Tattoos and the meaning.

Now before I start this I want to say a few things.

1 thanks to Dave for lending me the space on his blog to publish my opinions

2 this is not meant as personal to anyone and just my views.

Right now that’s out the way let me begin.

Anyone who knows me will know that im a huge fan of tattoos and the lifestyles and cultures that involve them. But I have a problem.

It seems to be more and more that people are getting a tattoo in order to say “Look I have a tattoo and im now officially original and no longer mainstream” This is BOLLOX!!!!!

Walking into a tattoo studio and just grabbing something that you have seen off the wall or getting the same tattoo that your favourite footballer or celebrity has does not make you mainstream it makes you a sheep, becoming part of the flock and having something that someone already has as it you think its going to make you into them?

I don’t think there has ever been a month where I have bought a tattoo magazine and not see the very generic Black Panther tattoo that you see on every tattoo shop wall around the world, and I have to be honest and if you know me will know how true this is but I hate them! There are 1000’s of variations of this tattoo but they are all the same no matter how different they are. (please note this is the tattoo I don’t like not the canvass).

It almost seems to be that now a Tattoo is a fashion statement and people don’t seem to look into the meaning or history of them, e.g. saw a guy in a bar in London that had the spider web tattoo on the elbow and also a tear drop tattoo under his eye, out of curiosity I asked him how many years he served (tear drops are normally a prison tattoo obtained when you have killed someone). He gave me a strange look and asked what I ment? After explaining the meaning of the tattoo his reply was “ I just thought it looked cool”

Im guessing the message of this is if you want a tattoo that’s cool, but make sure that it is a tattoo that has meaning and relevance to you. That’s assuming you’ve read this far and have not thought im mad man that just rants on.

Thanks for your time and big props to Big Dave for letting me hijack his blog.

So more (moar??) self indulgent posting.

It’s been a while but really I have been gathering Intel on this blog post. Or I’m fucking lazy…

I am in a band, as some of you may know and for those who don’t it’s @citytorn on Twitter, and we had a meeting last night.

On thing that came out of this meeting is that my drummer, and mostly the band leader, didn’t know what the hell social media / networking is. This concerned me slightly, he is 23 with his finger vaguely on the pulse but at the same time he had no idea of what Twitter was or what it’s various uses are. Now don’t see me as some sort of social media guru, I am far from it, for that you need to be looking at the @documentally and @hannahnicklin ‘s of this world. No I would class myself in the power user category of tweeps, (this is the MS security version of a Power User, someone who uses most functionality can do basic to advanced tasks but does not do complex administration or configuration) I do not use Twitter to it’s full potential, but I understand it has potential, it’s just unlocking this that I find a little hard.

Now There are several ways I can get people interested in my band’s Twitter and get them following and possibly converting those followers into fans, most of these though I view as ethically a little dubious, namely adding every last person who mentions the words city or torn in a tweet, or just trawling and following people hoping they will view and follow the band back. Like I said this seems a little dubious to me, it’s fine for spam bots to do this, because that’s their job, the people who use them however in my opinion can fuck off, so that’s why I can’t employ one myself. The other approach would take too much of my time and investment to show little real results. So I am stuck, sort of. The other way I can get this to work is to try and generate a following base of people using other sites, such as FB with Twitter integration or any various twadgets built into other pages, or just plain ol' fashioned “Hey were on Twitter, just search city torn” . But this has it’s own problem, people are very unwilling to join Twitter.

It may seem strange to say but people just do not want to move to a new site, namely because we come back to my drummer’s position of…I don’t understand Twitter, or we hit the roadblock of, but I am on Facebook why should I join Twitter?? Well there is no moral reason why you should really, I can’t force you into it to be honest, but you could follow my band and unlock the potential for yourself, discover what a world Twitter is, it isn’t just a whole bunch of ME ME ME or “Aren’t I quirky in under 140 characters” or the invariable influx of new users #lunchtime tweets. (Ok to fess up I have my #lunchtimephoto but I am requested to do them now because people like seeing me and my friend @bearpiglett having lunch) Twitter is like the social consciousness for the online world. It is millions of users with their opinions, their finds on the internet and their blog posts putting mp’s to rights over #3strikes…

It is the central repository for the pull-centric idea of information and media delivery. The user decides what they want and they retrieve it, they aren’t having the content forced at them, they aren’t being told what to look at or which articles to read, they are generating their own content and creating a world wide repository for human ideals, interests and #failpics. It is an exciting world to be a part of…

I just wish @citytorn could get a foothold in it…