I don't know shit about tattoos but from what I gathered from my benign eavesdropping, the prices for getting tattoos done have gone up inordinately and the artists have been doing them for less than five years are charging just as much as artists who have been doing them for thirty, and the latter are slowly increasing their rates across the industry as a response.
thats something i've noticed in general too with tattoos, the trends in tattoos and the costs mean you can really pin when someone gets a tattoo just from how great it looks or how big it is, like anyone that got tattoos a decade ago never had that "it looks like a shitload of doodles" style because it was cheap enough to get an entire back or sleeve or chest all done in one go.
my relatives have been getting tattoos for over a quarter century now, and you really can tell "hey that guy got a tattoo in 1999" or "hey thats from 2005" or "hey i recognize that look from 2016" which also means that its rather easy to tell a mid life crisis Nick from someone that got tattoos at 19 and stopped.
Also the tattoos and dyed hair that middle aged millennials still think is hip is actually trashy now, while it was all the rage in 2006 among the upper class artsy types, its pretty much only the people stuck living with relatives and making under $15/hr at their crappy job still rocking that stuff. Its also why you're seeing guys like Pete Davidson and others just rocking normal hair and getting the tattoos lasered off.
that vice-era of it being the dominant culture in the cool parts of brooklyn died out a decade ago, to the point where its really only like the bottom tier people rocking those piercings and tattoos and weird hairstyles anymore. like they'd pay out the ass for some tiny thing that would have cost less than a jar of peanut butter or a couple packets of oat meal a decade ago. zoomer tattoos are trash if you can see them at all, which is another point. because of the turn in culture tattoos are back to where they were in the 90s, the average person in the office doesn't have visible tattoos or have ones they show off, and just like back then there's a "oh this guy's a badass" thing when the delivery boy dropping off your food is sporting them, instead of the "oh this guy has an art degree and a trust fund" feeling you'd have when you saw one of these people get off their bike and hand you food a decade ago"
In general it really shows you how fucking awful the 20s sort of are in terms of excess cash, tattoos used to be something you'd get on a whim 20 years ago because it was as cheap as going bowling or buying another drink at a bar. now you have guys saving up just to get tattoos, having to get them in installments like Nick is doing.
Also color has apparently gone out of style, they say its because of how toxic it is but also more likely because of how its super expensive for both the guy doing the tattoo and the consumer themselves, just out of how bad the economy has been fucked up its insane how much the pendulum has swung back, outside of gay stuff, which honestly you don't hear too much about in general we really did swing as a culture a lot further back and its sort of crazy how quickly it happened. from tattoos and rap to chugging water and country music in the span of 5 years. Honestly Rekeita had the exact opposite experience of everyone else, he turned degen when everyone else started getting less degenerate. Every bar around me had to turn into a "family friendly" area and triple down on food because no one's drinking to excess like in the 24 hour era of the 2010s.