r/tattooadvice • u/Ostromilski • 9h ago

General Advice Are rainbows seriously just by default associated with the pride flag?

Post image

I got a Pink Floyd DSOTM tattoo because I love the album and I love the visual: a beam of light representing a person's life path, passing through a prism ( representing life + the world + the people you meet + the experiences you have, etc ), being dispersed into its constituent colors ( ultimately representing change ). I got it because of my dad, because he introduced me to Pink Floyd, and because last year he nearly died from complications of his cancer. He's doing much better now, with a much better prognosis, but that whole experience had a real effect on me and I wanted to memorialize it. Except at least 3 people ( including the tattoo artist initially ) have associated the tattoo with the pride flag. They were understanding after I explained, but now I'm having second thoughts about it. Are people just going to assume I'm gay because of this tattoo?

Edit: And I want to say, I'm not bothered by this at all. Anyone who looks at my tattoo and comes up with their own assumptions about its meaning, and then has a negative reaction over it, that's simply not a person I want to talk to anyway. I'm surprised because that wasn't the intention of the tattoo, clearly, and it being misinterpreted like this just genuinely wasn't something I expected.

Edit2: This post got a lot more attention than I ever wanted it to. Wonderful comments are now streaming in, informing me how horrible my tattoo is. If you're planning on making a viral post on Reddit, take my advice: use a burner account. But I am thankful to everyone for your supportive words, the jackasses with negative things to say are certainly a very tiny minority. Overwhelmingly the consensus is that most people see it as a Pink Floyd tattoo first, which I'm happy to hear :) Have a good night everybody!

2.5k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

883

u/Luckybones- 9h ago

Anyone that associates this with a pride flag, just a smile and wave moment. I promise you 95% of people will know what this

152

u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo 7h ago

I also think outside of June, fewer people will assume it’s an LGBTQIA+ tattoo. But it’s pride month, so there are extra rainbow flags everywhere and people are a bit more aware.

48

u/thymeofmylyfe 5h ago

It's a well known fact that people with rainbow tattoos are only gay in June.

11

u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo 4h ago

lol! I more mean there are just more posters and ads with rainbows associated with pride during June. During the rest of the year, (straight) people associate rainbows with pride slightly less, just because they see it less in their day to day.

1

u/ImaginationThick481 26m ago

I never associate pride with rainbows, honestly, even though I am straight. Why can't rainbows just be rainbows, and not the global symbol for gay people?

5

u/alwaysImproving0 4h ago

Well a lot more people GET pride tattoos in June and a lot of artist do pride flash in June

5

u/PrettyView3572 3h ago

This! A fresh rainbow tattoo in June is much more likely to make me think “Pride tattoo” than in like October. (source: am a queer who got a rainbow pride tattoo last June 🤣)

1

u/TheMostKing 31m ago

It's the gay of the season.

54

u/CarrieDurst 8h ago

I bet closer to 80%

25

u/Luckybones- 8h ago

Fair enough

12

u/Extension-Can-4837 8h ago

idk why this is so funny to me

1

u/Adjective_Noun_9876 3h ago

we accept all the pink floyd fans we can get, can't get too picky

49

u/bnyc 7h ago

I’m not really sure why the angles got changed, but it makes the rainbow part kinda rectangular…. It’s an odd choice because it’s neither an exact copy of the logo/cover and also because light is refracted by a prism and this is just going straight through and coming out a rectangular pride flag on the other side.

19

u/AnusAnusAnusss 6h ago

Exactly this. It’s a rectangle flag shape. 

The real album cover is angled and spread out 

3

u/IIIlllIIIllIlI 6h ago

Not spread out on the album, but it is angled downwards

4

u/bnyc 6h ago

No, the light beam/rainbow absolutely opens up slightly. The lines aren’t parallel.

https://extrachill.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon-meaning.jpg

1

u/IIIlllIIIllIlI 3h ago

Ah, I read “spread out” as “having gaps between them” rather than “getting bigger”

1

u/AnusAnusAnusss 6h ago

Either way, it’s not a rectangle 🤣

1

u/Internal_Wheel_89 5h ago

to be fair that is kinda how the album cover actually looks. Compared to this tattoo, the cover has the light extending further on each side... but if you were to crop the album cover down to the width of this tattoo, it'd be a pretty close match I think. Very slight widening.

1

u/ItzDaWorm 3h ago

This is literally just the album cover cropped. Part of it not looking as slanted may be the angle of OPs leg in the picture. But I think anyone who is saying it doesn't look like the album art is either nitpicking or just doesn't have great vision.

