• ElGosso [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    They've always been a thing but they weren't popular until the early 2010s with the "hipster" movement

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'm genuinely sorry for some of the things we did to the world back then, but making full sleeves popular isn't one of them.

    • Duckduck [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The media started making tattoos popular in the 90s with the "tribal" thing. Monkey see, monkey do. They can literally make anything popular.

      • ElGosso [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah but I was talking about sleeves specifically tho, which were definitely over the line compared to a tribal armband or lower back tattoo

  • StolenStalin [comrade/them,they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    "hello i am a fed and would like to search the tattoo database to find you" :fedposting:

    All in all tho, yeah sometimes I see em.

  • livingperson2 [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I see loads of them everyday. Been around my entire adult life, as far as I can remember. Work at a bar in Central California.

  • Thorngraff_Ironbeard [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I see them everywhere in the southern United States, a lot of men will have one full sleeve. Been working on my for a few years now a piece at a time.

  • jwsmrz [comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Not a tattoo historian but they're relatively common where I'm at (One of Canada's biggest cities)

    I know all sorts of people who have both sleeves as well as neck tattoos, ranging from bartenders to doctors and everywhere in between

    Personally I really like symmetry in tattoo placements so I'm slowly building up sleeves 2 roughly mirrored / similar sized pieces at a time

  • meme_monster [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    This history syncs up with my memory of tattooing patterns pretty well but I'm not an authority on the subject as I'm no tattoo artist and have never wanted one myself. The article says full sleeve tattoos became a thing in the 70s but they couldn't have been popularized until after the tribal armband trend of the late 90s early 00s.

    • inshallah2 [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      ???

      Even for sailors full arm sleeves would be rare until the last few decades.

  • Ithorian [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I have a leg sleeve and I'll get my arm sleeve finished next year. Seen them for as long as I can remember in the DC area. Now that I'm in appalachia they are alot less common, but that maybe because there are so few decent tattoo artist in such a rural area. Tons of people here have tattoos and most of them are shitty quality.

  • Melon [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    the key is to get so many tattoos, it starts to look like skin again

    (obligatory I don't know much about tattoos at all, I don't really like them, ignore me)

  • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Have seen more arm sleeves than I have back/chest tattoos tbh. Always cool to see one that has intricate coloring although I cannot fucking imagine sitting through that bullshit