11/03/2025
“The Truth About Modern Tattooing”
Someone said on here they want to quit tattooing more and more every day… and I can’t blame them. Tattooing just isn’t what it used to be.
When I started, this craft had to be earned. There were no YouTube apprenticeships, no $19.99 home tattoo kits, and no machines sold on Amazon. You couldn’t even buy supplies unless a member of National Tattoo Supply vouched for you. That meant something — it meant you respected the art before you ever touched a machine.
Today, people use pen-style machines and don’t even know the parts of a coil tattoo machine. The history — the blood, sweat, and loyalty that built this trade — is fading fast. This artform has paid our bills, raised our families, and given us everything we have. It deserves respect.
I learned the old way: answering phones, cleaning ashtrays, restocking flash, and keeping my mouth shut while watching the real ones work. Every lesson was earned, not bought.
An old timer once told me, “Tattooing went downhill when the Tutti Frutti artists showed up” — using all pastel colors and piles of white ink scabbing over. He wasn’t wrong. Back then, if you opened a shop too close to another, you got burned out. Now shops open side by side, and kids with two years in are calling themselves shop owners.
I miss the days when tattooing meant something. When respect, loyalty, and hard work were the price of entry.
God bless the ones still doing it for the love of the craft. 🙏
