July 31, 2020 • 28 mins
What's the origin of tattooing? Who invented the tattoo gun? How do piercings work?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
and I love all things tech and it is time
for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This one originally
published on August twenty six, two thirteen. It is titled
(00:28):
tech Stuff Gets Tattooed and Pierced. Now I'm only one
of those things. But between the time we recorded that
show and now, I got another tattoo, So I've got multiple.
But yeah, let's go back and listen to this classic
episode about tattoos and piercings. Speaking of regular old tattoos,
in the interest of full disclosure, I've got two of them,
(00:50):
so I can actually talk about the physical experience of
receiving a tattoo as well as the actual science and
technology that goes into producing a tattoo. Well, I have
zero tattoos while we're while we're talking about it, but
my ears are pierced. Does that Does that help? That
that's body modification. I'm actually also interests of all disclosure,
(01:11):
debating getting a new ear pierced. Just just one, just one,
just one. I don't know that's going to happen too,
because I keep thinking I might be too old for that.
So let's talk about tattoos. That's a good starting point, right,
I Mean, ear piercing is probably the lowest on the
scale because it's the most socially accepted form of body
modification in our culture. You know, it's one in the
in the United States that ear piercing is. That's that's
(01:34):
pretty pretty pretty beign. Yeah, very common. So it's no
one would blink an eye really, depending upon the type
of piercing. I mean, there are more extreme piercings that
that some people would look at and go, wow, that's
pretty extreme, but it's still kind of on the theme.
And yeah, at least as far as our society is concerned. Right,
(01:55):
But tattoos. Tattoos are one of those things that we
have a lot of information about about how they happen. Yeah, um,
and they are getting more common. According to a Harris
Pole of American adults have one, um, including thirty eight
percent of people between the ages of thirty and thirty nine. Yeah.
I fall into that category. Yeah, you know, and I'm
actually I'm always thinking about what my next one's going
(02:15):
to be By the way, there's a common saying that
tattoos are addictive that is kind of well, it's not
physiologically true, but psychologically it is kind of true because
after you take the plunge the first time, you think,
I kind of want more. So clearly, when we're talking
about tattoos in this podcast, we're really going to be
focusing on the way that modern tattoos happened. But it,
(02:36):
you know, it behooves us to talk about tattooing has
a pretty long history. Yeah. Recent documentation from the Siberian
Times reported that some of the permafrost preserved uh, like
like ice princesses and stuff like that, have shown um
from you know, fifth century BC have shown tattoos much
(02:57):
like modern ones that particular articles strangely enough to link
out to any scholarly institutions or or reporting sorain of salt. Yeah,
but still well yeah, and then there have been reports
of you know, tattoos being found on ancient Egyptian mummies
from about two thousand BC. Uh. And then of course
(03:17):
the word tattoo we get from a Tahitian word which
essentially means to mark, which makes sense, and that that
word started to appear in English writing right around the
time that old James Cook was exploring the South Pacific,
so about seventeen sixty nine. Now, tattoos are all done
(03:38):
in essentially the same way, which involves piercing the skin
and inserting some mak. But the tattoo machine is a
little more recent. That comes to us from the late
eighteen hundreds, so late nineteenth century, and that was a
improvement by one Samuel O'Reilly on a machine patented by
Thomas Edison. Yes, Thomas Essen's machine was not meant to tattoo.
(04:00):
It was meant to engrave metal, and it was meant
to create stencils, and it was called an electric pen,
also known as the autographic printer, and that was something
that was invented right around eight or so. But what
O'Reilly said was, you know, I'm a tattoo artist. He
actually had been a tattoo artist in New York. He
was an Irish immigrant came to New York sometime in
(04:21):
the eighteen seventies, set up shop, saw the electric pin
by Thomas Edison. And it's interesting because that device that
Thomas Essen made never really became popular for what it
was designed to do. There were other technologies that came
along shortly thereafter that made it more or less obsolete. Right,
And also you know, for for for hand engraving. Yeah,
(04:43):
it's a lot um more efficient to in machine engrave
than it is to handingring. Right. So o'reiley takes a
look at this and says, wait a minute, though, this
thing that maybe isn't so great for what it was
meant to do might do something else if I just
make a few modifications. Yeah, if I just changed the
tube system to to accommodate inc and um uh, modified
the oscillating unit to drive a needle rather than a Yeah,
(05:05):
I suppose it was a needle to begin with, right, right,
but there's a different style needle like the needles that
was in the electric pin. You would not want to
touch your skin because it was enormous. It was huge
and a little bit scary. It was, yes, certainly, and
it's funny if you want to actually take a look
at the patent. The patent was issued on December eight.
Because it's on the patent application, you can actually look
(05:27):
up patents for free online. Google has a very good
patent searching. This one comes right up if you do
a patent searching Google. Uh. It's patent number four six
for eight oh one and the name of it is
tattooing machine. Both yes, both both that and Edison's machine. Um.
The patents for them still exist. In The illustrations are
(05:49):
very fancy and pretty. Yes, and I've seen some really
slap dash patent tellstration my day, but these are top notch.
There's some there's some ones for some particularly high tech
gadgets that when you look at them, you think it
was someone drunk when they drew this, And it just
shows that, you know, engineers and artists don't always combine
into one person right at anything rate. So you look
(06:09):
at this pattern, it's very interesting it It does have
that ink reservoir and it's got the ability to channel
inc down to this needle. The needle, by the way,
is solid. It's not like a hollow needle or anything, right.
I think the idea is that the needle is contained
within a small chamber that holds the ink, and then
when the needle pushes down out through that chamber, it
takes takes a drop off then right, and it pierces
(06:32):
the skin and deposits the ink underneath. Specifically in the dermist,
because you're going underneath the epidermis, which which sheds and
cycles so frequently that if you put it in the epidermis,
it would stick around for not very long at all,
certainly not a lifetime like if you have if you
have ever had either, you know, well, temporary tattoo will
just wash off eventually. But if you were to get
like a henna tattoo, something that stains the skin, then
(06:54):
you know that eventually that skin, no matter how careful
you are, that design is gonna go away because you
will shed that skin. You know that skin will end
up flaking off of you. It becomes dust. Actually, that's
what a lot of the dust in our world is.
