Are tattoos considered a young person’s thing in the U.S.? Do older people also have tattoos?

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Giant_Devil@reddit

I'm in my 50's. I might know more people with tattoos than without. Or not, it's close. I don't have any but I also have no negative opinions about them. I just never saw the point, personally.

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Kestrel_Iolani@reddit

My 75yo mentor just got her first tattoo to celebrate her retirement. (A raven feather quill up the length of her forearm.)

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Content-Elk-2037@reddit

Depends on what you call old. I’m almost 50 and have 7. Got the latest one early this year.

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shelwood46@reddit

Many people of all ages have tattoos, but they got really popular with younger people about 20-25 years ago, so it depends on whether you consider 40 old.

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Statistically, Millennials are the most tattooed generation as of a few years ago (per Pew). Millennials are also in our 30s and 40s now, with the oldest being in their mid 40s. Does that count as old? Not to me, but I dunno about OP.

Remember 90s tribal and how lower back tattoos (aka tramp stamps) were super popular about 25-30 years ago? The people who got those are in their 40s and 50s now. Is that old?

Before that, tattoos were more for people like military and bikers. They've been getting more and more popular and normalized over the past 30 or so years. So yeah, it depends on what your bar for "old" is.

If anyone is curious about the Pew statistics from 2023: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/15/32-of-americans-have-a-tattoo-including-22-who-have-more-than-one/

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Say_Hennething@reddit

I can remember when having visible tattoos would prevent you from getting many jobs. And then the slow transition where people would where cloth sleeves to hide their forearm tattoos.

Extension_Variety190@reddit

My disabled Navy vet wife has ONE, a small bird on the back of her upper right shoulder.

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RedditHoss@reddit

Please don’t consider 40 old. Please.

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Yes! I should also add that I live in the deep south where being heavily tatted hasn't been as socially accepted until recent decades

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turdferguson3891@reddit

Post 40 you will still see many military tattoos plus random "tribal" ones and tramp stamps.

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Jets237@reddit

40 is not old

Source: I am 40

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ramblinjd@reddit

Yeah I would say if someone is over like 60-65 and has tattoos they probably were military or in a gang.

If someone is 30 to 60, they were either in a rock band, a gang, or had a really fun midlife crisis.

My 85 yo stepmom has quite a few and most are in the last 5 years.

I work in healthcare with many nourses aged 22-30. Some heavily tatted. And most have multiple ear piercings, nose piercings too.

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One-Yellow1504@reddit

All young people who get tattoos, become old people with tattoos or tattoo scars

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Deep-Hovercraft6716@reddit

Tattoos are more of a class indicator than an age indicator. It takes money to get lots of quality tattoos.

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Other-Resort-2704@reddit

You are going to find significantly more younger people with tattoos (Millennials and Generation Z) than Baby Boomers or Silent Generation.

I assure you my friends do not have tattoos..

Idk why that is so wierd you think they hiding a tattoo

They also don't have piercings

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veiledxvoodoo@reddit

It must be easy to be you 😆

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Open-Neighborhood459@reddit

What is easy. Why do you assume most people have tattoos..

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Tattoos aren't actually common and sorry you judging someone. For not having any

It is ignorant to assume that and it asinine

Everyone I know has college degrees English is their 2nd language

Lol why would you think that.

Washington, but I was being a little tongue-in-cheek lol. I know I don't have a user flair here.

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ParrotheadTink@reddit

I’m 71F and have 15 tattoos

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sai_gunslinger@reddit

Older people definitely have some tattoos. It's more common for older men to have tattoos than older women due to the social stigma against tattoos 50+ years ago, and you'll more commonly see them on men who served in the military or bikers.

As the social stigma has shifted, more and more people of all genders are getting tattoos. Jobs are becoming more relaxed about them so more people get ink they've always wanted. I'm 40 and I have 2 large ones, I'm dreaming up my third.

