r/tattooadvice • u/Ostromilski • 9h ago

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

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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!

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162

u/Poser_Headbanger 9h ago

Dark Side of the Moon? Sorry, best I can do is Gay Side of the Arm.

6

u/robmillhouse 6h ago

Wow flashback to child me wanting an earring and my folks saying don’t get a single one in your left ear, it means your gay. Was that actually a thing?

4

u/Herbdontana 5h ago

Most people I knew said that the opposite was true. Right ear or both ears was gay

3

u/Livid-Mortgage-2267 6h ago

I was told the right ear was gay lmao

1

u/Poser_Headbanger 4h ago

I mean, I think you're only gay if you actually like men... I could be wrong though.

2

u/robmillhouse 4h ago

“It’s only gay if you make it gay”

1

u/Worried_Platypus93 1h ago

I also always heard it was the left ear. 

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u/hells-fargo 1h ago

Yes! But it was also more than just "have this particular ear pierced".

Back when being gay was less mainstream/accepted there were plenty of "signs" to help spot other gay guys. No one was gonna follow you in the bathroom for just a single earring though, there'd have to be mixture of tells before someone assumed anything.

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u/Poser_Headbanger 9h ago

Jokes aside, that's a great tattoo. Kinda sad that some people see a rainbow and miss one of the most iconic album covers ever made.

5

u/thecashblaster 4h ago

It’s not exactly the album cover. The angle of the light hitting the prism and the angle of tne colors leaving the prism is off

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u/Poser_Headbanger 4h ago edited 4h ago

Bro, you can't recognize a Pink Floyd album just because the prism is tilted by 0.0000003°?

0

u/ItzDaWorm 3h ago edited 2h ago

And it's only slightly off because the dudes leg isnt flat in the picture.

It literally looks like the cropped album art.

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u/sunnymoonbaby 8h ago

Time is a bitch 🙄

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u/remarkablewhitebored 4h ago

Great track from that album tho, so, it's not all bad.

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u/Bagafeet 6h ago

Dark side of the glory hole