It's skin scale. Yeah, I mean a lot of the
dust that you encounter on a day to day basis.
That's pretty much from your body, happy thought anyway. So, yeah,
(07:16):
the tattoo is permanent because it is actually staining the dermists,
as you said, not the epidermists. So we were actually
looking at a tattoo through the epidermists. Think of the
epidermist is kind of like a window, and the dermist
is where you're actually seeing the design imprinted and your
typical tattoo needle according to our article on how stuff
(07:37):
works dot com, there's you know how tattoos work? We
actually have this article. Uh, the needle can move between
fifty and three thousand times per minute. Now that's actually
the same frequency as the electric pen that Thomas Edison created.
So I suspect that most needles probably move significantly faster
than fifty times per minute, because that would be um, well,
(07:59):
you'd have essentially one us once a second, So think
about that one one to one THO you'd be like, oh,
oh stop it. I I suppose, depending upon the type
of work being done. Yes, I am not a tattooed professional.
That would be a really interesting question to ask a
tattooed professional. Outlining versus shading is very different. I can
(08:19):
save you from experience both on the performance end. Not
I can't say that from experience, but from the recipient.
And I sure as heck can tell you there's a
world of difference in the pain levels that you experience
from outlining versus shading. Um. Now, it's also interesting you
know your your experience of pain will depend upon several things,
(08:40):
like your own threshold of pain. Obviously, mind's a pretty high.
But it also depends on where you get the tattoo. Now,
there's certain surfaces where you know it's nice and fleshy
and you're not gonna you might feel like kind of
a buzzing sensation and maybe some tingling, but it's not
terribly painful. And then there are other areas where it
feels like someone's really pinching you pretty hard, or may
be getting like a bit of a bee sting. I've
(09:01):
heard that anything close to it close to the bond.
I've got one on my left shoulder blade, and anytime
it got to the point where it was close to
the actual bone was significantly more painful than the rest
of the tattoo. And I've also got one on my
left arm, and anything on the inside of the arm
was more painful than the outside. But yeah, so you've
got with your basic tattoo gun, your tattoo machine. You've
(09:26):
got the the unit that the tattoo artist holds in
his or her hand, which has a tube that houses
the needle. It's got the ink uh the ink chamber
or a little ink thing will will actually screw into it,
and then there's usually a foot pedal control that controls
the depth of the needle so that the tattoo artists
(09:46):
can be very precise when actually putting the tattoo onto
your skin. It'll be more or less a millimeter, depending
on you know, and where it is. Yeah, but about
a millimeters is that's that's a pretty good estimation. And
it's the machine itself is is brilliantly simple. It's based
(10:07):
on or. It's kind of similar to what a sewing
machine is. If that metaphor doesn't totally skip you up completely,
I'm actually perfectly fine with that. Yeah, but I guess
it's because I've had a couple of tattoos and needles
don't typically bother me. But I do understand there are
people who have real psychological issues with anything that has
to do with needles with needles. Totally understand that. But
(10:28):
but so so the gun. The gun contains a circuit
that runs through an electromagnet, and that circuit is opened
and closed via the vibrations of a spring loaded a
read or uh panel um and and those vibrations are
controlled by a weight like a pendulum that's placed along
that that flaunched interesting um and now the vibrations are
(10:52):
caused by cycling power through the electromagnet, so they have
the fluctuating electric magnetic field and that going to start
causing some vibration, and the read is connected at the
top um uh to to the to the base of
the needle, and therefore the vibrations of it pushed the
needle up and down. And it makes it very very
(11:13):
simple to use. Very I mean, the the cycle is
is self perpetuating until you cut off the electricity supply
entirely and you have a simple reciprocating motion that yeah,
it's it is so really the the complexity here comes
in the actual execution of making a tattoo, and that's
where the artistry and skill really comes in. Because operating
(11:35):
the machinery is pretty simple. It's the handling it properly
and making sure you're doing not only a wonderful artistic job,
but that you're doing it safely right, and the safety
issue is one of those One of the things that
I do know very very well about tattoo parlors is
that if it does not smell like a hospital, like
a really good clean hospital, gone get out. Yeah, because yeah,
(11:58):
so so for any of you guys out there who
are considering tattoos. Uh, you know, make sure you do
your research check and it makes certain that all the
different whatever tattoo parlor you're looking at, is on the
up and up, that they follow very strict uh sterilization processes,
that they are very careful to have one use items
(12:19):
and then they discard them and they don't ever use
them again. Some some parts of the tattoo machine are reusable,
and that's perfectly fine, and we'll talk about those which
even those you make sure they have, like an autoclave
clave they are they are sterilizing their equipment because you
want to heat things to either two or two hundred
and seventy degrees depending on the pressure and the time
(12:40):
length that you're using. Yeah, and we'll talk a little
bit about the autoclave specifically in just a second to
kind of explain what that is for those of you
who don't know. But the whole purpose here is to
kill off any kind of bacteria or other organism that
could cause infection or disease. And because like we said,
you're what a tattoo is is a you know, a
whole bunch of little punctures in your skin. Punctures can
(13:01):
get infected it's it's an open wound. Yeah, yeah, any
kind of heels up right. But yeah, any kind of
wound has the potential to get infected. So it's very
important that you find a place that is reputable and clean.
Hey guys, it's Jonathan from twenty twenty. While you're getting
inked and pierced and everything, we're gonna take a quick break,
but we'll be right back. So the basic parts of
(13:31):
this tattoo that you've got, the sterilized needle and those
are one use. That's that should just every time you
go to a tattoo parlor, if you're getting a tattoo,
the needles they have should be one use needles and
sterilized packets that they should open right in front in
front of you, right before they start their work. Right.
Those packets should remain sealed until they're ready to do work.
(13:51):
So they open it up and they put in the
needle into the machine which has already been cleaned in
the autoclave. And I'll get to that in a second. Uh.
