Private parts

Photo by Brett Sayles

Back before looks made no difference to anyone including school principals, employers, potential lovers and prospective in-laws, tattoos were reserved for street toughs, cult members and drunken sailors on leave.

These days, everybody and their aunt’s horse – really, for identification purposes – has a tattoo for one reason or another. For some, strategic inking is a status symbol. For some it is a way to express one’s deepest feelings - like those little hearts permanently displayed on women’s fingers that are supposed to communicate love not only for themselves but for all mankind

Other people tattoo bible verses on the inside of their arms. Still others ink away the scars left from catastrophic surgeries.

Well now according to Allure magazine, a person’s tattoo - or tattoos – can actually protect them from so-called Deepfakes - AI-generated replications of their images online or anywhere else AI may take those images in the future.

That’s because, says Allure in a recent online article, AI programs – at least current ones – cannot read and store intricate tattoo designs and cannot therefore replicate one’s image in detail.

This I guess puts people who have intricate sleeve tattoos squarely in the catbird seat.

But in truth this business ultimately has to do with privacy, something that nobody in the age of social media seemed to give two shakes about except in cases of influencer cash.

Ah-mazing!

Back in the day, most people lived private lives. What’s more, they wanted it that way. Nobody except maybe your spouse, kid or nosy neighbor cared much whether your socks matched or if you ate Cream of Wheat for breakfast.

In fact, a person had to be somebody – a public figure – for anyone to care about anything they did, or what they wore or which tavern they frequented after work.

In short, they had to be what we used to call “Fair Game,” people who lived their lives in public like Mick Jagger or Andy Warhol.

Photographer Ron Galella, the original Paparazzo, made a very nice living shooting Jackie Kennedy Onassis nearly every day of her life.

Even we, who smack our names on everything we write are considered fair game.

In fact, most of us gave up on that private life business long ago.

Of course, Facebook, Twitter er, X and Instagram changed all that. Those who post share every little thing they think or wear or remember. Some even post where they’re having lunch while they eat it.

Now they’re worried about AI spreading their images everywhere.

You’re kidding?

So, ink yourselves right up. You’ve come a long way from the days when sorority sisters put tiny tattoos on their heels because nobody, but nobody was going to hire a lawyer – or a doctor or a corporate executive – who had a tattoo.

That little bit of ink was one of their private parts.