The Ugliest Tattoos

One of my favorite quotes about tattooing came from noted tattoo artist Cliff Raven. He said, "The perfect tattoo... the one I believe we are all struggling toward... is the one that turned the jackass into a zebra." Sadly for some people, what they get is about as far from the zebra as you could imagine. Most of these pieces of dubious ink used to never see the light of day let alone be gazed upon by other humans, but thanks to the Internet, all that is changing.

Bad skin art used to be the stuff of legend and drunken evenings, only to be revealed on other drunken evenings. However on the internet, where anyone can have an opinion (especially one that is anonymous), the cult of voyeurism has given new life to just about any topic one might imagine. Cats rule, of course, but bad tattooing has found its niche and taken on a life of its own. If you find yourself at home on a lonely Friday night and are looking for something to cheer you up about your woeful life perspective you might get a chuckle or two from stopping by "The Gallery of Regret," home of The Ugliest Tattoo.

Created by the same folks who bring you Lolcats, this is a site created by those who have bad tattoos and the friends who can't help but photograph and upload them. Most likely you won't get a glimpse of the person wearing the questionable ink, but you will get more than an eyeful of designs and sayings that people walked into tattoo parlors, requested, paid good money for and then endured having said image inked into their skin for the rest of their lives.

Bad spelling, poor perspective and just plain "what the heck were they thinking?!" all join hands and dance together on this site. As a visitor, you get a change to give between one and give thumbs down to the uploaded content. The tattoos that get the most "ugly" votes get placement on the homepage where everyone can make fun of them.

So the next time your buddy smirks and asks if he can take a picture of your boss new tattoo with his cell phone, be sure to ask him why he wants the picture. Get your ugly on at The Ugliest Tattoo.