Other things that need to be single use include ink, ink, cups, gloves,
All of this kind of stuff needs to be one
use in sterile packaging to minimize the risk of any
kind of contamination. So make sure. And it's perfectly fine
(14:14):
to ask questions any reputable tattoo artists because it shows
that you have done your research and that you're serious
about it. And again, if they're reputable, they'll have no
problem answering your questions being able to show you what
what is they do to stay? I think if you
a grief about it, get out of here and don't
don't go there, go somewhere else. Um. So UH. The
(14:35):
autoclave is actually think of it as like a machine
that generates lots of heat, pressure, and steam. Those are
essentially the three components there, and it's often used in
Autoclaves are used in medical facilities to clean medical uh equipment.
So you the way it works as you would put
stuff in a little pouch, each one with each piece
(14:57):
of the equipment would get its own little pouch. UH.
This equipment would be things like the needle bar and
the tube of the machine. So these would be the
bits that would be used again and again they go
into their little pounches. Each pouch has a little indicator
strip on the outside for when everything is has been
heated to the correct temperature. That indicates yeah, exactly. It
says essentially that that sticker changes color and it tells
(15:21):
you what's not sticker. But the indicator changes color and
it tells you everything in here is dead you and so.
Uh but yeah, like you said, it can heat depending
upon the settings. The general rule of thumb is two
or fifty degrees fahrenheight or a hundred twenty one degrees
celsius for ten pounds of pressure for thirty minutes, or
to seventy degrees fahrenheit or one two celsius at fifteen
(15:44):
pounds of pressure for fifteen minutes. Uh. That is the
standard upberating procedure. The tattoo parlors should be following one
of those two with its autoclave. And uh, there you go.
That is your standard approach to sterilize the reu do
bowl equipment. So remember ask those questions, make sure you know,
you do your research, and uh and if everything's on
(16:06):
the up and up, then enjoy your painful experience. It's
really not that bad, depending up on where you get it,
and how big the tattoo is, and and and your
personal tolerance and the skill of the of the artists.
I had an incredible tattoo artists who did both. The
same guy did both my tattoos, and uh, and he
was just he was not only really skilled at creating
(16:28):
beautiful designs, he also really minimized all the discomfort. I
mean there was some, especially around the shoulder blade area,
but it was it was nothing too intense. Like, it
was nothing more intense than you know, a minor beasting.
So assuming you're not allergic to bees and you've experienced
a beasting and it wasn't a big deal, that's pretty
(16:49):
much the worst it got for me personally. Right, I
happened to be allergic to be for you compared compared
to a beasting, and you'd say I would die, That's
not what I mean. Other fun questions to ask your
tattoo artists are what kind of inks they use? Um,
Just as an interesting note, sometimes inks contain metallic pigments,
and um, if you ever have to go in for
(17:11):
an m R I after getting a tattoo with the
metallic pigment, it's not gonna fly out of your body
magneto style or anything like that. Yeah, and uh, it's
also good just to make sure that you know if
you have any known allergies. That's obviously something else you
need to discuss because there's a possibility that either the
ink itself could contain something that you are allergic to,
which could be a problem, or that some of the
(17:33):
other materials, like they're supposed to the whole process before
they tattoo you, they have to uh clean and shape, right,
So any anything like that, you just want to make
sure that you're not going to come into contact some
with something that's going to give you a bad reaction. Yes,
And I had one other kind of cool thing. Well,
first of all, if you're feeling in a goofy mood,
(17:53):
we do have a we do have a fake article
and how stuff Works about tattoos, uh, one of our
few so we we haven't done it every year, but
occasionally how stupp Works has made an April Fool's article
on how stuff works, and we have one about how
animated tattoos work, which is all about electronic tattoos that
are it's like electronic devices, right right. The story goes that,
(18:15):
And there's an actual patent for a subdermal l c
D screen out there that exists in the real world
that has never nothing ever really came of it, I think,
but but but but yeah, the article talks about a
little subdermal l c D that's connected to a little
magnetic battery and a small controller, and so that you
(18:36):
would be able to have a tattoo that would actually
be like showing video and stuff, or have an animation
on it that we could run in a loop. Now,
there are obviously some some barriers to that, the big
one being that the body tends to not like stuff
introduced to it. And we're going to talk more about
that when we get into the second half, and we
start talking about some interesting implants that there are dangers
of a body rejecting certain materials, and you can't really
(18:59):
predict which ones it's going to reject, which ones it's not.
There's some that have a lower percentage of rejection, and
even people's immune systems work differently, right, So it's kind
of a tass and it can change depending upon your
activity level too. I mean, if you get a if
you get an implant in an area that gets a
lot of like a lot of agitation, then that can
increase the odds of a rejection that kind of thing.
(19:21):
But we'll get into that in the second half. However,
there is a different kind of animated tattoo. It's not
really The tattoo itself is not animated, so it's a
misnomer really, But there was a guy who goes by
the handle the tattoo handle of Carl K A R L.
Each of those letters is capitalized with a period after it.
(19:44):
Sure like you. But Carl in Paris, uh American as
far as I can tell, or maybe maybe Canadian North American.
At any rate, he's a tattoo artist working in Paris,
created what he calls the first animated tattoo, and I
even have a date for you June sixteen eleven. The
first animated tattoo not really an animated tattoo. It's a
(20:05):
tattoo that has what was it like a flipbook? Yeah,
he actually got forty guys and tattooed to stick figure
on each of them doing something slightly different than how
to run in a circle. And then no, it's not
that would also be awesome. I don't know where you
could be able to convince forty guys to do that.
I am sure that you could, though I've seen a
lot of crazy tattoos out there. Know what it was
(20:27):
was a QR code. So you had a guy have
a tattoo with a QR code incorporated in it. Now
QR codes for those of you who don't remember, haven't
seen one in a while. Um, they were big for
a little bit, but then they kind of like they
kind of fell out of favor. That don't see it
was a marketing gimmick. I mean, I feel like it
was overpromoted as the problem. It was a fine technology,
(20:48):
but but the way that that WiFi wound up happening,
I don't think that it was as necessary as people
thought that it was going. And there's a lot a
lot more work and image recognition like things that like,
there's a there's a lot more work now where software
can recognize things without there having to be some sort
of established pattern. Rare, but essentially it's it is kind
of like the next generation of the bar code. It
(21:09):
was those those blocky pictures you've ever if you've ever
seen them, they're they're a square that have a little
black except it's all block it's all hard edges but
pixelated R shack test. Yeah, there you go exactly. And
so this was incorporated in the tattoo and in fact,
they didn't know if it was gonna work while they're
this guy is getting tattooed and they have no idea
(21:30):
if it's going to work or not because they don't know.
