SAN DIEGO, California –
If you do a simple Google search, you’ll find long lists of ill-thought out tattoos, featuring accidentally inappropriate or insulting examples, such as ugly representations of pretty people’s faces, or simply bad spelling and grammar. “Only God Can Juge Me,” and “Never Don’t Give Up,” are two such examples.
This phenomenon may have led you to believe that those who choose to get inked are not particularly intelligent, but new research has indicated that it is actually the other way around.
“Our study found that getting tattoos literally makes you dumber,” said neurologist, Doc Klein. “We tested the intelligence levels of 10 000 individuals before and after getting such tattoos as barbed wire around the bicep, or elaborate dragons across the arms and back. The results certainly surprised us.”
One such test showed that inked individuals are less coherent than before. They were unable to form well-constructed sentences and occasionally gave up in the middle of a word.
Another test had the subjects doing simple mathematical problems. While 100% were able to solve them in the first test, only 20% solved the same problems after.
“Right now we are unsure of the reasons, but we have a couple hypotheses,” said Klein. “The most convincing is that the act of getting a tattoo is essentially a dumb idea, and acting it out affirms that reality to the individual.”
The results help us to understand why it is repeat customers who get the most ill-conceived tattoos. Neck or face tattoos are among the most common for those covered in ink. There are even a few examples of heavily tattooed individuals getting penises tattooed to their heads or necks.
A man with “Fuck you” tattooed to his forehead, who chose to remain anonymous, explained his terrible choice.
“I like ‘Fuck you’ because it good me good. Dark colors make head red and good again.”