As tattoos are becoming more common, so are people getting ill-advised sketches of Wizkid and Davido on their chests.
As a mode of expression or a form of art, tattoos can be cool. However, the subject of the tattoo can vary between inspired to just downright disturbing, and there are few of this that is as confounding as getting a full-back tattoo of your favourite celebrity.
Celebrities all around the world enjoy the endless support of teens and hundreds of thousands of fans, sometimes that number can run into the millions. In Nigeria, musicians like Wizkid and Davido are the cream of this crop.
Fans express their adulation for these stars in different ways. We can remember videos of young women weeping profusely or men shouting beyond the capacity of their vocal cords at the site of either of these diminutive stars.
For others, all of this is too mainstream. So they go the extra mile (or a couple of kilometres, depending on where the parlour is), to get tattoos of their favourite celebrities.
ALSO READ: Woman gets tattoo of Davido's face between her breasts
Last year, many of these questionable decisions made the news on the internet of things. One that stood out was the instance of a young lady who got a tattoo of Wizkid, complete with 'Starboy' written in a coloured backdrop, that covered her entire back.
It’s all safe and healthy to see your body as a canvas and treat it accordingly, but what must you be thinking to have your body covered in a tattoo of a musician whose loyalty is to a generic class of people he’s comfortable referring to as “my fans”?
The answer is that most people who get tattoos in this generation draw from very few sources.
Nigerian tattoo culture is relatively new
While Nigerians and Africans in general, had been getting tattoos for centuries, they were mostly for more esoteric purposes than mere fashion or expression.
Before the 2000s, you would have been hard-pressed to find any common Nigerian with a visible tattoo.
Although many alternative cultures had seeped into the mainstream at the time, tattoos were on the back foot and the morally conservative outlook of our society did nothing to help.
When tattoos did become a thing eventually, they were inspired by the people who already had tattoos: foreign celebrities.
In the western world, tattoos evolved through different phases.
At a time, only gang members and sailors got tattoos. Over time, they became a part of prison culture, where prisoners would get inked to reflect their affiliations and experiences.
Young people then began to get tattoos as a sign of rebellion. At this time, there were no machines of the kind we have now, so the extent of the pain and the permanence of the ink was a way of establishing their independence and the right to make their own choices.
ALSO READ: Do you know getting inked can give you skin cancer?
Nowadays, tattoo culture is dictated by celebrities.
According to one tattoo artist in the UK, “If you see a celebrity on TV with lots of visible tattooing, chances are we’ll get an email the next day saying 'I like this idea"
A celebrity’s tattoos might be enough inspiration to get similar work done but getting an actual tattoo of the person’s face is on another level.
It's all love in the end… or is it?
Most of these people get these tattoos because they want to express their love for their favourite celebrities as elaborately as possible. As simple as this sounds, it is easy to see why such a complicated issue is so basic.
In a country with few paragons of influence or role models, if you will, many young people look up to their favourite musicians as a level to aspire to.
They listen out for their songs with feverish anticipation, defend their lyrics (or the lack of them) fiercely and fight rival fans with facts, figures and insults.
We cannot discount the effect that these celebrities had in giving body art a more acceptable image.
But the leap from getting tattoos inspired by celebrities to getting tattoos of celebrities is a big leap that only they are responsible for.
When instances of these tattoos surface on the internet, it is easy to believe the outrage is directed at the tattoos themselves, when in fact the issue is that there is an image of Davido drawn on the breasts of someone’s daughter.
A fair number of these tattoos come across as spontaneous, ill-advised decisions, and what makes it worse is that they are drawn with the skill of a 2-year old kid playing with crayons and white paper.
One wonders of these guys really consider the long-term effects of getting this sort of ink.
The pop stars who they so adore are human beings when it’s all said and done; some of them may be outed in the future for activities and practices so distasteful that it will incite a plunge from grace.
Others will struggle to maintain their prominence and will be relegated to relative obscurity.
Celebrities have highs and lows but the people who have tattoos of them will carry those inked testaments forever, or at least until they can afford laser surgery.
Tattoos: Why would anyone ink a celebrity's face on their skin?
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