Tattoos, and body modification in general, becoming more and more mainstream is not a new trend, of course, but it’s definitely one of favorite topics to write about for journalists. Here we have an example from CA where journalists talk to the local tattoo artists and stress the obvious yet again: ‘TV, celebrities give tattoos high profile.’

TV is an important factor here and this short article about Karen E. Olson, the author of ‘Tattoo Shop Mystery’ series, shows it quite nicely. I haven’t read her second ‘tattoo mystery’ yet (although I didn’t like the first one much), so I can’t say anything about it but her own words on the reasons behind having gone for such a series are quite telling: “The editors were looking for a tattoo shop mystery, because of the shows on TV. I decided I would try it.” Is it how body modification becomes cheaper and shallower?

The ‘emotional’ trick in the context of tattoos is used not only by TV people; it’s also, unsurprisingly, newspaper and other media people. Here we have a sort of new series started by a CT newspaper: ‘Tat Tales’ with one such a ‘tale.’ I can admire the girl and her fight against her serious disease but since I’ve already seen such stories on TV and read them both in the newspapers and in books, I am not even moved much. Again, it’s kind of sad that the exploitation of body modification for a meager profit and short-lived popularity stats is so common these days.

On a way different note, here you have an English  ‘summary’ of the articles about the Polish sniper dismissed from the army since his tattoos made him unable to serve, ‘5 incredibly stupid tattoos’ and ‘Harry Potter tattoos.’

Something very interesting for dessert, though: ‘Defining moment: refining the art of criminal identification’ about a French policeman who started using tattoos as a way to identify criminals in the 19^th century France!