(Photo: Clockwise from top left: Courtesy of Mike Rubendall; Getty Images; Courtesy of Paul Booth; Courtesy of Mike Rubendall [2]; Jordan Strauss/Wire Image; Cat Gwynn/Corbis; Mark Allan/Wire Image; Corbis; Courtesy of Mike Rubendall; Alamy)

Getting a tattoo lost shock value a long time ago, even in the presumably conservative mainstream. Now it seems everybody’s got a significant, permanent memento somewhere—a butterfly, Tweety Bird, a bar code. What’s different is how blatant they’ve become. Discreet, hideable designs are passé; arm-filling artwork in glorious Technicolor is becoming commonplace, even for people who don’t take the L train. And with the arrival of easy-to-erase ink, changing your mind is painless.

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