The internet changed the tattoo industry in ways we’re only just beginning to understand. Now, that’s hardly a revelation and if that’s news to you, well, you’ve got some catching up to do.
But I don’t think many of us fully understand just how significant those changes have actually been.
Because despite everything that’s happened over the last twenty years, many tattooists are still building careers as though they’re waiting to be chosen, still trying to impress an invisible “they” who hold the keys to success.
It’s such a commonly held misconception that many tattooists spend more time trying to impress “them” than the people who actually pay for their tattoos.
The problem is…
Even though “they” still exist, the power they once held doesn’t.
For decades it made perfect sense. If you wanted people to know who you were, there were only a handful of routes available. You hoped a magazine would publish your work. Waited patiently to be invited to the right conventions. And once you got there, you hoped the right people noticed you.
None of this was some dark David Lynchian conspiracy to keep tattooing under an iron fist. It was simply how things worked in a pre-internet world.
In the early days, the tattoo industry wasn’t built around direct access. Instead it grew organically around intermediaries. Businesses whose job was to connect tattooists with opportunities they couldn’t easily create for themselves. Magazine publishers. Convention organisers. Manufacturers. Distributors.
Did you notice something?
None of those people actually make tattoos.
They weren’t the trade.
But they were the bridge to it.
Because they controlled distribution, they naturally became influential. That’s not a criticism. It’s simply how information moved. Back then, if you wanted an audience, somebody else had to give you one.
But that’s no longer true.
Today you can publish your work instantly. Build your own website. Write your own articles. Record your own podcast. Make your own videos. Teach your own courses. Sell your own artwork. Build an email list and talk directly to your clients to create your own little community around your work.
Everything that once required permission now simply requires effort.
The Tattoo Industry Was Built Around Distribution
Yet despite all of this, many tattooists are still behaving as though they’re standing outside waiting for somebody to open the door. They’re still trying to game a system that’s already been replaced.
I think part of the reason we’re still doing that is because we’ve confused recognition with success.
Recognition feels valuable because it’s visible.
The problem is that visibility is easy to confuse with value.
Being featured. Being invited. Being sponsored. Being followed.
None of those things are bad. Most of them are genuinely worth celebrating. But these days they don’t change much in the grand scheme of things.
Very often they’re simply a by-product of having a career.
Because the old way did work.
It really did.
But only for the lucky few.
Many tattooists still believe that success is awarded. That a career is given and legitimacy comes from being recognised and chosen by the tattoo industry.
I understand why.
In fact, it’s exactly what I was told on my first day.
I entered tattooing at probably the height of that culture and, coming from the music industry, I recognised the behaviour almost immediately. Different people. Different haircuts. But exactly the same incentives, gatekeepers and power structures.
Initially I took a dim view of it. That probably had a lot to do with how recently the music business had spat me out, but I think the parallels deserve repeating.
What I saw was an industry making a lot of money. Not from the actual craft of tattooing, but from simply standing next to it. The artists got the fame and the recognition, but the real money was often being made by someone who had never tattooed.
When I entered tattooing, with the music still ringing in my ears, I was reminded of Steve Albini’s now-famous essay The Problem With Music. In it, he shows how the entire music industry often made fortunes while the artists themselves remained in debt.
His point was that somewhere along the way, musicians had stopped questioning a system they’d inherited.
Having just left that world, it was hard not to see echoes of the same dynamic in tattooing, even if the comparison wasn’t entirely fair.
Recognition Isn’t Success In The Tattoo Industry
These days, with a little more clarity, I realise that every creative industry develops an establishment. Not because anyone planned it, but because the people who succeed under one system naturally begin teaching that system to the next generation.
Eventually, without anyone really noticing, the route becomes the destination.
People stop asking,
“What kind of artist do I want to become?”
and start asking,
“What do I need to say and do to get accepted?”
They’re very different questions.
Because chasing acceptance naturally gives power to the acceptor.
And somewhere along the way we lose sight of something very real.
Our value.
Understanding The Tattoo Industry
If every tattoo convention, every magazine and every award disappeared tomorrow, tattooing would continue.
Now imagine every tattooist disappeared tomorrow.
There would be no tattoo industry.
Everything else is really just a consequence of that fact.
The tattooist creates the work and everything else in the tattoo industry exists because of that work.
Somewhere along the way we lost sight of that and started behaving like guests in an industry that couldn’t exist without us.
Or worse…
Like shadow workers helping to build somebody else’s business while quietly believing we were building our own.
None of this means conventions, magazines or manufacturers have no value. Far from it.
Conventions bring communities together.
Magazines document moments in tattoo history.
Manufacturers have transformed the tools we use every day.
They still matter.
They just aren’t prerequisites anymore.
They’re additions.
And that distinction is important.
The Centre Of Gravity Moved
The centre of gravity has moved.
The internet didn’t make intermediaries disappear.
It removed their monopoly on distribution and access.
The bridge still exists.
It just isn’t the only route across the river anymore.
And I think that’s the shift many tattooists still haven’t recognised.
For years we’ve been taught to look upwards.
Towards the people we hoped would choose us.
Maybe it’s time to start looking forwards instead.
Towards the people we’re actually trying to serve.
Because once your career no longer depends on somebody else’s approval, something else changes as well…
Why The Tattoo Industry Celebrates Originality Late
The strange thing about the tattoo industry is that everyone celebrates originality in hindsight.
We love the artists who changed the tattoo industry.
We quote them.
Study them.
Even build careers teaching their methods.
But while they were changing things, many of them weren’t being celebrated at all.
They were being questioned.
Criticised.
Told they were doing it wrong.
Every generation thinks the artists before them were brave whilst telling the artists after them they’re not doing it properly.
You’ve heard it all before.
“That’ll never heal.”
“Show me that in five years.”
“That’s not proper tattooing.”
Then enough time passes.
The work gains acceptance.
The style becomes fashionable.
The interesting edges are rounded off.
The original ideas are copied, sanitised and repackaged until they become safe enough for everyone else to celebrate.
We’ve seen it happen over and over again.
That’s why chasing approval is such a dangerous strategy.
Because it forces conformity.
Stop Waiting To Be Chosen
For, possibly, the first time in history, tattooists can own their audience, their reputation, their platform, their education, their products, their writing, their videos and their business without asking somebody else to distribute them.
That’s what grabbing the wheel actually means.
It isn’t about rejecting conventions.
Or magazines.
Or manufacturers.
They all still play a vital role in tattooing.
It’s about rejecting the belief that your career depends on being chosen by them.
If the road doesn’t exist…
Make your own.