FR Tattoo Sleeve Social Experiment

[Howell]

Yesterday I conducted a social experiment where I wore a realistic looking tattoo sleeve on my right arm that my brother had given me, to see if there were any noticeable differences in people's reactions to me. The sleeve looked like this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/8 ... SX522_.jpg.

Whenever anyone asked me about it, if they noticed it was fake, I would just say a buddy dared me to wear it all day.

My hypothesis going in was that women would open warmer to me and men would assume I was cooler.

I spent my time between 3:00 PM and 9:45 PM socializing near and around my city center.

Let's look at a few case studies:


#1: Two Hungry MILFs

Two MILFs are coming towards me on the sidewalk with their kids in tow, heading to a live musical performance I'm assuming, and they both look at my tattoo then look at me and give me a smile that is... not very maternal. If I'm not mistaken, they put on their sexy bad girl faces. This is undefinitive however, because there may be observation bias at play, but it certainly set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.


#2: The Guy Outside A Tattoo Shop

Bearded man with tattoos, likely in his mid 30s, putting up a sign for a newly opening tattoo shop. I walk by and ask him what happened to the store that was here before, because they were really nice. He doesn't know, and we talk a bit, him noticeably considering me part of his tribe. It was like two bald men meeting who feel connected by their shared experience of going bald. I bid farewell and feel like he looks at me as higher value than himself. Hard to say if it was because of the tattoos, but they likely played a role.


#3: Girl at Cafe

At 8:00 PM I had a date planned, and I arrived at 7:00 PM because I wanted to read for a while beforehand, and also try out some gyros that are supposed to be really good at the cafe we planned on meeting at.

I see a cute girl reading with headphones on by herself near the front windows reading a textbook, so take the next seat over and sit down so I'm facing her. I go down, looking for a plug for my computer around her chair, and she says something acknowledging me. After I get situated I open her:

Me: "You look like you're in it for the long haul."

I don't remember exactly what she said but basically she's chasing hard from this moment on. She's asking question after question of me, which I mostly deflect back onto her. She is 18 and obviously nervous/excited. After a bit I tell her to put her number in my phone and we can be "friends".

She is talking like she wants to know absolutely everything about me. I notice her glancing at my tattoo. She asks me about my cool hat. She then asks me about what my tattoos mean. I say "nothing".

She makes up a story for them and I say "yeah, that's totally it."

My gyros arrive and I eat while we're talking.

She's fluttering her eyes and I can see that in her eyes I'm more a sex symbol than an actual person. A symbol of freedom, of edgy danger, etc. She was telling me how she is thinking about getting tattoos too. I tell her that's cool and she should do that.

It's getting about time for my planned date to arrive, and luckily she gets a call about how grabbing Thai food with her roommate tonight, so I'm off the hook. She leaves. I'll text her in a few days and set something up. It should be quite fun next time we meet and I'm not wearing the tattoos.

Here, the tattoos clearly played a definitive role in giving me that sexy bad-boy image. This girl was young and inexperienced, and I could see that in her mind I was just the guy she was hoping to meet... and maybe post pictures with to Pinterest or something.


#4: The Planned Date

This girl arrives on time, and I see she notices the tattoos, but doesn't say anything. We move from the cafe to a flower garden outside, where we walk around and admire all the beautiful flowers. She is thrilled by this and says so multiple times. She tells me about her recent trip to Italy and how everyone thinks she's inauthentic based on her conversation style, and how she wants to change that.

I invite her then up to a cool old building that looks like a manor house overlooking this flower garden, and we talk up there. I learn she too has plans already for the evening, so I decide to keep this just an info date and close things out soon without trying a hard push to seal the deal that night.

We talk till a bit after the sun is completely set, and finally she says something about the tattoos.

