Chapter 16 appearance and fashion

tattooed person Which art form has been a symbol of the status of royalty, loyal ministers, criminals, entertainers, and prestigious university students at different times in history?That's right, tattoos, the custom of permanently inscribing patterns into the skin with heated needles.The word tattoo (tattoos) comes from the Tahitian tatau, which means "to mark".Throughout human history, tattoos have been used to show social status, perform religious ceremonies, mark the status of pirates and spies, and declare the independence of young people. In the United States, tattoos became popular with the hippies and motorcycles. Tattoos for young people, like piercing ears and eyes, are quite common.Tattoos have become a very popular fashion.

Long hair was once a sign of rebellion and individuality, much to the consternation of parents and society.Now, long hair is getting shorter, and more men have shaved their heads and don't wear long hair anymore.In the United States, and around the world, body art is increasingly becoming a way of expressing one's individuality.Unlike hairstyles, which are instantly recognizable markers, tattoos are often hidden, private markers of individuality, seen only by those closest to them or those who share a dressing room. So, if you still have bikers, sailors, criminals, or other low-class tattoos on your body, you should have them washed off.Before your 20-something (college-graded and promising) kid comes home for Thanksgiving, better get a red rose tattooed on it, and maybe a Chinese character for "德" on his butt. A Harris Poll in 2003 showed that more than a third of Americans aged 25 to 29 had tattoos.College students with tattoos accounted for almost a quarter of the total number of college students. (About 13% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 not only have tattoos but also have piercings on their bodies, not counting women with pierced ears and eyes.)

In 2006, the total number of tattooed people in the United States exceeded 30 million. In other words, almost one in every four adults has a tattoo; just three years ago, the total number of tattooed people was less than 20 million. This tattoo phenomenon is not unique to the United States.The British, Australians and Japanese all have engraved patterns on their bodies.A 2000 survey found that about 8 percent of Canadian boys and girls had tattoos, and 61 percent of these tattooed children were girls. In this way, what was formerly a mark of vulgarity and vulgarity is now the ritual of everyone.Tattoos for boys, tattoos for girls, tattoos for people who wear jewelry.In fact, the group with the highest percentage of tattooed Americans in the Harris Poll is those earning more than $75,000 a year (22%).By comparison, only 8 percent of those earning $15,000 to $25,000 a year had tattoos.In other words, the wealthier people are now the more likely to get tattoos.

Rebellion is undoubtedly the meaning of the tattoo.A small Japanese hieroglyph can hold so much meaning that it would be impossible for old-fashioned parents to decipher.A sports or cultural symbol embodies a person's identity and is a "stamp" that shows that he belongs to his peers.Like the modified speedster of the 1950s or the cigarette of the 1970s, tattoos are an expression of the restless and less dangerous wild side of today's middle-class kids. However, the category of tattoos is not limited to freedom and rebellion.For the more conservative, tattoos also signify discipline and loyalty.The Harris Poll concluded that 14 percent of Republicans in the United States are tattooed.Although the rate of tattooed Republicans is slightly lower than that of Democrats, there are still about 7 million tattooed Republicans across the United States.

Why tattoo?According to the Harris Poll, one in three people thinks that tattoos make them sexier, accounting for almost half of all tattooed women.One out of every four people with tattoos believes that tattoos make them more attractive. People with tattoos often have multiple tattoos.Movie star Angelina Jolie (Angelina Jolie) has at least 10 tattoos, including the dragon tattoo on the bicep of her left arm (this tattoo used to read "Billy& #8226;Bob" [BillyBob] whose name she erased after they broke up).Rapper 50 Cent (Rapper50Cent) tattoo covers his entire back.It is said that Britney Spears (Britney Spears) has tattoos on her feet, abdomen and neck. The patterns of decorations are fairies, daisies, butterflies, Chinese characters for "mystery", and three Hebrew words letter.Soccer star David Beckham has his wife's and son's names tattooed on his arms and back.

When it comes to tattooed Republicans, it is necessary to mention former Secretary of State George Shults (George Shults), who is said to have a tattoo of the Princeton University basketball team Tigers logo (Princeton Tiger) on his buttocks. He is neither affirming nor denying. But what will happen to America if tattooed people go from criminals to college students, from poor to rich? First, like all industries that expand their services, the tattoo industry will shift to the high-end market, establish an appropriate licensing and management system, increase prices, improve design and update patterns, establish a national chain store, and invite several celebrities as spokespersons (Zhu Billionaire or Beckham's individual television presence could sell millions of tattoos).There are now an estimated 4,000 to 15,000 tattoo shops across the United States, up from 300 20 years ago.Tattooing is a potential multi-billion dollar market that will continue to expand as mainstream demand increases.But for now, tattoo shops are still mom-and-pop shops selling Dungeons and Dragons cards.Is it possible to follow the model of McDonald's to establish a tattoo chain store that not only has a standardized brand and safety guarantee, but also publishes advertisements nationwide? (Is it possible to build a LeCirque-style tattoo shop with top artists serving top customers?) This rolling business model has the potential to double the size of the market in a very short period of time.

