A Response To Sean Barry

In Sean Barry's response essay to Dr. Andres Martin's Essay "On Teenagers and Tattoos" he claims that Dr. Martin has an interesting and valid point on why teenagers get tattoos. Dr. Martin says teenagers get tattoos because a tattoo has a deeper meaning than just the image itself and that some teenagers get tattoos because they need something permanent in their lives when nothing else is. Barry says that this is a valid point but that the first reason a teenager gets a tattoo is to fit in. Barry claims that tattoos are the "in" thing so a teenager will get a tattoo to be cool, however they also chose for the tattoo to have a meaning because it is permanent. Barry also claims that a lot of teenagers get tattoos as a group to unify themselves and to have proof of it.

Sean Berry's viewpoint is different than Dr. Martin's because Berry is a teenager himself. This gives him the opportunity to have a first hand view as to why teenagers want to get tattoos. Dr. Martin's viewpoint is a little obscurred because he is an adult and his audience is directed to other psychiatrists. Therefore, Berry is able to have a different look on the reasons teenagers get tattoos.

I agree with Berry's viewpoint because as a teenager I know a lot of people my age who get tattoos because they know somebody who has one which makes them feel like they too need to get one. Tattoos are beginning to become just another fashion accessory like jewelry, and tattoo parlors are beginning show up in suburbs, not just in shady areas. However, tattoos are different from any other accessory because they are permanent and if a teenager decides to get one they must keep it forever, even if tattos go out of style.

Teenagers and Tattoos

Andres Martin's essay On Teenagers and Tattoos is interesting because it is makes accurate points on why teenagers feel the need to permanently mark their skin. He claims that some teenagers do it to "fit-in" others do it to remember a lost loved one, and sometimes a teenager will get a tattoo to have something stable in their lives when nothing else is. No matter what the reason though a teenager has to be careful on what they chose because this decision will be with them for the rest of their lives.

Personally I agree that teenagers get tattoos because they are the cool thing to do. However, I don't agree with the generalization that a tattoo makes a teenager a "thug" or bad, and unfortunately that is the case for most people. People usually look at tattoos as a bad thing and automatically associate them with gangs. While for a lot of teenagers a tattoo represents something important to them. What is wrong with a kid getting his dead fathers initials on his arm to serve as a memorial to him? Yet if this kid was to try and get a job, the employer might not hire him because of his tattoo. Not all tattoos are bad, sometimes you have to look past the stereotypes and think about the meaning behind the tattoo, and if that meaning is good, how can it bad? It's not, and if people could learn to look past all the stereotypes and generalzations that currently exist in today's society, we might all get along better...