You know, it takes precision again, because the digital camera
sensor has to take a image of this and then
the software has to analyze it and interpret that as
uh information in some way. And if the tattoo artist
had made a block a little too big or a
little too small, it wouldn't it wouldn't when it wouldn't
(21:52):
coordinate with that information, right. So in this case, what
the QR code did was it prompted the smartphone to
then go to YouTube and pull up a video of
an animated version of the tattoo design singing opera. Yeah,
it's a little bit a round headed guy with like
a little top hat and a big handlebar mustache singing
(22:12):
opera in the middle of this tattoo. And then that's
that's what the tattoo was. I mean, I mean, I've
seen some some esthetic barcodes on people that you know,
I hit Man style, like basically skull hit Man or
you know. I I think there's a probably a lot
of science fiction that I'm forgetting that includes some something
like this, but there's probably like some sort of twelve
(22:34):
Monkeys type thing. Yeah, there's totally an episode of reboot.
But uh yeah, yeah that show I don't watch, right, yeah,
Jonathan twenty again, we're gonna take a quick break, but
we'll return in just a moment. Well, that that's like
the big tattoo thing, right, We wanted to cover that
(22:56):
pretty extensively because that's one of those that has the
really cool toy, if you want to put it that way,
the piece of technology. But there are other things we
can talk about. Obviously. The other basic one we've already
mentioned piercing, So whether it's your ear or some other
part of your body, piercing. Now, of course that involves
creating a whole which jewelry will then pass through. So
(23:16):
piercing usually means that you're seeing the ends of a
piece of jewelry, right, whether it's like a barbell or
if it's a stud or a hoop or whatever, you're
seeing the exterior part. That's that's the part that's on display. Yes,
there there's another form of piercing. Um, what's it called pocketing?
Oh yeah, pocketing, which we'll talk about in a little bit.
(23:37):
But pocketings. Pocketing is kind of They call it anti piercing,
And the reason why they call it anti piercing is
that pocketing involves creating pockets of skin. This is where
I started getting a little creepy crawley. Uh. Like I said,
my my tolerance level is probably fairly normal when it
comes to body modification, normal in the sense of what
the society norms are. I don't judge anyone who's on
(24:00):
through and gotten body modification because whatever you want to
do to to assert your identity, as long as you're
not hurting anyone else, I'm totally for it. It's just
that if I look at it and I go, oh,
that that looks like that must be uncomfortable. But pocketing, essentially,
what that means is you create these pockets in the
skin surgically, you actually cut open and create surgical pockets,
(24:20):
which I'm guessing at some point you need to be
lined with something to keep it from being just an
open wound. But the jewelry is inserted. The ends of
the jewelry are inserted in either pockets. So think of
two pockets that are facing one another, and then the
jewelry the end of it fits in one and the
other end fits in the other, and so the the
middle of the jewelry is exposed as opposed to the ends.
(24:41):
The ends of the jewelry are inside the pockets, so
they are out of you. And this can be done
in lots of ways, Like if you make really deep pockets,
you can make this kind of super cool but very
creepy effect of the skin being pulled apart because you're
seeing these like ribs of metal. I saw it in
one guy's arm where he had done the inside of
his forearm, where he uh, these deep pockets. So you know,
(25:03):
maybe the last I don't know, a quarter inch or
so of the jewelry was under the skin and the
rest was exposed. In the middle part was exposed. Now piercing,
of course, that that's where you just have the whole
that the metal or whatever the jewelry fits through and
the ends are on display. And that's again and not
at all a new thing. I know that records of
nostril piercing go back as far as four thousand years
(25:25):
in the Middle East, and that both ear and nostril
piercing are mentioned in the Bible. Yeah, these are ancient
forms of of expression identity, sometimes religion. Sometimes it's religious,
sometimes it's a tribal identification. I mean this is something,
you know, the way of adorning ourselves. I mean that
(25:46):
that's something that goes back to prehistoric times. So now
obviously with piercing you have several of the same concerns
that you do with tattooing. You're talking about creating essentially
creating a wound in yourself, and so you want all
the equipment and the person delivering the equipment unto you
to be um as sterile as possible, A tots sterile. Yeah, so, uh,
(26:09):
like I know there are a lot of uh piercing
like key or there used to be. I don't know
if there still are. But when I remember when I
was growing up, there are a lot of the little
places in the mall like piercing Goda look at the
Claire's or whatever, like a little kiosk and they would
have the little piercing gun and stuff. Totally not not
a good idea, because that's that's a recipe for disaster.
(26:30):
If you don't know how they are sterilizing their equipment. Again,
if if if you know, if anything that's coming into
contact with you um, if they have an auto clave
in the back and anything that's coming into contact with
you has is just being opened in front of your face,
that's that's that's a pretty good sign. Pretty good sign.
But I would always, I mean, like every person I've
ever talked to who is in to any level of
(26:51):
body modification, whether it's someone who just enjoys piercings or
someone who enjoys some of the things that again that
I would I would think of as more extreme. They
all say, go to a to a professional parlor, piercing parlor,
a place where that's what they do. And in fact,
there's one near my home, which is where I would
go and go on if I go and do it,
But I I did. I did get my ears pierced
when I was like twelve or something like that at
(27:12):
like a Claire's. I'm all but and and I have
never they've never been infected. It's always been fine. Sure, no,
it's and it's not like, yeah, we don't want to
say that if you if you have had this done,
that you're living on borrowed tom which just mean that
the the you know, if you're considering this kind of stuff,
these are the places that are going to be traditionally yes,
(27:33):
the most safe. So again again, same thing. You ask
questions when you get there. You ask them how they
how they handle their equipment, Which pieces of our equipment
are reusable versus one use only? How do they take
care of things after it's all done? You know? And
it's good to ask questions. It's whenever your safety and
health are concerned. Ask questions. Hey there, guys, hope you
(27:56):
enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. If you have
suggestions or future topics I should cover on the show,
please reach out on Twitter or Facebook. The handle at
both of those is text stuff H s W and
I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I
(28:18):
Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
and I love all things tech and it is time
for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This one originally
published on August twenty six, two thirteen. It is titled
(00:28):
tech Stuff Gets Tattooed and Pierced. Now I'm only one
of those things. But between the time we recorded that
show and now, I got another tattoo, So I've got multiple.
