My thoughts…on stuff

Picture this. You’re an adolescent with poor impulse control, no sense of self and absolutely no discernible talents or gifts. No beauty, intelligence, athleticism, charisma, wit, etc, nor do you have the diligence to develop one. What do you do? You create a spectacle of yourself, that’s what! And there was no better way to do that in the late 90s than tattoos and piercings. But piercings have long lost their shock value since then, and the same shall soon apply to tattoos, as every daddy’s little girl has a tramp stamp hovering over her buttcrack and wannabe badboy has a tribal tat on his arm.

So now a new fashion trend has emerged to replace the passe art of tattooing, one which is literally the “new hotness.” Branding! And yes, it’s just what the name suggests. Someone gets a metal brand or cauterizing pen, which burns at over 1000°C, and burns a design into your skin. Some say it gives them an adrenaline rush. Well, if you really want an adrenaline rush, why not play Russian Roulette? It’s loads of fun, and if you lose, at least you get to have a bored skull. It would be a helluva lot cooler than Johnny’s lame bullring, plus you’d be the only kid on the block with one! You’d be totally cool! Try it! I love hearing horror stories about tattoos. About how someone gets a tat of his/her lover, then said person leaves, turning that tribute into a scar. About people who get tats on an alcohol-induced whim, then come to regret it for the rest of their lives. About horribly botched tattoos, and about the magic that happens when saggy skin mixes with people’s cherished tattoos. So I’ll stay tuned for those involving branding.

But this is another example of white people imitating blacks. We came up with the branded look centuries ago! Still, the chains we were wearing were far less glamourous, and the people doing the branding were wealthy plantation owners and not their white trash descendants. But branding, as extreme as it seems, is tame compared to some of the other trends, such as “scarification,” when the surface layer of your skin is carved off to form a design. There’s also “skin braiding,” in which they cut strips of skin off your body, weave it then reattach it to your body. Yeah. I know. White people. But the thing that scares me the most is not the fact that people are actually PAYING to be tortured and scarred, but that this trend may actually reach Jamaica. As the saying goes, “When America sneeze, Jamaica ‘ketch’ cold.” I really hope it doesn’t. We already import enough from First World countries. We don’t need to import their stupid.