Tattoos are generally considered negatively. Basically employees have tattoos.

For a long time tattoos have been considered working class, not management and not professional.

There also has been an association between criminals and tattoos as well.

And so while some successful individuals in a variety of fields have visible tattoos, most don’t.

The result is that older individuals have a tendency to not have tattoos unless they were a part of a marginal group while younger individuals now experience less negative effects of having tattoos.

And the positive effects, well, it’s unclear that there are any, so tattoos seem to be a loosing situation. They cost money, time, pain, are disliked by many. Other than being a conversation starter, they do not appear to have a benefit,

Note: there are some cultural traditions regarding tattoos which have some associations which may provide some benefit to some individuals who are a part of those cultures, however in most modern societies the adherence to tradition is discounted and itself is viewed as a negative.

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Puddin_McPippi@reddit

I have never met an old person with a tattoo who was not young at some point.

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bullettrain@reddit

Young people turn into old people

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tigerowltattoo@reddit

I’m definitely a senior citizen and I have two tattoos.

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MotherTeresaOnlyfans@reddit

I would encourage you to learn more about the history of tattooing and tattoo culture, as you seem to think it's significantly younger than it actually is.

The "American Traditional" tattoo art style in itself is older than literally anyone reading this post.

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FatTribble2300@reddit

I'm 64 and have five so to answer your second question, yes.

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YesterdaysMuffin@reddit

Yes. Older people have and get tattoos. We’re the ones who made it normal to get them.

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VividFiddlesticks@reddit

How old is "older"?

I'm 51 and getting a sleeve tattoo started next month. My husband is 50 and just got a new tattoo last year.

When i was a young person, tattoos were considered strongly to be only for people involved in alternative cultures (prisoners, soldiers, gang members, etc) and in fact having multiple tattoos was included in the DSM at that time as indicative of probable mental illness.

DummyThiccDude@reddit

A bunch of my family members ( all GenZ) have small ones. Usually something like a 2x2 that a studio did as a raffle or predesigned piece.

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Sufficient_Cod1948@reddit

They are, but different styles of tattoos. Most younger people I see have smaller black linework, whereas someone once said they could tell I was a millennial from my large and colorful tattoos.

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minicpst@reddit

Interesting.

I’m getting my first in several months. I’ll be 49, so a solid Xennial. It’s going to not be very big, but it’ll be the width of my forearm (I’m just not big enough to make it big). It’ll be colorful.

My daughter hasn’t scheduled anything, but she knows what she wants. And it’s a black line work tat.

My teenager doesn’t know exactly what they want yet. They’re not old enough to get it, but they’ll probably get one right after their 18th birthday.

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Constant-Gap-1329@reddit

Anecdotally, as a college professor who spends more time with Gen Z than I’d like..they seem to have a lot of tattoos.

I took a class to a foreign country and about half the class got tattoos and piercings as souvenirs. I got a canvas shopping bag as my souvenir. 🤷‍♀️

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MamaPajamaMama@reddit

Definitely not true for my area. My 22 yo has at least 6 now, I've lost count. The 19 yo has one and is planning his next one. I would say maybe half of their peers have them, probably more for my older one.

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tarheel_204@reddit

I’ve actually noticed the opposite. I’m 28 and it seems like every other person around my age has at least one

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OldBlueKat@reddit

I think there is also some cultural/ ethnic variation in popularity.

I feel like I see more ink on Asian and Native American people? Not sure.

I also think it became a lot more common for women in the last few decades. You hardly saw girls with tats in the 80s, but it started creeping in during the 90s?

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SaintJimmy1@reddit

I agree I see many more women my age with visible tattoos than I see men.

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OpposumMyPossum@reddit

Agree. It feels like very uncool parents have tramp stamps and tribal bands and they are staying away.

It was so popular in the 1990s with folks trying to be cool.

