It is, of course, extraordinarily difficult to write this piece without sounding like a middle-aged, reactionary old git. Luckily, I'm completely happy with at least three of these four labels because 1) It's almost impossible to argue with them, and 2) I know I'm not reactionary in any way -- apart from when it comes to the behaviour of young people between the ages of 13 and 21 and most socio-economic and popular cultural developments since 1998. Not that tattoos are a new development in any sense.
As the more defensive members of the over-inked community will recite with Pavlovian inevitability: 'Tattoos have been here since before Jesus Christ.' Indeed they have. Well before Jesus Christ, actually. And so have drought, war and pestilence. Your point is? 'It's about self-expression.' No it isn't, it's specifically about your personal inability to express yourself married to a pathetic and fundamental predilection for inaction masked as a dramatic statement of intent or personality.