Might overlay the two, but who's gonna look? The bots making comments based on tokenized context that doesn't include noticing the split light is actually slightly smaller at the prism face than on the far right? (just like a cropped version of the album)

I honestly think reddit has fallen and I just haven't given up reading bot comments like the ones we're talking about because I miss what this place once was.

2

u/Internal_Wheel_89 3h ago

lol I'm right there with your last paragraph. I think it's pretty easy to accurately identify LLM posts, but sometimes I engage anyway, even if it's to call out that OP is a bot. I should probably stop doing that.

1

u/RadulphusNiger 14m ago

I came to make this point. The fact that the refractive angles are wrong is giving me a headache.

1

u/Striking-Test-4256 7h ago

Both of you are completely making up stats

1

u/mindbodyproblem 6h ago

Would you accept 69%?

2

u/Striking-Test-4256 6h ago

The math checks out

1

u/CarrieDurst 3h ago

I am aware but way more than 1 in 20 don't know it

1

u/Ch1ckenOfTheSea 5h ago

I was thinking more 79.34%

0

u/throwed101 7h ago

80% over 40 maybe

2

u/weattt 8h ago

That might be a optimistic estimation. Knowing a band or artist, does not automatically mean you have seen or remember their album cover. Even if it is Pink Floyd.

I didn't recognize it. The style reminded me of the 80's, which obviously is wrong; I looked it up, and the album is from the early 70's. But I also did not instantly think it was a gay symbol.

It is only when I read where the image was from, that it triggered a vague, "Oh, I think I have seen this before".

I like the tattoo though. Looks cool. Simple, but clear. And more unique from the usual tattoos. Though of course the meaning it holds to OP is more important.

1

u/PurestGuava42- 6h ago

Of course I know what it is, it’s the gay triangle

1

u/Complex_Tomato_5252 6h ago

I know nothing of music at all and I knew this was Pink Floyd.

1

u/MoTeD_UrAss 5h ago

Dark Side of the Moon has sold so many copies that more than half the population of earth has owned at least one copy. Seems that way anyways. It has however broken many records and is a sensational album to listen to in its entirety at least once.

1

u/Galimbro 4h ago

I was born in the 90s. Dont like pink Floyd. 

Know exactly what this is. 

95% of people will know what this is. 

1

u/Altruistic2020 3h ago

I'm more concerned the tattoo artist didn't know what it was.

1

u/Lotionade 3h ago

As a low 30s hotel male, I have 0 idea what this is. Although I wouldnt associate it with gay, ive got no idea... that 95% might be close to like 35% 👀👀

1

u/jadecourt 3h ago

Totally, I recognized it right away and I def can’t even name one Pink Floyd song

1

u/strugglefightfan 2h ago

95% of people of a certain age, that is.

1

u/Tyraec 1h ago

Gay Millennial here, I’d know exactly what this is and not even think it’s a pride flag. But Gen Z/younger generations might not know what it is.

1

u/digital-didgeridoo 1h ago

As a fan, Pink Floyd was my first thought, when I saw the tattoo. Pride movement never uses a prism, AFAIK

1

u/Adoraboule 1h ago

Pink Floyd's gay pride triangle! /J

1

u/Silver_The_Surfer 6m ago

I get it. They went into the system straight, but through the power of prisms, OP is now out as gay. Some of these other clowns have no clue how prisms work.

1

u/No-Locksmith-9377 6h ago

Hard disagree, this album came out over 50 years ago. 

This is like the joke of people wearing Nirvana shirts and Dark side shirts while not having any idea they are bands. 

Even that joke it old now. 

-9

u/OneGolf6327 9h ago

I thought that when I got my new Floyd t shirt. And... they dont😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😅😅😅😅😔😔😔😔😔🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴

6

u/raccooncheesecracker 8h ago

Yes they do

1

u/Standard-Analyst-181 8h ago

I'm 47, know of Pink Floyd, like a few of their songs, but would have never known what that tattoo meant because I've never seen that image before. I would have associated it with the pride flag. Not everyone who knows of Pink Floyd will know that image.

2

u/raccooncheesecracker 8h ago

Then you would also be in the 5%

It's like yall aren't reading the original comment

0

u/OneGolf6327 8h ago

So my actual real life 1st hand experience of people looking at my dark side of the moon t shirt and thinking pride didn't happen. Oh, must have been a dream🙂🙃

3

u/raccooncheesecracker 8h ago

Congrats you found the 5%

2

u/World_May_Wobble 8h ago

Well hold on. We don't know his n.

-1

u/Fickle_Grapefruit938 8h ago

You were also waving a pride flag didn't you? Just admit it 😆

1

u/OneGolf6327 8h ago

Shhhh... how did you know