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Ok-Equivalent8260@reddit

My son loves getting tattoos (he’s 21)

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ruddy3499@reddit

There so common now that it’s kinda boring

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AWTNM1112@reddit

You know tattoos are permanent, right?

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gfunkdave@reddit

When I was a kid (I’m 47 now) I distinctly remember my parents telling me that tattoos were for lower class people.

Now, I have a lot of friends with tattoos. I am thinking about getting one myself. I just don’t know what I’d want on me forever.

Tattoos are super commonplace these days. It seems almost rare to find someone who doesn’t have any at all

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AcanthaceaeOk3738@reddit

Well,if you get one when you’re young it doesn’t go away …

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SavannahInChicago@reddit

They got really popular when I (millennial) became a teen. Growing up the older generation really were against them and saw them as trashy and low class.

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Agitated-Sock3168@reddit

<"Do older people also have tattoos?"

Why would they not?...the ink doesn't breakdown and disappear after 30-40 years. I've known people in their 40s and 50s getting their first tattoos, or adding to what they already have.

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NoFleas@reddit

Soldiers in ww2 were heavily tatted - it's not a young person thing

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angrywithnumbers@reddit

My grandpa born in 1923 had tattoos but he was in the Navy in WWII.

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Crafty_Lady1961@reddit

I’m 65 and both my grandparents (both in the military) had tattoos.

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Lilylake_55@reddit

I got both my legs tattooed from hips to ankles 51 years ago, when I was 20.

Sadly the tattoo frenzy has become pretty common in both younger and older people.

Young women in my area are pretty much all sporting some tattoos. I see a ton in the gym and at the supermarket. Getting so when I see a girl with no obvious tattoos it's a rarity.

A lot more young guys are as well than I ever remember.

All the 40-50 something new divorcee women get them to celebrate their new found independence or whatever they tell themselves

Usual-Bag-3605@reddit

My mom was 45 before she got her first tattoo. And when my nephew was killed, almost everyone in the family got the same tattoo to honor him, including my 85 year old grandma and 87 year old grandpa.

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Bluemonogi@reddit

Some older people have tattoos and some don’t. When I was growing up I only knew my one uncle to have tattoos. He is no longer living. He would be 86 if he were still alive.

My mother in law has some tattoos. She was born in 1960.

My husband has one tattoo but I have zero.. We are in mid 40’s and early 50’s.

My 26 year old daughter has zero tattoos.

I've noticed that many of the providers in my area have tattoos.

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Hatty_Girl@reddit

Can't wait for this trend to end 🤦‍♀️

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Wide_Breadfruit_2217@reddit

Depends on what you think is old. But does get to a point 70+ when thinning skin-ink bleeding where it may not come out right.

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bdrwr@reddit

It's less common in older age groups, but tattooing has been around long enough that you can find old grandpas who are all inked up.

There's also still some regional variations. On the west coast, everyone and their mother has a tattoo. In the south, where old fashioned Christian attitudes are still pervasive, you sometimes meet people who still believe that only criminals have them.

I think some of it was, during the initial Aids panic in the 80s, people were thinking it could be transmitted by tattoos. There was a lot of stupid stuff about that in the Reagan years, and a bit of backlash about getting tats.

It reversed dramatically in the 90s.

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Particular-Move-3860@reddit

Silent Generation: The only members who had tattoos were sailors who had gone on shore leave at Asian seaports.

Baby Boomers: A few had one or two small tatts, but seriously we were much more into wearing warpaint if anything.

Gen X: "Do what to my body?"

Millennials: Tattoos tended to conflict with and obscure their piercings.

anneofgraygardens@reddit

The most interesting part of that study to me is the huge discrepancy between LGBT+ people and straight people. It does sort of match up with my personal experience but I'm still surprised the gap is that large.

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she-dont-use-jellyyy@reddit

And they'll still have them when they're over 40.

Source: am over 40, still have my tattoos

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JudgeJuryEx78@reddit

Mine didn't fall off either.

