Script for Presenter - Jamie Ellis, Candidate Number 9150

Lines and script for presenter

Young people script/text

Just what is the appeal that tattoos have towards younger people? We’ve done various forms of research into this. We’ve sent out questionnaires to young people of different intellect levels and there’s a coincidence in our responses. Females gave more emotional responses. They gave responses which went further than just “it looks good”, which was the male majority answer. One of the answers that a female gave us was that she wanted a love heart on her wrist because she wants to show support to self-harmers. That response was from a 15 year old.  This greatly contrasts with a rather disappointing male answer. He told us that he’d want a tattoo because and I quote “They look mint”.  So, in answer to why young people get tattoos? It’s the same reason as most adults. For emotional reasons and for physical reasons. I find this inspiring that younger people can have these maturity levels towards something as serious as a tattoo.

History of tattoos script/text

 Tattoos have been around for a VERY long time. They’ve been used by early Japanese, Polynesian, Greek, Roman and Indian cultures. They’ve taken many different forms, from full body “Hori” tattoos in early japan, to branding slaves in early Greece to showing allegiance to your nation in early Rome. They can take on many properties to many different people/cultures. In India, the deity “Hanuman” was a common image in tattoos. In this culture, it wasn’t the tattoo that was special, it was the embedding process that the monks used which gave the tattoo it’s magical properties of empowering the person it belonged too. In contrast, Japanese hori were created for their decorative qualities alone.  They had no special qualities, they simply were adorned for their beauty. In Rome however, tattoos were often forced upon you. There have been stories from ancient Rome that slaves were branded with a tattoo that simply read “Tax Paid” and they were often used to pay-off debts. Another form of this branding was the tattoo “SPQR” with an eagle standard on the arm. This was placed on you when you joined the roman legion and was to be a constant reminder to you that your loyalties now lied with the roman legion, no where else. It stood for “Senatus Popolusque Romanus” which translated as “The Senate & People of Rome”. 

So, even back then people had pretty much the same ideas for tattoos that we do today. Which is really interesting, that the ideas haven't changed in ALL these years.