Everything is meaningless, get a cutesy tattoo

Growing up in an age of unbridled internet access, YOLO swag and Tumblr’s prime, one might expect a generation who once chatted to strangers on Omegle to favour tattoos of a darker aesthetic. Yet in an unexpected twist, it seems that we’ve done a U-turn, making cute the new cool. The endearing figures you’d expect to find in your childhood toy box or fringing the shelves of the Disney store now find their place as permanent art on the skin of 20-something-year-olds. Welcome to the realm of cutesy tattoos – an ode to nostalgia, and a defiant refusal to grow up.

This charming invasion of cute ink comes with the recent surge of kawaii-inspired aesthetics permeating popular culture. While this style has long existed, it has emerged from the shadows of niche Reddit threads and desolate Discord servers to claim its rightful place in the mainstream. In fact, this boom of cute aesthetics can be traced all the way back to the pandemic. Confined to their bedrooms, many found solace in childhood hobbies: they reunited with Nintendogs, got back in the kitchen with CookingMama and dusted off their rollerskates. And at some point, in between the chaos – cuteness reawakened from its slumber. 

Since then, this cuteness has sugar-coated our consumerism, with the beauty sector particularly keen to capitalise on this craze. Evidenced by collaborations such as Sesame Street x STARFACE and Hello Kitty x Pixi Beauty, there is an increasing crossover of our beloved characters and coveted beauty products. But the boundaries of this cuteness have also expanded beyond our beauty regimes, now making its home in something much more permanent: our skin. Today, TikTok is flooded with people inked in whimsical designs, club kids pile into underground venues sporting Hello Kitty tramp stamps under their tank tops, and even Emma Chamberlain has got a rabbit plush tattoo. 

For many, these tattoos evoke a sense of familiar comfort. It’s a reminder of simpler times, one before council tax and lower back pain. “I get a lot of requests for cute small tattoos and mainly characters like Miffy,” says Toni Agost, a Berlin-based tattoo artist. Her Instagram page is sprawled with ethereal designs brimming with tiny laced bows and smiling cherubs. When Agost was younger, she says she was ashamed of being into things traditionally considered feminine or girly – but now she embraces it. Among designs of love letters and ladybirds, in her work you’ll find words like ‘lover’ and ‘paradise’ etched in intricate calligraphy. Toni attributes her aesthetic to a deep-rooted nostalgia: “I used to be obsessed with watching early morning cartoons before school, they would always play shows like Charlie Brown, Hello Kitty or Franklin.” 

For a generation termed ‘chronically online’, it’s no surprise that our favourite childhood memories are often character and animation-based. Many flash sheets centre solely around these, where Kirby can be found nestled between Princess Peach and Snoopy. Yet as the lines between cuteness and capitalism continue to blur, it’s hard to delineate whether character tattoos are the result of leaning into our childish side or, rather, a case of capitalist brain rot. One artist no stranger to the kitschy side is Samuel Alexander, one half of Studio Sleep. Samuel’s work mirrors the type of doodles you’d see in the back pages of a cool kids school planner, taking on a parodical approach to this cuteness – in one design a Squidward tattoo spans across the client’s chest, accompanied by a coveted blue tick.

This sentiment of embracing childhood nostalgia is shared by those with these tattoos. “Social media has put so much pressure on Gen Z to achieve a lot at a young age,” says Ari, who has a detailed seraphim Sonny Angel on her arm. For her, cute tattoos serve as an irreverent reminder to simply enjoy life (her Sonny Angel tattoo is a playful homage to the shared pastime of unboxing and collecting the figures with her friends). 

Dasha, a London-based artist, offers their own take on character-based art. Embodying a childlike imagination, Dasha’s designs include double-headed bunnies in prairie dresses frolicking between daisies and fantastical beasts. “There are definitely elements of psychotherapy in my art, I let my brain generate images based on some difficult emotions and bizarre memories,” they say, citing their upbringing in post-soviet Russia as an inspiration. “It definitely did something to my imagination… some characters I draw look like kid’s drawings but you can tell an adult drew them… they often look exhausted or high”. 

According to Ocean, a New York-based tattooist, it seems young people are leaning back into a childlike nonchalance. “There’s less so the idea that all tattoos must have some deep meaning, and there’s more room for play.” A quick scroll through their Instagram reveals this playful approach, with such a hyper-realistic aesthetic it’s similar to sifting through a childhood toy box. “The appeal to Gen Z specifically is that we are taking ourselves and our tattoos less seriously”. This attitude to tattoos can be clearly seen in the ignorant style trend which has fully embraced casual, meaningless and even “bad” body art.

Although docile in nature, these cutesy markings on their skin signify more than just nostalgic charm; they reflect an unapologetic desire to forge our own path in a world that often pressures us to achieve too much too soon. Perhaps cute tattoos are a way of healing our inner child, a way of refusing to grow up, or maybe it’s just a form of rebellion against societal norms.