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annang@reddit

The factual, numerical answer to this question is the first search result in DuckDuckGo for “popularity of tattoos in the US by age.”

32% of Americans have at least one tattoo, including 13% of people over 65 and 25% of people 50-64 years old. Tattoos are most common among people ages 30-49; 46% of them have tattoos.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/15/32-of-americans-have-a-tattoo-including-22-who-have-more-than-one/

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OldBlueKat@reddit

Cool to see an actual ‘check the data’ reply.

I like the further breakdown in the article by gender, etc.

Women getting inked was less common compared to men 50+ years back, so that’s the most interesting shift to me.

And it seems like a fair bit of it was middle-aged women deciding to get it their first tat for some reason or other?

Used to be , but now see people of all ages with them

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Any chance he was a merchant marine as a young man?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but young people start to get tattoos more often than older people

As some of the older people have said they got a tattoo into old age but if you ask them when they started getting tattoos they would say in their 20s to 30s, after that it's rare but not unheard of for a personto start getting tattoos

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Same-Author4016@reddit

Two ladies I used to work with went to get their first tattoos together. One was in her early fifties and the other was late sixties. Tattoos are accepted in all age groups. It’s more about the location of the tattoo than the age of the person. Face tattoos are not as widely accepted

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Auntie_Venom@reddit

My dad had 3 tattoos, he would have been 74 this year. He got them in the Navy in the early 1970s.

I have one (so far) it’s just the start of his memorial tattoo.

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randousername8675309@reddit

No. When you turn 40 they make you scrape them off.

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OldBlueKat@reddit

In the mid-20th century it was almost always only men, usually with a military, merchant marine, or prison back story about when and why they got inked.

So a lot of people decades back thought of it as kind of low class. That began changing as hippies, other ethnic and cultural groups, etc started treating it more as art.

So I think there’s a sliding attitude change. Most ‘over 60s’ wouldn’t want a tattoo themselves, but are getting less weirded out by it as many of their grandkids are sporting ink.

But as an old person myself, I will say I’ve seen some tats that don’t age well. A coworker a few years back made a rude joke about the 50ish woman he saw who had a Rose tattoo on her cleavage — “that stem was getting abnormally long!”

It was obnoxious to say, but he wasn’t wrong.

Depends on what your consider old. Early millenials are like 40 now.

Also depends on the culture. America has many subset cultures. You wont find anyone in my mom's filipino church group having tattoos because in their time tattoos were associated with criminals.

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imaginethat65@reddit

Almost every young person has tattoos or piercings in nose etc. Old people were probably in army when they got tattoos..not alot of old females have tattoos i think .

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knowlessman@reddit

I see a lot of people day to day.

Of the people over 60, tattoos are uncommon but not unheard of.

Of the people 50-59, I think about 60% have tattoos.

40-49 it's probably 50%

For people 30-39, it's probably 30%.

For people 25-29, it's probably 20%, but the reason I split that decade is that for people 18-24 it's probably 30%. I think Covid probably cut the number of 18-24 year olds that got tattoos, 6 years ago.

It's really weird actually. People regularly tell me "I just turned 18" and show me the tattoo they got for their birthday.

So... no, they are not a young person thing. They are something that can happen at any age, and once they happen they rarely go away so the percentages go up with age. But they are also not a boomer thing.

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I got my first tattoo at age 40, then another within a year or two. Got 3 last year (age 57). Thinking of getting a 4th.

pyramidalembargo@reddit

OP, I'm 64 years old.

In our day, tattoos were not so popular. They were restricted mostly to sailors, or people who lived in the counterculture--bikers, etc. I'd say about 15% of the men had one.

They were very uncommon among women. It was seen as trashy.

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People are more likely to get them when they are young. Yes. That's not to say people don't get them when they're older too. But eventually the skin ain't so happy being skin anymore, and it's probably smart to stop putting more holes in it when you're in your 80s.

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