But yeah, let's go back and listen to this classic
episode about tattoos and piercings. Speaking of regular old tattoos,
in the interest of full disclosure, I've got two of them,
(00:50):
so I can actually talk about the physical experience of
receiving a tattoo as well as the actual science and
technology that goes into producing a tattoo. Well, I have
zero tattoos while we're while we're talking about it, but
my ears are pierced. Does that Does that help? That
that's body modification. I'm actually also interests of all disclosure,
(01:11):
debating getting a new ear pierced. Just just one, just one,
just one. I don't know that's going to happen too,
because I keep thinking I might be too old for that.
So let's talk about tattoos. That's a good starting point, right,
I Mean, ear piercing is probably the lowest on the
scale because it's the most socially accepted form of body
modification in our culture. You know, it's one in the
in the United States that ear piercing is. That's that's
(01:34):
pretty pretty pretty beign. Yeah, very common. So it's no
one would blink an eye really, depending upon the type
of piercing. I mean, there are more extreme piercings that
that some people would look at and go, wow, that's
pretty extreme, but it's still kind of on the theme.
And yeah, at least as far as our society is concerned. Right,
(01:55):
But tattoos. Tattoos are one of those things that we
have a lot of information about about how they happen. Yeah, um,
and they are getting more common. According to a Harris
Pole of American adults have one, um, including thirty eight
percent of people between the ages of thirty and thirty nine. Yeah.
I fall into that category. Yeah, you know, and I'm
actually I'm always thinking about what my next one's going
(02:15):
to be By the way, there's a common saying that
tattoos are addictive that is kind of well, it's not
physiologically true, but psychologically it is kind of true because
after you take the plunge the first time, you think,
I kind of want more. So clearly, when we're talking
about tattoos in this podcast, we're really going to be
focusing on the way that modern tattoos happened. But it,
(02:36):
you know, it behooves us to talk about tattooing has
a pretty long history. Yeah. Recent documentation from the Siberian
Times reported that some of the permafrost preserved uh, like
like ice princesses and stuff like that, have shown um
from you know, fifth century BC have shown tattoos much
(02:57):
like modern ones that particular articles strangely enough to link
out to any scholarly institutions or or reporting sorain of salt. Yeah,
but still well yeah, and then there have been reports
of you know, tattoos being found on ancient Egyptian mummies
from about two thousand BC. Uh. And then of course
(03:17):
the word tattoo we get from a Tahitian word which
essentially means to mark, which makes sense, and that that
word started to appear in English writing right around the
time that old James Cook was exploring the South Pacific,
so about seventeen sixty nine. Now, tattoos are all done
(03:38):
in essentially the same way, which involves piercing the skin
and inserting some mak. But the tattoo machine is a
little more recent. That comes to us from the late
eighteen hundreds, so late nineteenth century, and that was a
improvement by one Samuel O'Reilly on a machine patented by
Thomas Edison. Yes, Thomas Essen's machine was not meant to tattoo.
(04:00):
It was meant to engrave metal, and it was meant
to create stencils, and it was called an electric pen,
also known as the autographic printer, and that was something
that was invented right around eight or so. But what
O'Reilly said was, you know, I'm a tattoo artist. He
actually had been a tattoo artist in New York. He
was an Irish immigrant came to New York sometime in
(04:21):
the eighteen seventies, set up shop, saw the electric pin
by Thomas Edison. And it's interesting because that device that
Thomas Essen made never really became popular for what it
was designed to do. There were other technologies that came
along shortly thereafter that made it more or less obsolete. Right,
And also you know, for for for hand engraving. Yeah,
(04:43):
it's a lot um more efficient to in machine engrave
than it is to handingring. Right. So o'reiley takes a
look at this and says, wait a minute, though, this
thing that maybe isn't so great for what it was
meant to do might do something else if I just
make a few modifications. Yeah, if I just changed the
tube system to to accommodate inc and um uh, modified
the oscillating unit to drive a needle rather than a Yeah,
(05:05):
I suppose it was a needle to begin with, right, right,
but there's a different style needle like the needles that
was in the electric pin. You would not want to
touch your skin because it was enormous. It was huge
and a little bit scary. It was, yes, certainly, and
it's funny if you want to actually take a look
at the patent. The patent was issued on December eight.
Because it's on the patent application, you can actually look
(05:27):
up patents for free online. Google has a very good
patent searching. This one comes right up if you do
a patent searching Google. Uh. It's patent number four six
for eight oh one and the name of it is
tattooing machine. Both yes, both both that and Edison's machine. Um.
The patents for them still exist. In The illustrations are
(05:49):
very fancy and pretty. Yes, and I've seen some really
slap dash patent tellstration my day, but these are top notch.
There's some there's some ones for some particularly high tech
gadgets that when you look at them, you think it
was someone drunk when they drew this, And it just
shows that, you know, engineers and artists don't always combine
into one person right at anything rate. So you look
(06:09):
at this pattern, it's very interesting it It does have
that ink reservoir and it's got the ability to channel
inc down to this needle. The needle, by the way,
is solid. It's not like a hollow needle or anything, right.
I think the idea is that the needle is contained
within a small chamber that holds the ink, and then
when the needle pushes down out through that chamber, it
takes takes a drop off then right, and it pierces
(06:32):
the skin and deposits the ink underneath. Specifically in the dermist,
because you're going underneath the epidermis, which which sheds and
cycles so frequently that if you put it in the epidermis,
it would stick around for not very long at all,
certainly not a lifetime like if you have if you
have ever had either, you know, well, temporary tattoo will
just wash off eventually. But if you were to get
like a henna tattoo, something that stains the skin, then
(06:54):
you know that eventually that skin, no matter how careful
you are, that design is gonna go away because you
will shed that skin. You know that skin will end
up flaking off of you. It becomes dust. Actually, that's
what a lot of the dust in our world is.
