I am not an expert. I am not a trained sociologist or a great philosopher. I can, however, see that there is something very wrong with us today. Our generation, the Internet Generation, doesn’t appear to be doing all that much. We are sort of stagnating — too self-involved to really care about anything. We live for today, not putting much thought into the future.
I recognize this inability to see the future all over campus. What seems like a good idea now will seem otherwise in about 20 years. Just to illustrate this point, let’s focus on body art.
When considering a tattoo, I think that it is important to imagine it on you at age 60. Will it still look good? Will it still hold a deep symbolic meaning in your life? If you answered yes, then go for it. You only live once and you only get one body, so make it look pretty.
If you answered no, then please reconsider before you do something regrettable. Lower back tattoos, most commonly known as “tramp stamps” are prime examples of a “good idea now/what was I thinking later” move. Those have really become popular, although I am not sure why. Sure, it looks “sexy” when paired with a bikini, but imagine how you would feel if your grandmother reached up to get to a high cabinet and her shirt came up and you could see the lines of a fading tattoo creeping up from her butt-crack?
I personally, would be traumatized.
What exactly does the lower back tattoo stand for? A tribal design poised above the rumpus? That doesn’t make sense at all. What exactly makes a girl from North Carolina “tribal?” What sort of anthropological statement is she making? “Oh, this is just a little reminder of my time amongst the Moken sea gypsies.”
A tattoo should mean something! Tribal designs and the Japanese character for “harmony” don’t define you as a human being or remind you of your fiance who was lost at sea. It just makes you look like a human sketch pad — the way the margins of my notebook look when I stop paying attention in class.
Our generation is more than just bad taste in tattoos. We have traded in our youthful passion for apathy. With all that is wrong with the world today many generations would be marching the streets daily. The iGeneration has instead picked the Xbox over the ballot box, American Idol over the American Constitution and late nights out over waking up early.
I think the problem is, and I really hate to say this because it sounds SO corny, that we weren’t really taught how to love. Look at our parents; the divorce rate is enormous. That says a lot about their generation, but how did it affect ours? In high school I knew more people with divorced parents than people with parents still together. They were the friends who couldn’t come over to play on Saturdays because they were spending time at their fathers’ house. They were the ones who I lost touch with when I came here; they just stopped calling. Perhaps they just don’t value friendship as much.
Love has become a sort of taboo. People are scared of it. Couples breakup because the word slips out. I am terrified of love. I have only said “I love you” to my mother and one girl my entire life. To say it to anyone else would make me feel like less of a man. I got uncomfortable just typing the phrase.
When our generation of loveless, self-centered kids take control, will we wise up? I hope that somewhere in our dense skulls we can awaken whatever it is that makes people great. I hope we stop listening to our iPods long enough to hear what’s going on around us. Or, if no one feels up to saving the world, we could just leave it to our kids. We could learn from the mistakes our parents made and raise our children to be compassionate and they can thank us as they unite the nation and cure cancer or some thing.
Or they could pass the buck too. They could raise our grandkids to be even more heroic than they are! But will our grandkids even want to save the world when they see grandma’s tramp stamp?
Send Zac your thoughts on tramp stamps, Japanese symbols and societal progress at [email protected].