Official policy has also begun to change.Although people with clearly visible tattoos, or tattoos covering more than 25 percent of their forearms or calves, are still ineligible for Coast Guard employment, the U.S. Army changed its policy in 2006, as long as Tattoos are allowed on the hands and neck if they do not contain "extremist, indecent, sexist or racist" content. So, does restricting tattoos violate the First Amendment?Long hair has been ruled as protected freedom of speech, so shouldn’t tattoos also be ruled as protected freedom of speech by the Constitution?Are the days far off when the Supreme Court will have to deal with tattoos? (Will anyone reject a judge's decision on the grounds that the leather underneath a tattoo is a personal secret?) Imagine what would happen if tattoos were ruled to belong to our inalienable rights.

Google (Google) and Yahoo (Yahoo!) already allow employees to keep body art.Ford and Wells Fargo also allow employees to keep body art.Organizations that still maintain tattoo bans, such as Starbucks, McDonald's, Blockbuster, and numerous police agencies across the country, may soon revise their policies as well, as banning body art would put A large number of energetic and talented young people are turned away. The federal government may also need to take some action.So far, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any pigments or inks for use in tattoos, however, tattoo designs, such as the butterfly pattern on Drew • Barrymore (DrewBarrymore) belly, in the United States There has been a surge, and sooner or later the governing body will realize that it has to make a decision.

Of course, there's another side to the problem with tattooed people, which is that they're looking to show their little edges, their bad-boy and bad-girl sides, while they're ultimately part of the mainstream.Oh yes, there's an Asian tiger tattoo on the deltoid, that's where it used to be. Now that ear piercings are conservative, body piercings are boring, and tattoos are trendy, the question is, what's next.Will advertising with your body catch on?If you're artistic, why can't you use yourself as a billboard?Getting body tattoos that read "Sunglass Hut" and an hour's walk on the beach for $10 isn't a bad idea.

The tattoo industry may not develop to the next stage, because people think that the wind of tattooing, like a hula hoop, has already blown through.However, it is more likely to use one's own body to express political and sexual orientation, express attitudes towards love and friendship, and the development of technology will also make clear tattoos, three-dimensional tattoos and light-up tattoos possible.In addition, the number of tattooed people is likely to continue to increase due to the increasing number of tattooed people who like to socialize with tattooed people. busy slob The United States has always regarded itself as a country that advocates cleanliness.But the United States has never been a very tidy country. In tens of millions of American families, the voice that can be heard every day is "clean up your messy things".

