Gettin' ink done

Tattoos are one of our favorite parts of Brazilian culture. All kind of people have them, including the teachers at our school, folks on billboards, and the occasional newscaster. We love ogling the amazing art and gorgeously tattooed bodies that seem to be everywhere. The idea that Brazilians are heavily tattooed got under our skin to the point that we 'when in Rome-ed' and picked up a few ourselves. Funny thing about confirmation bias is that you see what you expect to see and the truth be damned. We spent almost a year noticing the tattooed people and not noticing the untattooed people and perpetuated our own fake news about Brazilians and their tattoos. I looked the facts up to write about it and discovered that our belief was based on self-fulfilling mind tricks and that, proportionally, way more Americans than Brazilians have tattoos. It's certainly true that people around here show more skin than they do in Utah and and it's probably true that there is less of a stigma about tattoos, but Carol and I were in keeping with our American identities when we decided to ink up.