The Anti-Tattoo Propaganda

In Singapore, when the government wants to promote something, they do a campaign on it. Things like the Singa The Lion and the Dimsum Dollies on the trains are classic examples of a truly Singaporean attempt at inculcating positive values into it's societies. Once a campaign has begun, you won't hear the end of it. There'll be a song, commercials, competitions and who knows what else.

How about less "desirable" developments in society? Such as tattoos, and poker? What's done is a complete and total shutdown of these elements from the arms of the media that the government can control.

Let's talk about tattoos for instance.

There was once a time when I can simply walk into a bookstore and browse through a book on tattoos. They're very visual books, so the browsing doesn't take too long. I just grab it off it's shelf and flip around for designs I like, and might get. That was before. Now, you'll be hard pressed to find a book on tattoos in regular bookstores. In the more reputable stores, of course they carry them, but they're hidden in a corner, wrapped in plastic. So no more browsing.

Same applies to the library. I love the library because it's free books, but why is there no books on tattoos? There's books on baking, stamp collecting, diving, travelling to freaking Mongolia, yet, nothing on tattoos. I did a simple search on the library's computers and found out that all the books on tattoos are for reference only. Hmm, clearly there's some censorship being pulled here.

On TLC (Travel and Living Channel), I was a big fan of this show called Miami Ink. I was a fan of the spin-off show, LA Ink too. Basically it's about a tattoo shop, and the clientelle they get, and that tattoos requested from them and story behind the tattoo. It puts a positive spin on the whole getting a tattoo thing. It's not just a form of rebellion; there's many reasons why people do what they do, and in this show, they explore them, that's how I feel.

Before, I was able to catch it at least once a week. I think they cut down the show times here such that it will only show after midnight or something. I haven't been able to catch an episode for awhile.

So you see what somebody's doing here? It's a complete media shutdown man.

And a few weeks back there was an article carried on the New Paper which featured the local artiste Maia Lee (i think that's her name). She's not in any show, or whatever. The whole article was just her complaining about the tattoos she got! I'm serious! She was on the front page and everything, but the whole focus of the article was solely her anti-tattoo -sentiments.

Okay, long rant, with short conclusion: I got a tattoo. Not many people will be reading this, so let's just keep this between us, kay? Don't tell Facebook, don't tell twitter. I got it at a place nobody will really see it, so as far as we're concerned, it's not there, kay?

Ommmmmmmm. :)