Treacle tatts

[Tilly Kister]

I noticed this too - there’s been a few tattoos pop up that normally, she’d be slagging off to high heaven but of course, because they belong to her subscribers, she loves them all!
Shes such a desperado, it’s embarrassing!

It's the same in her sad FB group. Not that she ever pops her head in there but all the admins and all the the members just lurrrrve everyone's ink no matter how ill-applied or poorly designed it really is and everyone is told they're beautiful no matter how hatchet faced or lard arsed they actually are.

 

[Squatproofandsustainable]

I've found her irritating for a while but recently she's insufferable. She's so obnoxious, condescending, and ignorant. Why does she think she's such an authority? When in fact her takes are very short sighted, and scream echo chamber. What a knob.

 

[NowIsGood]

Tbh those vlogs made me feel quite shocked and upset. Yasmin is clearly very unwell, she must be suffering terribly with her health (mental and physical) to get into that state. Both appear to be in total denial of the seriousness of the situation. If I were Lauren, I'd be very concerned for my friend.

 

[Ellerose]

To be super honest though tattoos do look best when you’re young and aged ones don’t look as good

I mean, I’m over 30, heavily tattooed (even more so than our treacle twat) and I personally think my tatttoos look pretty damn good tbh .
I’m also a tattooist so see plenty of tattoos/tattooed people and the older tattoos and the older generation of people getting tattooed can look really awesome, a lot of them even better than younger people because they’ve tended to put a lot more thought into them rather than trying to cover their bodies for the sake of following the current trend of being heavily tattooed and looking ‘cool’

 

[Tilly Kister]

I too think that a lot of the inactivity was motivated by Yasmin's weight preventing her from going out in the heat and I think Lauren was wicked pissed off about that. You can see the impatience and boredom palpably in some of the talks to camera. Like where she says about not having any real content in any of the three vlogs and sorry about that but they'd done bugger all worth filming.

Moreover if you ask me she's edited the footage she did get to be ultra unflattering to Yasmin. Several shots of her "literally" wallowing in the pool, side by side shots of them both where even chunk Lauren looks tiny by comparison and a number of times when they were sat there trying to make out it was a fun time but they had nothing to say to each other or the viewers.

This holiday was booked over two years ago and it's been implied Yasmin paid for much of it as a birthday gift. Lauren has barely seen Yasmin since she moved but she had no choice about who to go on hols with as it was Yasmin's treat to her. I think it was cruel to expose that young woman to thousands of strangers looking and obviously feeling as bad as she did and it was pretty clear Yasmin was trying desperately to get back to the friendship they used to share and bloody Lauren just can't be arsed anymore because Yasmin's no longer near enough to be used as a free taxi service.

 

[lupanda]

Would pay to see her walk up to someone in the street and openly 'review' tattoos ...

 

[dumdums83]

But how can she have gone through her 20s and early 30s with NO career plans apart from a YouTube channel?

Because she’s a boring lazy dickhead with not much personality or entertain apart from tattoos. She’s also a judgmental cunt too

 

[Ellerose]

I honestly don’t think she cares about the history of tattooing or anyone else’s experiences. She comes across as someone who only got tattoos because she thought it’d make her a little bit ‘cooler’.
I also completely agree about people in the tattoo industry probably not wanting to be associated with her. As I mentioned before, I work in the industry and I find her incredibly cringey and embarrassing.
It does seem as though she’s replaced Yasmin with her boyfriends sister too, although not necessarily a bad thing and Yasmin is absolutely foul mouthed and vile!

 

[soph30]

Don’t worry guys I’m sure we’ll get a video

 

[Ellerose]

surely Treacle can train as one? She's annoying AF but at least she looks the part

If she came to me and asked for an apprenticeship I’d refuse point blank instantly on the basis of her channel and how she thinks she knows everything already.
I think she’s struggle most places because of this. She’s too arrogant and know-it-all and full of false and outdated information.

 

[VintageKitsune]

Oh god, so she's gotten even worse and thinks she can speak for POC now? For someone with a bunch of hideous tattoos, she should really check herself before she belittles everyone else's tattoos. I also hate how she picks apart any tattoo style she doesn't personally have/like.

She recently did an interview with things&ink magazine and she addresses this. I'll let her words speak for themselves.
"At the moment I’m trying to create more awareness for black and POC in the tattoo industry! There’s a lack of representation so I want to use my platform to celebrate POC tattoo artists and those that tattoo on darker skin tones!"
She fails to mention that she also is the sole arbiter for what is deemed as racist, doesn't give artists a chance to even explain themselves if she gets the wrong end of the stick and has actively tried to ruin careers for tattoo artists she deems racist. She could do a lot of good with her platform, yet what concerns me is that she equates celebrating POC and tattooing with bashing white artists that havent been extensively researched, which can lead to negative associations between positive discrimination and the inclusion of diversity in the tattoo community. It seems to me that her heart is in the right place, but she isn't quite hitting the mark, coming off as preachy rather than informative, and she appears to have a white saviour complex even if that's not her intention. I'm not a POC, so I can't comment on how I feel about her videos but that's my take on the situation.