It's skin scale. Yeah, I mean a lot of the
dust that you encounter on a day to day basis.
That's pretty much from your body, happy thought anyway. So, yeah,
(07:16):
the tattoo is permanent because it is actually staining the dermists,
as you said, not the epidermists. So we were actually
looking at a tattoo through the epidermists. Think of the
epidermist is kind of like a window, and the dermist
is where you're actually seeing the design imprinted and your
typical tattoo needle according to our article on how stuff
(07:37):
works dot com, there's you know how tattoos work? We
actually have this article. Uh, the needle can move between
fifty and three thousand times per minute. Now that's actually
the same frequency as the electric pen that Thomas Edison created.
So I suspect that most needles probably move significantly faster
than fifty times per minute, because that would be um, well,
(07:59):
you'd have essentially one us once a second, So think
about that one one to one THO you'd be like, oh,
oh stop it. I I suppose, depending upon the type
of work being done. Yes, I am not a tattooed professional.
That would be a really interesting question to ask a
tattooed professional. Outlining versus shading is very different. I can
(08:19):
save you from experience both on the performance end. Not
I can't say that from experience, but from the recipient.
And I sure as heck can tell you there's a
world of difference in the pain levels that you experience
from outlining versus shading. Um. Now, it's also interesting you
know your your experience of pain will depend upon several things,
(08:40):
like your own threshold of pain. Obviously, mind's a pretty high.
But it also depends on where you get the tattoo. Now,
there's certain surfaces where you know it's nice and fleshy
and you're not gonna you might feel like kind of
a buzzing sensation and maybe some tingling, but it's not
terribly painful. And then there are other areas where it
feels like someone's really pinching you pretty hard, or may
be getting like a bit of a bee sting. I've
(09:01):
heard that anything close to it close to the bond.
I've got one on my left shoulder blade, and anytime
it got to the point where it was close to
the actual bone was significantly more painful than the rest
of the tattoo. And I've also got one on my
left arm, and anything on the inside of the arm
was more painful than the outside. But yeah, so you've
got with your basic tattoo gun, your tattoo machine. You've
(09:26):
got the the unit that the tattoo artist holds in
his or her hand, which has a tube that houses
the needle. It's got the ink uh the ink chamber
or a little ink thing will will actually screw into it,
and then there's usually a foot pedal control that controls
the depth of the needle so that the tattoo artists
(09:46):
can be very precise when actually putting the tattoo onto
your skin. It'll be more or less a millimeter, depending
on you know, and where it is. Yeah, but about
a millimeters is that's that's a pretty good estimation. And
it's the machine itself is is brilliantly simple. It's based
(10:07):
on or. It's kind of similar to what a sewing
machine is. If that metaphor doesn't totally skip you up completely,
I'm actually perfectly fine with that. Yeah, but I guess
it's because I've had a couple of tattoos and needles
don't typically bother me. But I do understand there are
people who have real psychological issues with anything that has
to do with needles with needles. Totally understand that. But
(10:28):
but so so the gun. The gun contains a circuit
that runs through an electromagnet, and that circuit is opened
and closed via the vibrations of a spring loaded a
read or uh panel um and and those vibrations are
controlled by a weight like a pendulum that's placed along
that that flaunched interesting um and now the vibrations are
(10:52):
caused by cycling power through the electromagnet, so they have
the fluctuating electric magnetic field and that going to start
causing some vibration, and the read is connected at the
top um uh to to the to the base of
the needle, and therefore the vibrations of it pushed the
needle up and down. And it makes it very very
(11:13):
simple to use. Very I mean, the the cycle is
is self perpetuating until you cut off the electricity supply
entirely and you have a simple reciprocating motion that yeah,
it's it is so really the the complexity here comes
in the actual execution of making a tattoo, and that's
where the artistry and skill really comes in. Because operating
(11:35):
the machinery is pretty simple. It's the handling it properly
and making sure you're doing not only a wonderful artistic job,
but that you're doing it safely right, and the safety
issue is one of those One of the things that
I do know very very well about tattoo parlors is
that if it does not smell like a hospital, like
a really good clean hospital, gone get out. Yeah, because yeah,
(11:58):
so so for any of you guys out there who
are considering tattoos. Uh, you know, make sure you do
your research check and it makes certain that all the
different whatever tattoo parlor you're looking at, is on the
up and up, that they follow very strict uh sterilization processes,
that they are very careful to have one use items
(12:19):
and then they discard them and they don't ever use
them again. Some some parts of the tattoo machine are reusable,
and that's perfectly fine, and we'll talk about those which
even those you make sure they have, like an autoclave
clave they are they are sterilizing their equipment because you
want to heat things to either two or two hundred
and seventy degrees depending on the pressure and the time
(12:40):
length that you're using. Yeah, and we'll talk a little
bit about the autoclave specifically in just a second to
kind of explain what that is for those of you
who don't know. But the whole purpose here is to
kill off any kind of bacteria or other organism that
could cause infection or disease. And because like we said,
you're what a tattoo is is a you know, a
whole bunch of little punctures in your skin. Punctures can
(13:01):
get infected it's it's an open wound. Yeah, yeah, any
kind of heels up right. But yeah, any kind of
wound has the potential to get infected. So it's very
important that you find a place that is reputable and clean.
Hey guys, it's Jonathan from twenty twenty. While you're getting
inked and pierced and everything, we're gonna take a quick break,
but we'll be right back. So the basic parts of
(13:31):
this tattoo that you've got, the sterilized needle and those
are one use. That's that should just every time you
go to a tattoo parlor, if you're getting a tattoo,
the needles they have should be one use needles and
sterilized packets that they should open right in front in
front of you, right before they start their work. Right.
Those packets should remain sealed until they're ready to do work.
(13:51):
So they open it up and they put in the
needle into the machine which has already been cleaned in
the autoclave. And I'll get to that in a second. Uh.
