The founder of the 'Sucky Tattoos' project told Bored Panda that they joined Instagram around 2015. "I thought I could never compete with the rockstar tattooers dominating the platform. Nobody would care about mine. I noticed a lot of amateur tattooers or scratchers would try to pull off something beyond their talent 'for the ‘gram' and totally butcher it, I became obsessed with spotting these terrible mistakes in the wild. I had to post them to see if anybody else enjoyed them as much as I did. They were so bad that they were good and I wanted to have an open discussion to prove I wasn’t crazy," they opened up about the roots and inspiration behind their account.
As it so happened, quite a few people around the world find 'sucky tattoos' just as intriguing as the founder of the page does. "I absolutely owe everything to my community because the comment section brings me absolute joy every day. People are really funny, way funnier and more interesting than I could ever be. I love what my page has become and I plan to continue the legacy for as long as possible."
We found it very interesting to hear about when the page really started taking off. "The moment I realized I created something really special was when I posted the 'Sucky Panther' tattoo, which was a terrible-but-amazing panther tattoo that went absolutely viral and accidentally started a trend amongst tattooers mashing up the sucky panther with pop icons or characters," they told Bored Panda.
"The tattoo was already floating around the Internet way before I posted it but I helped propel it after giving it a name. It’s been mashed up and tattooed so many times now that I decided to dedicate a separate page, @suckypanther, to honor these tattoos and a weekly roundup in the hashtag #suckypanthersundays." They're definitely worth a look if you'd love a laugh (or ten). Trust us, you won't be able to look at panthers the same way ever again!
Bored Panda was interested to get the page founder's opinion on the red flags that probably mean someone lacks the skill and experience to do tattoos properly. "Home tattooers or 'kitchen magicians' used to be a big red flag for me, but today I think it’s more common than not that tattooers are self-taught and are now thriving and putting out good work," they shared their thoughts with us.
"There’s also a fair share of no [effs] given tattooers which you may have witnessed on my page or Tiktok and you could usually tell right away by the environment in which the tattoo is taking place, like on moving vehicles, on grandma's couch or the back room at a crowded party. I have to respect the hustle anyway. I still believe in traditional apprenticeships for a formal introduction to the trade but where there’s a will there’s a way," they said.
According to the founder of 'Sucky Tattoos,' they feel like most people regret at least one of their tattoos. "I’ve always viewed tattoos as little trinkets of memory into your past and if that experience happens to be tied to a bad memory, I’m all for getting it covered or even removed," they explained their position.
"Tattoo removal has come a long way and I actually used to be against removal based on false stigmas. Now I endorse removal clinics and I’m part of the team at @removery. Covering tattoos requires quite a bit of skill and thought process between the artist and client to pull off and when it’s done right, it’s amazing. People make mistakes all the time and luckily for some, tattoos are no longer permanent."
Bored Panda also wanted to get Glasgow tattoo artist David's thoughts on regrets, skill, and creative ideas. "The first thing to do if you’re unhappy with how your tattoo turned out, is don’t panic! There’s lots of ways your situation can be improved, "David, who runs the Archangel 1608 Tattoo Studio told us.
"First of all, contact your artist and let them know your concerns. If you’re happy to go with their advice, great, though it’s probably worth getting a second option from another tattoo studio. If you’ve lost confidence in your original artist, do research into somewhere that does a lot of cover-up or rework tattoos. If the worst comes to the worst, your tattoo can be removed, or at least significantly lightened by laser treatment," he said that there are plenty of solutions to even the biggest mistakes.
In terms of some green flags that signify that an artist is probably extremely experienced and skilled, David drew our attention to the fact that waiting lists are usually a good sign! "If an artist can take you straight away, unless they’ve had a last-minute cancellation, there’s a reason they’re not busy," he said.
"A good artist will be willing to work with you on your tattoo design, not push you into what they want to do. A great tattoo should be a collaboration between artist and client."
We were also very curious about some of the wittiest, silliest, and most unique designs that David ever had to ink. "A friend of mine asked his children to come up with ideas for a tattoo each, to represent them on his arm. His daughter picked a beautiful ballerina, swinging on the moon. His son picked a cowboy riding a strawberry! That’s one of the strangest, and most definitely one of my favorite tattoos I’ve ever done." We honestly can't begin to explain how much we love these two ideas—they are incredibly creative, and they instantly made us smile.
The ‘Sucky Tattoos’ social media project has a large online following. For instance, on Instagram, it boasts a whopping 802k followers which it attracted by posting more than 6k photos of tattoos over the years.
Meanwhile, the project’s account on TikTok has gotten over 393k combined likes over all of its videos. Clearly, the internet enjoys looking at photos of bad and unusual ink designs! The pics serve as a warning, as well as a way to make someone giggle and brighten their day.
There are some truly great tattoo designs and artists out there. However, it’s an impossible task to please everyone with your work. No matter how skilled you are, no matter how hard you work, there will always be someone who has something critical to say.
Even if your design is a masterwork of patience and painstaking detail, it might just not appeal to someone’s taste. Or they might think that they’d have done a better job. Trust your work, don’t listen to the haters. Originality is underrated!
However, this works in reverse, too. You can’t expect everyone to like your professional designs or your new tattoo. You might love your new ink, but it’s not like you’ll force everyone in your social circle and the passers-by in the street to congratulate you.
Compliments are nice. But the most essential question that you have to ask yourself is whether you, yourself, are satisfied with what you’ve inked or gotten inked.
If the tat meets your standards—fantastic! But if it doesn’t, you need to sit down and figure out why. Is it a question of reality not meeting expectations? Perhaps it’s a question of skill? Or maybe, just maybe, after you’ve grown and matured over the years, you realize that the designs you’ve gotten don’t represent who you are anymore.
