I have to admit: normally when I come on here to talk about celebrities and tattoos, it just ends up with me slagging celebrities. I can’t help it. I see these vain, self-obsessed people parading around as though they themselves have just discovered the entire concept of tattoo and I get annoyed. It also doesn’t help that quite typically the celebrities who get tattooed get something that they then try and foist on the public as being extremely meaningful, sincere and completely original. And of course, their tattoos never are any of those things.
But wait, Mike – what’s that you say? This time around you actually have something positive to say about a celebrity getting tattooed? You bet your ass I do. I mean, I don’t have a whole lot of positivity to spread around on this issue, but enough that I feel is worth mentioning. So what is it? I won’t keep you in suspense any longer: Rihanna has a new tattoo. Okay, sure, it’s not that exciting and most of you are probably easing away from the rest of this post to go and google your own names or something, but I need to give credit where credit is due. I’ve never paid any attention to Rihanna in the past – or her tattoos, for that matter, but this one caught my attention.
While in New Zealand, the 25 year-old popstar decided to get a tattoo. But not just any tattoo, oh no. When you’re in New Zealand and you want a tattoo, you have to step up and get a TATU, not some sissy tattoo. What’s the difference, you might ask? Well, tradition. Massive tradition. Oh yeah, also a tremendous amount of pain. Enough pain (so I’ve heard), that I would have to think long and hard about actually getting one done if ever I were in the position to get one.
A two-minute video has been posted online of Rihanna getting the arrow-shaped symbols – which run from her fingertips all the way to her forearm – inked onto her skin by tattoo artist Inia Taylor at the Moko Ink studio in West Auckland, who uses only a chisel, a mallet and ink pigment.
Pretty ballsy and very uncelebrity, if you ask me. Well sort of. She got a lot of media attention for doing it, but the point here is that she did it. That alone takes some dedication to the cause. Don’t think so? Well unless you yourself have actually undergone the process, all I hear are lips flapping. I’m giving Rihanna a virtual high-five on this one and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.