The game is up.

Just a few thoughts on the current state of the profession....
    There's a lot of fist shaking and outrage at the moment at businessmen who have nothing to do with tattooing making vast amounts of money off the back of  the profession. I can understand the anger and frustration, but it seems to me that the hard fact is....
    We got too good, and we were (and still are) largely unregulated by any professional body. Someone or "someone's"  found a way to exploit the "edge" that tattooing has. Same thing happened with hardcore punk, skateboarding, graffiti and most other "underground movements". It's naive to think that tattooing was any different.
    Why all this outrage now? It's been going on for several years - TV shows, rum, clothing brands, the list goes on. It's the nature of capitalism that whatever you throw at it, it will absorb, assimilate and try to sell it back you at twice the price (that isn't my insight by the way, I heard it in an interview years ago!). But that makes sense to me, even though I may not like it. Bottom line, tattooing is a business, we draw things on people to make money. It's commercial art.  There's a lot more to it than that of course, but as I see it, you can't argue with that fact.
Businessmen are always looking for untapped markets, and it was inevitable that tattooing would attract the attention of those businessmen. Business doesn't care about "professional ethics" or  "keeping it real"
Their art is to make lots of cash as quickly as possible, and to move on to the next cash cow once this has been sucked dry.
So given that tattooing is a business, and it attracts businessmen from outside the profession like locusts, what do you do as a tattooist? Here's my tuppence worth....
The only thing that holds any sway with businessmen is your wallet.
Buy from suppliers within the business who only sell equipment to registered studios as much as possible, don't attend the conventions run by said businessmen. That is if you really care, some people don't. Those people shouldn't be ostracised for making their own choices either, that only creates more bullshit and hot air.
Like I said we make money off tattooing too. It's unrealistic to expect every tattoo studio in the UK and elsewhere to boycott certain magazines, conventions etc, it's just not going to happen.
Be happy in the knowledge that you're running an independent business, with your own ethics, and putting good tattoos out there.
To quote Fugazi (again! hah!) -WE DON'T HAVE TO TRY IT, AND WE DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT. Now, I've got drawing to do.......