Tidiness is a fad enough to create a $6 billion-a-year industry that produces products like plastic bins and filing cabinets for household organization and storage.On top of that, Americans spend another $3 billion on cleaning their closets.Every New Year, Americans have to make some resolutions to "clean up clutter" like losing weight. To keep us tidier, religion is constantly nagging even when moms aren't nagging. "Cleanlinessisnexttogodliness" (Cleanlinessisnexttogodliness) is said to be a Hebrew proverb in the 2nd century.The promise of the so-called Bible Diet is, "40 days to clean habits."Islam also has a saying that "purity and cleanliness are half of faith" (purity and neatness are half of faith).At least one recent study found that two-thirds of Americans feel guilty and ashamed about how cluttered America is. But despite business, cultural and religious pressures to be tidy, more and more Americans are untidy, unwilling or unable to be tidy.It's not that they like clutter, or think that clutter can free people or inspire people, they just don't care about cleaning up clutter, and they have a lot of things to do in their lives, so they simply think that clutter is not good. Worth tidying up, sorting and cleaning. My life philosophy is that everything should be fairly neat and organized, but the way I organize things and keep them tidy is pragmatic.If something is used at most once, I don't create a profile just for that thing.For example, all the bills for 2006 can be placed in one box and marked "2006 Bills" instead of bothering to file separate files for different types of bills.Commonly used things, and then spend some time to build files.This is how I get rid of a lot of unnecessary filing, even though almost everything can be archived on a computer these days.However, more and more people are pursuing a simpler creed: don't clean up at all, let it be messy. In the spring of 2007, we did a quick poll to find out who America's slobs are and how sloppy they are compared to the average person.We define "sloppy people" as people who consider themselves "very sloppy", people who think others call themselves sloppy people, or people who think that disorganization will have some impact on their work efficiency or quality of life .The results of the survey show that 1 out of every 10 Americans is this kind of hardcore sloppy person (hard-coreSlobs).In other words, among the more than 200 million adults in the United States, there are 20 million slobs. Sloppy people may not be all men as one might think.There are indeed more sloppy men than sloppy women, but only 55% to 45%.Sloppy people, male or female, are not lazy or unsuccessful.More than two-thirds of the slobs had full-time jobs, and most slobs with children had children under the age of five.They were significantly more likely to have completed college or graduate school than non-slobs.They were twice as likely to earn more than $100,000 a year than non-slobs. Thirty-seven percent of sloppy people are open-minded, compared with just 19% of non-sloppy people who are open-minded, almost twice as many. Forty-seven percent of slobs said they were Democrats. Among the slobs, less than a quarter routinely make their beds every day.More than a third of sloppy people leave dirty dishes in the sink for at least a day before washing them.There are also about 15% of sloppy people who even put dirty dishes in their study, living room or bedroom, and wash them at least one day later.4 out of 10 sloppy people throw their undressed clothes on the floor when they go to bed at night.1 in 3 scruffy people leave clutter on top of the kitchen counter, and the time to clean up the clutter is not until a week, if not in the foreseeable future. In 2007, business experts Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman published a book called "Perfect Mess" (Perfect Mess) to clear the name of messiness.They believe that people with messy desks are often intelligent and experienced people with relatively high salaries (this is consistent with our poll, at least in terms of annual income above $100,000). consistent).They believe that sloppiness and messiness are as important qualities for great things as improvisation, adaptability, and chance. (Alexander Fleming would never have discovered penicillin if he hadn't littered his desk with unwashed petri dishes.) Messy people, they even argue, make better parents , They pay attention to the warm family atmosphere, and don't care how many toys and coffee tables they can put the phone on. They even hint at the statement that cleaning is bad for you.Doctors are now embracing a "hygiene hypothesis"—the surge in asthma and allergies among children can now be attributed to a lack of exposure to certain microbes.Chlorine-based bleach, which removes stains from clothes, is said to poison children every year, as well as cause breast cancer in women and fertility problems in men.Insecticides used to weed lawns can also cause short-term memory loss, impaired hand-eye coordination and poor drawing skills in children, among other problems.For a while, if the mess is not completely in line with the requirements of hygiene, it has become a reasonable thing.Perhaps, opposing the use of disinfectant can also become a logical topic. However, our poll found that the majority of sloppy people submit to, not admire, clutter.They don't see clutter as clutter, and they even try to overcome clutter.More than two-thirds of untidy people said they wished they were more organized (none wished they were messier).Two-thirds of the untidy believe that tidiness helps people take control of their lives.Messy people rarely justify being messy, and less than a quarter of them think clutter stimulates creativity.In fact, more than half of sloppy people said they couldn't live with sloppy at all, as did more than half of non-sloppy people.People who say this don't want others to accept that they're messy, they're just trying to get over their messiness. In answering the question of why their own home is cluttered, neither the sloppy person nor anyone else cites pride, indifference, or even lack of time as reasons for clutter.The reason they gave was that there were too many things.Too much stuff and no place to store it is what keeps more than half of America's slobs in clutter. So, it's an over-owning trend in America that's not the same as the trend for laziness, but more like the trend for obesity.Just as we eat more food than we need, we own more stuff than we need.The more purchasing power we have, the more we buy and, likewise, the more we acquire, win, collect, and keep.While many people will buy more to solve the problem of organizing their belongings, sloppy people simply don't organize their belongings. They can make messiness their normal state and don't just wash one dish at a time. , nor just wash a dirty sock. The important lesson about sloppy people is, first of all, if you live with sloppy people, don't complain all the time.Fat people generally don't like to be scolded by their spouses, and they won't eat less because of their spouse's complaints.Likewise, 76 percent of scruffy people say they don't want to be nagged all the time because they're messy.Sloppy people do not listen to rational persuasion about clutter; clutter has always been a problem for them. Second, if we all relax a little bit, we can all enjoy life more.We live in an age where parents are more permissive and individuals have more freedom of expression and choices.Tidiness isn't a thing of the past, but, for one in 10 Americans, it's an ideal unfulfilled by too much work and responsibilities.Failure to meet modern standards of tidiness is a "high-class" problem, as our poll proves.The wealthier, the more educated, the more busy people are, the more likely they are to be part of America's growing ranks of slobs.