Tattoo News Review

Yesterday, sister Panik gave us his own (special brand of) review of the Star of arizona tattoo convention in Austin, but they wasn't the one offering reportage of the event. Austin 360 gave a play-by-play (and a small lame sideshow), while TV stations KRQE & Fox Austin posted short videos online of the show. I dig these photographs & speedy videos because they offer a glance at the scene, which helps choose what will be on my convention schedule next year.

Got your tattoo headlines right here, from convention coverage to tattoo law to a study that says we're all a bunch of "deviants." So think about this the freak edition of the Tattoo News Review & enjoy the sideshow.


With thousands attending these conventions worldwide -- & the media chasing after us -- you'd think that the debate whether "tattoos have gone mainstream" was thoroughly squashed, but a new study says otherwise.

The Bangkok International Tattoo Convention also got some nice coverage. Reuters took pretty photographs from the show including the one above, & CNN has a few nice shots as well. Sky News joined in with a video from the floor.

arizona Tech University's "Body Art Team" [real name] has found "The more body art you've, the more likely you're to be involved in deviance," according to the Chicago Tribune. The swat Body Art Team surveyed 1,753 students at three colleges & reported that the heavily tattooed & pierced drank more, did drugs more, had sex more & cheated in class more. [They add, "For low-level body art, these children are not any different from someone else."]

NBC news in Dallas also reported on the study & gave this reasoning behind the results:


"Because tattoos & piercings are so common, the researchers wondered if individuals who saw body art as more of a subculture would turn to deviant behavior to show they weren't part of mainstream culture. After all, having tattoos isn't rebellious anymore. Research suggests one in three people have a tattoo somewhere on their body."