A woman on TikTok recently went viral by posting a video of her blacked-out tattoo sleeve. Apparently (indy_the_gemini) had gone to get a sleeve done by a childhood friend, who’s a novice artist, and left with a completely botched sleeve of ink.
Not only did the tattoo not turn out the way she wanted, but the whole ordeal cost her upwards of $3,000. Indy had gone in hoping to get a brick-wall layout with Bansky-themed art displayed on it, kind of like a graffiti sleeve.
She wrote in a text overlay of the TikTok: “When you decide to black out all of your shitty tatts you just spent 3k on bc you were tryna help out a childhood friends new tatt shop and she decided to f you over.”
Viewers were upset with the TikToker/dancer and inquired on how she could have possibly let her friend do the entire sleeve without saying something to stop her. One commenter wrote, “Sooo you let her do a whole sleeve without saying something?? i’m confused.”
The TikTok got over 2.1 million views, 123,000 likes, and close to 500 comments.
Other commenters criticized Indy for her poor decisions. One wrote, “Friend or not, it’s a permanent marking! I’d be like, I’m good! I’m not a practice sheet.”
Viewers were also curious as to what the original sleeve looked like before she made the painful and unfortunate decision of completely blacking it out. A lot of inquiring and nosiness by TikTokers led her to post a storytime on the situation.
She posted a 3-part story time response to everyone who was baffled at how this could have happened.
“I basically had a childhood friend of mine who just started her own tattoo shop … work on my arm. I started getting a tattoo when I was like 18,” she starts. “We went in to fill in with a brick pattern that I had picked out. I don’t know what happened, and I guess when she was doing it, I wasn’t paying enough attention. It’s my fault. A lot of this is my fault.”
At least she could admit that much. Acceptance is the first step in moving on, but unfortunately it’s going to be really hard to move on from an entire new skin color on one arm.
At this point in the video, she reveals her wrist, which has yet to be entirely blacked out in ink. She posted another follow-up clip, offering more details of her side of the story.
“You can kind of see the original brick work. I don’t know if you can tell how shitty those lines are,” she continues. “I don’t know if it was just due to her inexperience or … she’s super heavy handed. I should’ve been paying attention, ’cause at the end of the day, it was a loss of about $3,000, … not including all of the money that I spent on the black out.”
She says that, as a dancer, she gets “paid based off how I look,” so she was embarrassed walking around with “shitty work” on her.
She also uploaded pictures of what the tattoo looked like. And after looking at the original sleeve, I think most can agree that despite how bad it may look, it’s not worse than an entire blacked out sleeve- and definitely not worth the pain.
We’re hoping for the best for Indy and will use her experience as a warning to be aware of what’s happening while you’re getting a tattoo done. And, maybe don’t pay you beginner tattoo-artist friend three grand to do a highly detailed tattoo sleeve unless you’re sure it’s going to be worth it. On the bright side, at least she can feature her ink in the “worst tattoos” story on the Snapchat discovery page!