On Sunday, user @kaiteasley jokingly and rhetorically asked Twitter if we should “check up on the girls who got a tattoo of an infinity symbol” in the late 2000s to early 2010s,* or if we should “let them be.”
should we check up on the girls who got a tattoo of an infinity symbol in 2014 or should we let them be
*For quick reference, even though many infinity symbols were inked before the late 2000s, and many were inked thereafter, there was a moment in history where these tattoos drastically increased in popularity among young people in the late 2000s.
The pervasiveness of this specific tattoo could be attributed to Tumblr, where images of the design were uploaded and reblogged in droves during that time.
If you were a young person between the years of, say, 2009 and 2014, you know the tattoo. And you know there was a sudden and random rise of them.
People online instantly understood the reference. Some who have the tattoo even felt ~attacked~.
LET ME BE!!!!! I WAS 18!!! Fuck https://t.co/5QYhc4VcSU
However, very quickly, those who did get the tattoo during that era showed themselves and bravely showed their ink.
@srslyautumn @kaiteasley Where’s the John green quote at though?
Some responded with an amazing and subtly dark sense of humor about it.
@kaiteasley My life is falling apart thanks for asking
“My life is falling apart thanks for asking,” a now-24-year-old Rachael Valias of Jacksonville, Florida, tweeted.
“I was laughing my butt off when I first saw the tweet because all of us who got an infinity symbol were being targeted,” she told BuzzFeed News.
Valias said she got her infinity symbol tattoo in 2011 with her sister, when she was 18 years old, because it represented an “infinite love” they shared together.
Caitlin Bailey-Garafola, who’s now a 31-year-old high school teacher in Texas, told BuzzFeed News, she thought she was being “a lot more creative” about the tattoo design at the time.
@kaiteasley IT WAS 2005 AND IM FINE
Bailey-Garafora said she got hers ahead of the curve, in 2005.
“This was before Pinterest so I think we thought we were a lot more creative than we were,” she joked.
She was also 18 at the time, and got the tattoo with her best friend to represent their everlasting bond.
Stephanie Emerson, 24, of Denton, Texas, said she, too, shares an infinity tattoo with her best friend. And they, too, got theirs when they turned 18 in 2012.
@alliekrum @kaiteasley Ugh I’m hanging in there
“I didn’t know it was popular at the time,” she said. “I noticed them about a year later.”
“It’s one of those things that snowballed, I’m sure,” she added. “Maybe a celebrity got one and that’s when the seed was planted.”
“I fully embrace that I’m pretty basic,” Emerson said jokingly.
Emily Rupp, 23, of Buffalo, New York, told BuzzFeed News she tattooed a tiny infinity symbol on the inside of her ring finger herself (yes, she did it herself — !!!) when she was just 17 years old.
@kaiteasley 2012 and I’m doing just fine 😁 Still loving my little infinity
The tattoo on her finger represents an “infinite love for when I eventually get married,” she said.
Rupp admits that she, like many others, decided on the design because it was “trendy” at the time. Nonetheless, it’s still meaningful to her.
One woman admitted she does cringe a bit at hers.
@kaiteasley Literally in the process of getting mine removed from 2011 💀😹
Emily Edlund of NYC, 25, who was inspired to get one at age 18 after seeing an image on Tumblr, is now in the process of getting it removed “because of the fact that it turned into a basic white girl tattoo,” she told BuzzFeed News.
“I had seen a picture on Tumblr of all places of one that had ‘faith’ or something in it and I thought I was being original by replacing the wording with ‘strength,’” she said, laughing.
“I didn’t know anyone at the time that had the tattoo so I thought I was good until it exploded and became the ‘basic white girl’ tattoo.”
That moment in life and pop culture did teach her a lesson, she said.
And it wasn’t exclusively young women who were a part of the trend.
@kaiteasley guilty 😔 but got mine covered up four years later.
Brodie Morris, 25, of Tulsa said he thought it was “a cool idea” at the time, but a few years later, he said he noticed “everybody had the same tattoo.”
“When I saw the tweet, I think I literally laughed out loud and sent it to friends because the anchor and infinity tattoo is so basic, and cliché — regardless what ‘creative’ words you incorporate,” said Morris.