Looks like more Americans are getting inked according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. The findings reveal just 21 percent of respondents said someone in their household had a tattoo in 1999. Today, that percentage has doubled to 40 percent. Meanwhile, Americans are reading less ink. In 1999, 79 percent said they read the newspaper in print at least three times per week. Now it's just 47 percent.The common thread here is "ink," but the juxtaposition between body ink and news consumption, existing under a headline about tattooed people, unintentionally reinforces stereotypes against (certain) people with tattoos—that they are thugs, that they are antisocial, that they are other in some way.
This isn't a stereotype with which I have to contend. I mean, I'm sure there are some strangers who look at me and draw some stupid conclusions, but my white privilege, and my self-employment, insulate me from having to deal with any practical consequences of that. Not everyone with body art shares that privilege.
Like lots of other trends, the increasing popularity of tattooing is frequently used as evidence that the world is a-changing for the worse. Ditto the decline of print newspapers—despite the fact that news is available via more media than it was in 1999, so, nostalgic reverence for print news aside, stats about declining circulation and readership give no insight into actual news consumption habits.
There's an embedded commentary here about cultural decline, even if unintentional. Thumbs down.
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