She says she noticed it was fake early on, but I think she actually just realized it and didn't want to admit it. I tell her about some of my previous case studies during the day and she's very interested. She asks why I don't get a tattoo and I say "why don't you get a cappuccino?", pointing out the ridiculousness of the question because of the huge number of things a person can do and the implicit sale involved in the question. She seems to enjoy this line of conversation, and it moves us into her talking about her goals and ideals.

We end things on a high note and set up a meet next week cooking food at her place.

Conclusion

My hypothesis about tattoos was accurate, as women and men both seemed warmer and assumed I was cooler/edgier/grungier than usual because of them. I can see that socially, at least in the community I am currently involved with, a cool sleeve of tattoos offers a significant boost in implicit social value, especially in the eyes of younger "hip" women.

I have no intention of getting any right now though, because these benefits are as of now insufficient for the time and financial investments involved, and I also am temperamentally hesitant about jumping on any bandwagon, especially ones that deal with style, as what is "in" one day can easily become "out" the next.

I hope you found this study useful,

Howell

 

[Zoro]

Wow such an awesome idea.

I have a large tattoo that is hidden when clothed. When I'm intimate with a girl and my shirt comes off, their face usually lights up. "Omg, you have a tattoo!"

She makes up a story for them

The female equivalent of "plowing"

Careful with tattoos. I like mine, but I'm glad I only got a few and they are easily hidden.

 

[ray_zorse]

Yeah. AWESOME. You know you have hit a new level when you start doing Chase-style social experiments (opening percentages of different openers etc). I couldn't do it before cos my approaches too hit/miss due to learning, so results would be pretty noisy. I'm still very momentum dependent so would have to do some proper approaching to get out of current rut first...

Anyway I have been wanting to get a wrist tatt. Questions... does it have to have a meaning? A friend suggested a wrist tatt of a scorpion ages ago and I've always liked the idea. Quite a bad-boy theme. But apart from that it has no meaning. I don't even hang out with that girl much anymore. Also do you think these good reactions were partly dependent on the social-outcast, job-killer, non hideable nature of sleeve tatts? Would results be proportionate?

Ray

 

[Howell]

Ray-

Does it have to have a meaning?

I figure it couldn't hurt to have a better reason than "it makes girls think I'm sexy" behind a tattoo. At the very least, it makes it easier to explain to people. Many people will ask you about it, so if you can tie it in with an awesome value eliciting story, that'd be a definite plus. For example, let's say when your grandfather, who you were really close to, died, you went on a pilgrimage to India where you met with the wisest sages around as you tried to uncover what it truly means to be an "I" in the world, as well as the nature of death. You had many adventures and afterwards decided to get a sleeve of some of the Hindu gods with one of your grandpa's sayings around your bicep to remind you of your grandfather, all the lessons he taught you, as well as the lessons you learned on your pilgrimage.

A story like this makes your tattoo a lot more powerful, as it's deeper, ups your authenticity, demonstrates outcome independence, motivates/reminds you to be strong and face life head on, and will all around get you a lot more mileage in social situations and also when you're by yourself than a tattoo that you got because you were drunk or because you thought it would make women more attracted to you.

Also do you think these good reactions were partly dependent on the social-outcast, job-killer, non hireable nature of sleeve tatts? Would results be proportionate?

I could see this potentially having a negative impact on your career, depending on how square the place you work is. I think that's part of the appeal -- you show that you aren't playing that game and have enough conviction/success outside it that you don't need to tailor your image according to the standards of big business and never will. This issue comes down to where you work and where you plan on being in the future career-wise.

If you're still on the fence about this decision, or any decision, I recommend you make a list of the benefits and drawbacks of any given action and then attach to each one a value. If we were to do that for the "get a sleeve, yes or no?" decision, we could measure things like like: "be sexier = +2, limiting career path = -3, helping move acquaintances past the superficial faster = +1, etc. " If the sum comes out to be positive, you take that course of action, and if it's negative or zero, you don't do it. This is a strategy I use to roughly quantify my values and make decisions in complicated situations.

Howell