Big Tesco Back Tattoo ft. Tom O'Mahony
Tom joins Riley, Alice, and Hussein to talk about how not even the tattooing industry is safe from the whims of AI-enabled tech disrupters, with hilarious (but troubling) results. But first, we talk about the ongoing quest in the UK political-media ecosystem to performatively misunderstand what a "ceasefire" is, and then we review a whole new slate of Neom developments and ask: what will be erected in the desert when all this is said and done?
Tom's (recently award winning) podcast about tattooing, Beneath The Skin, can be found here.
Comments (27)
Now I am become puddle, the straightest of lads
I don't want to be restrained by the machine, though. I *want* to be restrained by the hot tattoo artist
Need a QR code that's just malware that bricks your device. I want to be a modern Medusa or Basilisk
Blackdot in my head going from a parlor, where everyone has some experience in doing the work, to their own studios, where probably no one knows what safe tattooing looks like. 😬
these blackdot tattoos on the website (incidentally, love a website that has a loading screen that takes longer than most of the games i own on the same pc) and theyre all either a bunch of well known art shit kinda fucked around with a bit, or just "went to the tattoo man and asked for tattoos"
Heart with an arrow and name banner, Sailor's Anchor, Butterfly with 'RIP LINDA' under it, Pesto branded tramp stamp, things of this nature.
Also the Dutch are at it again, they're trying to follow up on Terf Island with the squeakquel
As someone who is still planning their second tattoo (because I'm not getting all the most Bart Simpson profile pic JJK Characters shat onto a sleeve, you know who you are), thank you for covering this. The industry always needs good artists, and its very funny that some redditors who are too scared to be around people with tattoos want to replace good tattoo art with a shittily proportioned Bored Ape graphic that can give you horrific blood diseases.
These guys just want that one scene from Starship Troopers where Johnny Rico gets declared KIA
As far as the interpersonal aspect of artist and customer goes, I can't imagine getting tattoo from a machine. I have an unfinished tattoo that part of me wants to get finished but Stevie passed and getting it finished by someone else feels off to me.
That tattoo machine immediately made me think of the device from In The Penal Colony.
Does this company know that no one ever just picks a default tatt design off the wall, because that's the most loser thing you could do? Complete misunderstanding of both tattooing as an art form and the culture around it, and why people would want tattoos in the first place.
had a literal brain zap upon hearing 'tatooing startup'
I think the statement that they want to remove having to interact with a ‘big scary tattoo artist’ hits the nail on the head. Also then they can get their Bitcoin logo dotwork tattoo without being called a douche .
Oh goddess they said tattoos and nfts when I typed that ffs
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into hotel district 1 in the wadi. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and great shopping, and for ten years did not weary of it.
Talking NEOM without Tom Walker, for shame. At least you got a different, more mellifluous Tom to scab.
hell yeah neom
One for the Tom Heads woooo!
When I was a lifeguard, there was a guy who would come to the pool with a tattoo across his back that said “Only God Can Judge Me” in the old-timey newspaper font and it always gave me a good chuckle because every time I saw it I proved it wrong
Going from custom wines to accessible coffee roasting to automated tattooing has powerful "obsessed with the hot, tatted barista I don't tip" energy energy
I prefer the term "tactical misunderstanding", a term that already exists and refers to a tactic of abusers. Which they use largely just to signal their power over others, to make it clear to them that they have final power of Interpretation and that you do not have a valid perspective.
This made me chuckle in way that concerned my fellow commuters several times. Also, this is not related to any of the content of the episode, but gosh Tom has such a pleasant voice! I would listen to this man read a fridge manual.
All of my tats (4x12.7mm lines in pink, blue and green on the inner aspect of my upper arm) are "test spots" cos I found a tattoo artist who would mix various alkaloids (home produced) with the tattoo ink, having read far too many sf novels and given myself wierd notions. They did work, well enough I had 4 over a year or so.
Knuckle tattoo idea: B I G T E S C O
Her Big Tesco Back Tattoo For her close-nit HR crew In a room with no legs [TBD after I actually listen to the ep later today] [Me, halfway through the ep, no proper ideas yet but it works so sue me] Alice is into pain Alice is in-to pain Alice is iiiiiiiiinto to pain It wears her out It wears her out It wears her out It wears her out
There will be the rests of a city, buried in the sand. And on the entrance pillars an inscription appears : "my name is MBS, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty and despair"...