 

[Tilly Kister]

I mean, I’m over 30, heavily tattooed (even more so than our treacle twat) and I personally think my tatttoos look pretty damn good tbh .
I’m also a tattooist so see plenty of tattoos/tattooed people and the older tattoos and the older generation of people getting tattooed can look really awesome, a lot of them even better than younger people because they’ve tended to put a lot more thought into them rather than trying to cover their bodies for the sake of following the current trend of being heavily tattooed and looking ‘cool’

My uncle was a merchant seaman and he had the classic collection of tattoos he'd got as he sailed around the world in the 1950s/1960s/70s. They were all American trad style, sailing ships, an anchor, a Hawaiian pin-up girl, he actually had a heart with "mother" inside. I can recall so clearly sitting on his lap as a child while he flexed his wiry forearm muscles making that Hawaiian lady dance for us. Telling me all about where he was when he got it and the small, long closed tattoo shops he'd got them from. When my own children were small and he was in his 70s, he could still do it though he'd laugh and say they were both slowing down. It entranced them every bit as much as it had me.


Another fine example of an older person whose tattoos still looked cool af till the day he died was Lemmy btw.

Tattoos which have faded, stretched, blown-out or blurred over time are to me like wrinkles. They are lines on the map of your life. They tell a story which is as much if not more about you as the tattoo was the day you got it. When you were young and smooth and sleek both your body and your ink were shinier, sure. Just as a fine piece of furniture was shinier when the craftsman first made in in 1900, but it's the patina which develops with age that makes it unique and adds the real value.

 

[Tilly Kister]

If she had any style or flair or talent for social media, getting a job within the tattoo industry would be a really natural transition for her as the YouTube gig dries up. A lot of once quite viable YouTubers have become media advisors for people within a related industry as their channel audience ebbed. Audiences always ebb. People with a brain know this going into it and make plans, they establish contacts, they form companies and build them so they have a smooth pathway to something else. She really a[ears to have been cruising along convince that her dim little spotlight will last forever. If she had any respect at all within the industry she'd have been interviewing up and coming artists, doing features on tattoo conventions, collaborating with other tattoo channels. But there has never been a sign of that and I have to assume it's because anyone at all with any sort of standing in the business doesn't want to be allied with her on any level. You notice she never ever vlogs her sessions? She talks about them before and she shows what she got after but the process itself, which would be a shitload more interesting as content than her droning on about it, is absent.

You can bet your bum it's because the artists deny her permission to film them working on her. They don't want the ignominy of close association with her low rent channel is my guess.

 

[Ellerose]

I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong her (or anyone else) covering themselves in tattoos until they run out of skin if that’s what they want to do. She does come across as only getting herself heavily tattooed because she desperately wants to look/be cool though. She needs to realise that being heavily tattooed isn’t a personality trait because she seems to revolve her life around it. Even actual tattoo artists don’t do that

 

[Tilly Kister]

She just doesn't do anything even vaguely interesting. For all the weeping and wailing she did at one point about POC being excluded from modern tattooing, she's never tried to do an overview of the history of tattooing and how it was literally invented by POC (and the Scots) She doesn't ask to interview any of the artists who work on her own tattoos. To ask about how they got their start n the industry and what it took to get their own studios etc. Though tbf maybe she has asked and it's just that none of them want to be that closely associated with her or her tatty channel.

She doesn't try talking to other heavily tattooed people about the reasons why they first chose to get a tattoo and why they decided to continue getting them. Or how being tattooed has had positive and/or negative impacts on their lives - did it result in employment discrimination or lead to them meeting like minded people they've formed strong bonds with or even opened up really interesting employment opportunities to them as it did for her. what was the experience of older people with tattoos as opposed to the experiences of younger people in terms of it once being a real subculture with very clear-cut working class associations and now becoming very mainstream and much more dominated by middle class people.

She's dull and dumb and unimaginative and so completely self obsessed. It's all "This is me and this is my tattoo and this is my experience of being tattooed and this is a tattoo I like and this is a tattoo I dislike and this is what I approve of in tattooing and this is what I disapprove of."
You're not very interesting Lauren and you're really inarticulate, so making it all about you is just bloody boring.

Finally - wtf is the potato trope she has going on - does anyone know? Apart from she has an obvious affinity with potatoes because they have very similar IQs and personalities.

 

[Ellerose]

As an artist in this industry for nearly ten years she infuriates me!! She has no right to speak on our industry on her high horse. She has no experience being within our field, just chats about things she's read on Reddit. That is it. Yes she calls out things in which we all disagree with, but her making a living our of our hard work pisses me off.

I’m also in the industry and I feel the exact same way about her. I find her absolutely insufferable!

 

[Mizzbutterflyz]

That’s shocking, I don’t know who she thinks she is. I hope you’re okay and it didn’t affect you too much! I can’t understand how people support her, she has the worst attitude ever.

it was very hurtful the way I was treated, but I got over it, and I still love my tattoox

 

[Ellerose]

Getting her palm tattooed was one of the proudest moments of her life according to that video! .
Not actual meaningful things like making a living from YouTube or settling down into what looks like a healthy and happy relationship with a nice home, or even being proud of herself for dealing with the loss of a parent or coping with her terrible breakup. Nope, for Lauren it’s getting a tattoo .
Dont get me wrong, palm tattoos bloody hurt but to class it as the proudest moment of her life is one of the saddest and most tragic things I’ve heard her say.
The sooner she realises that being heavily tattooed isn’t a personality trait the better!

 

[soph30]

It was done far too detailed she should have gone for a simple symbol

 

[soph30]

I think tangents are okay for the Lauren thread, not sure we’re ever going to get to 50 pages before her channel dies a death