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Tattoo News Right Now: What's Trending in the Shops and On the Feed
A sourced, no-opinion roundup of what's trending in tattoo culture right now: Seattle's raccoon flash boom, a memecoin bounty backlash, Alysa Liu's tattoo controversy, and more.
Here's tattoo news that's currently trending: no takes, just what's happening, with sources.
A Raccoon Named Jimothy Has Seattle Booked Solid
Jimothy is a raccoon in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood with a visible spinal deformity that gives him a short neck and rounded body. A video of him went viral, and the shops nearby haven't slowed down since.
Julie Bolene tattooed one of the first Jimothy pieces in the city and has been booking one to three a week since, plus stickers and prints on the side. Her husband, Levi Walker Polzin at Slave to the Needle, is running his own version of the flash at $160–$250 a piece; his design philosophy: "Jimothy is all of us who never quite fit in." One of his clients, local comedian Erica Tausch, got hers on the inner knee. Laura Exley at Electric Kitten Tattoo posted a simple Jimothy design and booked more than a dozen off it in a single week, at a $150 minimum. It's not just a one-shop trend: KUOW reports the demand has spread past Seattle entirely.
Fast, cheap, and everywhere is basically the definition of flash. Jimothy's just this year's sheet.
A Memecoin Project Paid People to Tattoo Its Ad on Themselves
Pump.fun, a memecoin platform, ran a bounty program paying people to get permanent tattoos advertising it. A 27-year-old Toronto artist going by "Jordan" took one, a crypto casino ad on his leg, for about $3,000, citing financial pressure. His girlfriend, also a tattooer, is planning to cover it for him. His own read on it: "People going through with things like forehead tattoos for money, it's potentially life ruining. It's like a 'Black Mirror' episode."
The criticism came fast. K33 researcher Vetle Lunde pointed to the platform's history of pushing people toward extreme behavior during the 2024 memecoin run. Erasmus University philosophy professor Nicholas Vrousalis flagged the targeting angle directly: bounties like this land hardest on people with the least room to say no. CNN's reporting notes laborers in parts of India often earn under $10 a day, which puts a $3,000 payout at roughly five years of typical wages, not exactly a fair trade for something permanent on your skin.
If a deal for a "free" permanent tattoo sounds too good to pass up, that's usually the moment to slow down and actually vet who, and what, you're trusting with it.
Alysa Liu's Back Tattoo Turned Into a Guessing Game
Figure skater Alysa Liu has an old back tattoo that resurfaced in a dance clip after the Olympics, and the internet spent a while convinced it was some kind of occult symbol. It's not. In a Teen Vogue interview released in March, Liu explained it's a matching piece with her best friend: bat wings ("I really love bats. I think they're really cool"), a rose for her friend Juju, and infinity symbols for their shared August birthdays. Their friend drew it. She got it at 18.
The story's a decent reminder that most tattoo "controversies" online are just strangers pattern-matching a piece they don't have context for.
Billie Eilish's Blohsh Logo Removal Is Making the Rounds Again
A fan named Maddie Amerman posted a video removing her six-year-old tattoo of Billie Eilish's Blohsh logo: the lopsided stick figure Eilish has used on merch since 2016. Amerman initially said she "didn't really know what it was," then walked that back in a follow-up, saying the removal was for personal reasons unrelated to Eilish. Billie's own reaction to the clip: "HUHHH??" The logo's actual meaning has never been officially confirmed.
Removal and regret content is trending under the same tags right now well beyond this one clip. If a piece isn't sitting right anymore, removal isn't the only route.
An Ottawa Tattoo Artist's Run Club Pulled 150 People Off One Post
Nico Winter, a tattoo artist in Ottawa, posted a video asking if anyone wanted to join him for a slow Sunday run followed by poetry and a picnic. He expected maybe 20 people. About 150 showed up, and the city's Accora Centre stepped in with space after hearing he didn't have a permit. His reasoning tracks with a lot of what's floating around tattoo culture generally right now: "Especially with social media, it's so toxic and consuming, even for myself... you still feel so lonely with it." The next Slow Sunday run is set for September 6 at Andrew Haydon Park.
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Disclaimer: This roundup summarizes publicly reported and publicly posted information as of the publish date, with sources linked inline. Details on ongoing stories may change after publication. Tatulogue is reporting what's circulating and cited, not confirming or endorsing any claims made by the parties involved.