Other things that need to be single use include ink, ink, cups, gloves,
All of this kind of stuff needs to be one
use in sterile packaging to minimize the risk of any
kind of contamination. So make sure. And it's perfectly fine
(14:14):
to ask questions any reputable tattoo artists because it shows
that you have done your research and that you're serious
about it. And again, if they're reputable, they'll have no
problem answering your questions being able to show you what
what is they do to stay? I think if you
a grief about it, get out of here and don't
don't go there, go somewhere else. Um. So UH. The
(14:35):
autoclave is actually think of it as like a machine
that generates lots of heat, pressure, and steam. Those are
essentially the three components there, and it's often used in
Autoclaves are used in medical facilities to clean medical uh equipment.
So you the way it works as you would put
stuff in a little pouch, each one with each piece
(14:57):
of the equipment would get its own little pouch. UH.
This equipment would be things like the needle bar and
the tube of the machine. So these would be the
bits that would be used again and again they go
into their little pounches. Each pouch has a little indicator
strip on the outside for when everything is has been
heated to the correct temperature. That indicates yeah, exactly. It
says essentially that that sticker changes color and it tells
(15:21):
you what's not sticker. But the indicator changes color and
it tells you everything in here is dead you and so.
Uh but yeah, like you said, it can heat depending
upon the settings. The general rule of thumb is two
or fifty degrees fahrenheight or a hundred twenty one degrees
celsius for ten pounds of pressure for thirty minutes, or
to seventy degrees fahrenheit or one two celsius at fifteen
(15:44):
pounds of pressure for fifteen minutes. Uh. That is the
standard upberating procedure. The tattoo parlors should be following one
of those two with its autoclave. And uh, there you go.
That is your standard approach to sterilize the reu do
bowl equipment. So remember ask those questions, make sure you know,
you do your research, and uh and if everything's on
(16:06):
the up and up, then enjoy your painful experience. It's
really not that bad, depending up on where you get it,
and how big the tattoo is, and and and your
personal tolerance and the skill of the of the artists.
I had an incredible tattoo artists who did both. The
same guy did both my tattoos, and uh, and he
was just he was not only really skilled at creating
(16:28):
beautiful designs, he also really minimized all the discomfort. I
mean there was some, especially around the shoulder blade area,
but it was it was nothing too intense. Like, it
was nothing more intense than you know, a minor beasting.
So assuming you're not allergic to bees and you've experienced
a beasting and it wasn't a big deal, that's pretty
(16:49):
much the worst it got for me personally. Right, I
happened to be allergic to be for you compared compared
to a beasting, and you'd say I would die, That's
not what I mean. Other fun questions to ask your
tattoo artists are what kind of inks they use? Um,
Just as an interesting note, sometimes inks contain metallic pigments,
and um, if you ever have to go in for
(17:11):
an m R I after getting a tattoo with the
metallic pigment, it's not gonna fly out of your body
magneto style or anything like that. Yeah, and uh, it's
also good just to make sure that you know if
you have any known allergies. That's obviously something else you
need to discuss because there's a possibility that either the
ink itself could contain something that you are allergic to,
which could be a problem, or that some of the
(17:33):
other materials, like they're supposed to the whole process before
they tattoo you, they have to uh clean and shape, right,
So any anything like that, you just want to make
sure that you're not going to come into contact some
with something that's going to give you a bad reaction. Yes,
And I had one other kind of cool thing. Well,
first of all, if you're feeling in a goofy mood,
(17:53):
we do have a we do have a fake article
and how stuff Works about tattoos, uh, one of our
few so we we haven't done it every year, but
occasionally how stupp Works has made an April Fool's article
on how stuff works, and we have one about how
animated tattoos work, which is all about electronic tattoos that
are it's like electronic devices, right right. The story goes that,
(18:15):
And there's an actual patent for a subdermal l c
D screen out there that exists in the real world
that has never nothing ever really came of it, I think,
but but but but yeah, the article talks about a
little subdermal l c D that's connected to a little
magnetic battery and a small controller, and so that you
(18:36):
would be able to have a tattoo that would actually
be like showing video and stuff, or have an animation
on it that we could run in a loop. Now,
there are obviously some some barriers to that, the big
one being that the body tends to not like stuff
introduced to it. And we're going to talk more about
that when we get into the second half, and we
start talking about some interesting implants that there are dangers
of a body rejecting certain materials, and you can't really
(18:59):
predict which ones it's going to reject, which ones it's not.
There's some that have a lower percentage of rejection, and
even people's immune systems work differently, right, So it's kind
of a tass and it can change depending upon your
activity level too. I mean, if you get a if
you get an implant in an area that gets a
lot of like a lot of agitation, then that can
increase the odds of a rejection that kind of thing.
(19:21):
But we'll get into that in the second half. However,
there is a different kind of animated tattoo. It's not
really The tattoo itself is not animated, so it's a
misnomer really, But there was a guy who goes by
the handle the tattoo handle of Carl K A R L.
Each of those letters is capitalized with a period after it.
(19:44):
Sure like you. But Carl in Paris, uh American as
far as I can tell, or maybe maybe Canadian North American.
At any rate, he's a tattoo artist working in Paris,
created what he calls the first animated tattoo, and I
even have a date for you June sixteen eleven. The
first animated tattoo not really an animated tattoo. It's a
(20:05):
tattoo that has what was it like a flipbook? Yeah,
he actually got forty guys and tattooed to stick figure
on each of them doing something slightly different than how
to run in a circle. And then no, it's not
that would also be awesome. I don't know where you
could be able to convince forty guys to do that.
I am sure that you could, though I've seen a
lot of crazy tattoos out there. Know what it was
(20:27):
was a QR code. So you had a guy have
a tattoo with a QR code incorporated in it. Now
QR codes for those of you who don't remember, haven't
seen one in a while. Um, they were big for
a little bit, but then they kind of like they
kind of fell out of favor. That don't see it
was a marketing gimmick. I mean, I feel like it
was overpromoted as the problem. It was a fine technology,
(20:48):
but but the way that that WiFi wound up happening,
I don't think that it was as necessary as people
thought that it was going. And there's a lot a
lot more work and image recognition like things that like,
there's a there's a lot more work now where software
can recognize things without there having to be some sort
of established pattern. Rare, but essentially it's it is kind
of like the next generation of the bar code. It
(21:09):
was those those blocky pictures you've ever if you've ever
seen them, they're they're a square that have a little
black except it's all block it's all hard edges but
pixelated R shack test. Yeah, there you go exactly. And
so this was incorporated in the tattoo and in fact,
they didn't know if it was gonna work while they're
this guy is getting tattooed and they have no idea
(21:30):
if it's going to work or not because they don't know.
