I am older and please bow down before my superior wisdom' mentality. I know plenty of wrinkly people that have had their tattoos all their lives and would tell you to go fuck yourself. I noticed a lot of you are adults. Act like it. Or maybe you like the idea of showing younger generations that all the bullying they do to others based on superficial shit is justified. The people who are using that page appropriately that I mentioned earlier should kick your ass off.

Sincerely,

You Cannot Be The Victim When Also The Villain So Choose Somewhere Around Switzerland

P.S. I think you can still make groups by invitation or set their settings so people can't just go read your page, and join merely to confront you. Maybe you should look into that.

P.S.S. Everyone else. Just leave the page alone. Stop getting accepted to an Anti-Tattoo page just so you can be angry at them for not liking them. I understand 'Anti' is a damn inappropriately strong word, but just some of them are filled with dicks, some of them aren't. Leave them to their own devices. The dicks on there don't speak for the whole, just like how the dicks with the body mods that in turn harass them don't speak for the whole.