Post 10: Tattoos & Gangs

Why do you think more and more people wear tattoos (regardless of whether they belong to gangs or not)?

People have always weared tattoos, even in the ancient Egypt people were getting tattooed for different reasons. But it's true that in the western world the art of tattoos was not very fashionable and was regarding as a foreign custom. This situation as changed during the XXth century and tattoos are omnipresent in our today society. It can be explain by the fact that popular figure (like musicians, sportsman, actors, etc...) began to wear them, and little by little people, who always want to imitate their idol, became to find tattoos "cool" and he became the fashion movement that we know today. 

David Beckham, Football player showing his tattoos

Why do young people join gangs? 

For me the main reason of why young people join gangs is that it's now become a pop culture movement. Nowadays is associated with hip-hop, that in the nineties was very active in the fight against gang, at that time street violence was a reality for rappers and music was a way to express their distress. Now hip-hop as evolved and musicians are far from the gangs or from this violence, and what was their reality became a commercial brand for their music. They now praise ganglife, guns, violence and drugs. They're spreading this vicious message in young people minds, who now think that gangs and violence are "cool" and because of that they are more attracted by them and more easily corrupted. Young people always want to look like their favorite musicians, and if this one is a "gangsta" they still want to be like him regardless of the terrible things a real gangster do.

The rap band Rich Gang, symbol of this new rappers who praise the gang lifestyle

What link can you see between both topics and the notion of power?

Those two topics illustrates very well the notion of seats and forms of power by their attraction which may be intended or not. 

On one hand we have celebrities who indisputably exercise a peer pressure on their fan who try to look like them and their fashion which is often things like tattoos, but on the other hand we have gang members  who see tattoos as a way to represented their   membership and they loyalty to the gang, so the power of the first is not wanted but the second is. 

That brings us to the second topic, gangs. Gangs have always been here and they've always exercise a counter-power, but nowadays they have became very powerful and most important, they have become popular and young people, victims of the fashion movements created around the gangster lifestyle, are more willing to join them.