ANCHORAGE – There was a time when I thought of getting a tattoo as too much of a commitment — sort of like getting married, except more lasting and less regrettable.
These days though, with the improved technologies dedicated to tattoo removal, you can undo the decision to get a tramp stamp, significant other’s name or “OZZY LIVES” (or partially undo it, at least) emblazoned on your person at the drop of a credit card.
Along with the rise in the (relative) convenience of tattoo removal has come a corresponding decline in my respect level for people who take the ink-driven body modification plunge. Instead of seeing them as intrepid and adventurous, now I see them as being one step up from quasi-hippie chicks who doodle peace signs on each other in henna, most likely while attending Burning Man.
Perhaps no tattoo retreat disappoints me more than that of Hostgator M. Dotcom, the guy who sold premium face-space advertising to a bunch of different porn companies a few years back.
At the time, Dotcom spun his decision as a means of avoiding homelessness, explaining that selling body tattoo ad space simply didn’t bring in enough revenue.
“I used to just sell tattooed advertising space on my body, but no one was really buying it,” said Dotcom (no relation to Kim) at the time. “I was laid off at the job I had, my family and I were gonna be evicted, and I needed a way for us to survive financially. I didn’t want to do anything illegal, and I didn’t have any friends I could borrow money from… I didn’t want to do it — I really didn’t — but I also didn’t want my kids to be homeless.”
This was noble and all, but is having his facial porn ads removed any way to repay the generosity of his pornographic sponsors?
Even more troubling, Dotcom isn’t stopping with removing the porn company tattoos from his face. He plans to move down his body with the erasure — all in the name of personal gain.
“I’m wanting now to get the ones off my hands and my neck and my head — that’s going to be my next step,” Dotcom told Vice.com. “If I get them that way I can move up in the company, and I’ve been wanting to kind of go back to school pretty soon so I can maybe become a counselor or something like that … and it’ll be nice to have more of a professional look without tattoos on my hands and neck and stuff, too.”
There’s a word for people like Dotcom, and that word is “quitter.”
I know lots of quitters, especially people who lacked the commitment (and/or stamina) to be lifelong drunks, many of whom I only hear from these days if they feel compelled to apologize to me about something.
I’ll say this much for the quitters of Alcoholics Anonymous, though: For the most part, they never promised a porn company they’d keep drinking in perpetuity in exchange for money.
No doubt the bleeding-heart types will argue the porn companies and other advertisers who bought rented advertising space on Dotcom were exploiting his desperation and never should have taken advantage of a person who obviously suffers from mental illness. This argument doesn’t wash with me. After all, it’s clear from their incessant, repeated demands to know what’s in my wallet that both Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Garner are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and I don’t hear anybody crying for them.
Making matters worse, Dotcom’s erstwhile advertising clients weren’t the only ones disappointed by Dotcom’s choice to have his facial tattoos removed. The act also was a sore spot with his own children.
“She’s cool with it now, but, yeah, you’re right. At first she was like, Why are you getting them taken off? I don’t want you to,” Dotcom said of his daughter, age 8. “And she would get all mad and stuff, but she’s really cool about it now.”
Oh sure — it’s no problem to upset your daughter, so long as she eventually comes to terms with it. So what if she was initially unable to recognize her own father? Aside from someday sobbing inconsolably about this childhood trauma on a psychologist’s couch, what harm could possible come from it?
If you think I’m being too hard on Dotcom, fine — but the next time you buy 90 days of ads on a website only to wind up receiving 60 days or less of exposure, don’t come crying to me.
Image via Dotcom’s GoFundMe campaign.