You know, it takes precision again, because the digital camera
sensor has to take a image of this and then
the software has to analyze it and interpret that as
uh information in some way. And if the tattoo artist
had made a block a little too big or a
little too small, it wouldn't it wouldn't when it wouldn't
(21:52):
coordinate with that information, right. So in this case, what
the QR code did was it prompted the smartphone to
then go to YouTube and pull up a video of
an animated version of the tattoo design singing opera. Yeah,
it's a little bit a round headed guy with like
a little top hat and a big handlebar mustache singing
(22:12):
opera in the middle of this tattoo. And then that's
that's what the tattoo was. I mean, I mean, I've
seen some some esthetic barcodes on people that you know,
I hit Man style, like basically skull hit Man or
you know. I I think there's a probably a lot
of science fiction that I'm forgetting that includes some something
like this, but there's probably like some sort of twelve
(22:34):
Monkeys type thing. Yeah, there's totally an episode of reboot.
But uh yeah, yeah that show I don't watch, right, yeah,
Jonathan twenty again, we're gonna take a quick break, but
we'll return in just a moment. Well, that that's like
the big tattoo thing, right, We wanted to cover that
(22:56):
pretty extensively because that's one of those that has the
really cool toy, if you want to put it that way,
the piece of technology. But there are other things we
can talk about. Obviously. The other basic one we've already
mentioned piercing, So whether it's your ear or some other
part of your body, piercing. Now, of course that involves
creating a whole which jewelry will then pass through. So
(23:16):
piercing usually means that you're seeing the ends of a
piece of jewelry, right, whether it's like a barbell or
if it's a stud or a hoop or whatever, you're
seeing the exterior part. That's that's the part that's on display. Yes,
there there's another form of piercing. Um, what's it called pocketing?
Oh yeah, pocketing, which we'll talk about in a little bit.
(23:37):
But pocketings. Pocketing is kind of They call it anti piercing,
And the reason why they call it anti piercing is
that pocketing involves creating pockets of skin. This is where
I started getting a little creepy crawley. Uh. Like I said,
my my tolerance level is probably fairly normal when it
comes to body modification, normal in the sense of what
the society norms are. I don't judge anyone who's on
(24:00):
through and gotten body modification because whatever you want to
do to to assert your identity, as long as you're
not hurting anyone else, I'm totally for it. It's just
that if I look at it and I go, oh,
that that looks like that must be uncomfortable. But pocketing, essentially,
what that means is you create these pockets in the
skin surgically, you actually cut open and create surgical pockets,
(24:20):
which I'm guessing at some point you need to be
lined with something to keep it from being just an
open wound. But the jewelry is inserted. The ends of
the jewelry are inserted in either pockets. So think of
two pockets that are facing one another, and then the
jewelry the end of it fits in one and the
other end fits in the other, and so the the
middle of the jewelry is exposed as opposed to the ends.
(24:41):
The ends of the jewelry are inside the pockets, so
they are out of you. And this can be done
in lots of ways, Like if you make really deep pockets,
you can make this kind of super cool but very
creepy effect of the skin being pulled apart because you're
seeing these like ribs of metal. I saw it in
one guy's arm where he had done the inside of
his forearm, where he uh, these deep pockets. So you know,
(25:03):
maybe the last I don't know, a quarter inch or
so of the jewelry was under the skin and the
rest was exposed. In the middle part was exposed. Now piercing,
of course, that that's where you just have the whole
that the metal or whatever the jewelry fits through and
the ends are on display. And that's again and not
at all a new thing. I know that records of
nostril piercing go back as far as four thousand years
(25:25):
in the Middle East, and that both ear and nostril
piercing are mentioned in the Bible. Yeah, these are ancient
forms of of expression identity, sometimes religion. Sometimes it's religious,
sometimes it's a tribal identification. I mean this is something,
you know, the way of adorning ourselves. I mean that
(25:46):
that's something that goes back to prehistoric times. So now
obviously with piercing you have several of the same concerns
that you do with tattooing. You're talking about creating essentially
creating a wound in yourself, and so you want all
the equipment and the person delivering the equipment unto you
to be um as sterile as possible, A tots sterile. Yeah, so, uh,
(26:09):
like I know there are a lot of uh piercing
like key or there used to be. I don't know
if there still are. But when I remember when I
was growing up, there are a lot of the little
places in the mall like piercing Goda look at the
Claire's or whatever, like a little kiosk and they would
have the little piercing gun and stuff. Totally not not
a good idea, because that's that's a recipe for disaster.
(26:30):
If you don't know how they are sterilizing their equipment. Again,
if if if you know, if anything that's coming into
contact with you um, if they have an auto clave
in the back and anything that's coming into contact with
you has is just being opened in front of your face,
that's that's that's a pretty good sign. Pretty good sign.
But I would always, I mean, like every person I've
ever talked to who is in to any level of
(26:51):
body modification, whether it's someone who just enjoys piercings or
someone who enjoys some of the things that again that
I would I would think of as more extreme. They
all say, go to a to a professional parlor, piercing parlor,
a place where that's what they do. And in fact,
there's one near my home, which is where I would
go and go on if I go and do it,
But I I did. I did get my ears pierced
when I was like twelve or something like that at
(27:12):
like a Claire's. I'm all but and and I have
never they've never been infected. It's always been fine. Sure, no,
it's and it's not like, yeah, we don't want to
say that if you if you have had this done,
that you're living on borrowed tom which just mean that
the the you know, if you're considering this kind of stuff,
these are the places that are going to be traditionally yes,
(27:33):
the most safe. So again again, same thing. You ask
questions when you get there. You ask them how they
how they handle their equipment, Which pieces of our equipment
are reusable versus one use only? How do they take
care of things after it's all done? You know? And
it's good to ask questions. It's whenever your safety and
health are concerned. Ask questions. Hey there, guys, hope you
(27:56):
enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. If you have
suggestions or future topics I should cover on the show,
please reach out on Twitter or Facebook. The handle at
both of those is text stuff H s W and
I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I
(28:18):
Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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