In recent years, it had become unfashionable, if not downright dangerous, to publicly display affection and support for Michael Jackson. There had been reports of people with MJ tatts being lynched and abused by others who saw them as paedophile supporters. Despite this, some die hards were adamant they would not be deterred. One such person is the lovely Jodie Marsh who was seen recently displaying a forearm carrying a full colour image of Michael Jackson. Admittedly, she also has one of Chuck Berry.
In the wake of the desperately sad news of MJ’s death, I was therefore fascinated to watch the blogs online filling with news of people rushing out to have his name or image inked on them. Some of this information, including photos of the brand new raw tattoos literally flooded onto the ‘net within minutes of the announcement of his death.
Some of the work done was truly gut-churning in its poignancy. There was the young man who has a gravestone-style memoriam announcement inked onto his upper arm, the myriads of people who had his initials or the words ‘King of Pop’ or his sparkly gloves or black shod feet up on points marked on their bodies. One young woman had his ‘Thriller’ eyes put on her hip while another had a full facial of him as that gorgeous young man he was before all the plastic surgery (ooops, skin condition, sorry) kicked in.
Not all the work done was tasteful by any means. I am not sure when these two got their tattoos, and I am not entirely certain the timing in any way changes the tastelessness of them. I will only mention two, although there are many more. These ones stood out for me. One was a full facial of the now deceased Michael Jackson on her right buttock cheek. Why?! The other was a grotesque depiction of a visibly startled young Macaulay Caulkin on a rather smug looking MJ’s lap… and all this on a man’s calf. Forget ‘why?!’. It’s pure vile.
