Abstract

Tattoos have been historically associated with outsider groups, but since the practice’s “renaissance” of the mid to late twentieth century, tattooing has gained mainstream appeal and its industry has bloomed. However, studies exploring this change have largely neglected to fully consider the effect that the modern digital age has had on tattooing as both an industry and a culture. Artists express varying levels of ambivalence toward these changes, explaining that digital spaces, especially social media platforms, have increased public exposure to tattoos and lowered stigma around the practice. But they also demand extra labor from artists in the form of digital content creation and profile maintenance. This study aims to fill a gap in existing literature by considering the impact that the wide-scale adoption of social media as a primary site of self-promotion has had on American tattoo artists, exploring these spaces as integral parts of the modern industry. This study uses a mixed-method grounded theory approach to ethnographic research, where interviews and field observations were recorded and coded to identify patterns of adaptation, negotiation, and cultural redefinition among artists in what I term as the "digitization era” of tattooing. This research contributes to the broader discussion of the effects that evolving digital spaces have on subcultural communities and creative industries, particularly exploring the adaptations of their members to changing technological and sociocultural conditions. In the sections to follow, I demonstrate that multiple adaptations are possible, emphasizing the way that tattoo artists exercise agency in their shifting industry while acknowledging that their agency depends on their ability to book clients.

Keywords

ethnography, tattoo industry, digitization, internet age, tattoo artist

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