Wow! This is a really thought provoking thread.
I am a millennial, but I oftentimes feel isolated from the world based on all these articles describing my generating as Manhattan posh phone addicted job deserters. I don't have a smart phone or computer (a tablet, though, somewhere in the middle) and I feel a lot of strong ties to my community. I don't feel quite as isolated about this article, though. The majority of my tattoos, when I got them, I just thought "this would be cool/look good fit a theme/help me practice a new technique, but looking at them now are obvious manifestations of whatever my current situation was i.e.: king rat on my elbow after making it through a very difficult time, a comic book character shortly after finishing my degree in comics, a mom tattoo after feeling isolated from family.....
I think in a way tattoos can be meditations on your fucks.
Sort of like in the article, if you give a ton of fucks about how others see you, you would probably get that feather to tell people how super sweet and free spirited your fucks are.
if you give fucks about super dope tattoos your tattoos are probably going to be a direct manifestation to that.
If you give no fucks about anything, you just might have your buddy tattoo you on a kitchen table an image a parachuting donut landing on your penis. Cuz your homeless and why not.
It's all about the fucks. And how many fucks you give, in my humble opinion, is your identity.
Where you choose to give them, and how often.
Scientific conclusion: millenials are expressing their identity through tattoos; this relationship can be expressed quantitatively and qualitatively through the following ratio: z:x(y)=identity:fucks(tattoos)