Woman sparks debate after revealing biggest tattoo ‘red flags’: ‘This seems judgmental’

‘Let people get whatever they want,’ one viewer writes in the comments

(@flowstateink / TikTok)

A woman has people divided after she revealed which tattoos she thinks are the biggest “red flags”.

In a TikTok video posted on 26 January, @flowstateink, Omi Michelle, shared photos of different tattoos, all of which are on men, that she considers “red flags”.

The clip begins with a timepiece tattoo on someone’s arm, along with an emoji rolling its eyes.

“Bonus point if there’s a rose,” the text over the video reads.

The next design that she listed was tribal tattoos. Following that, she noted that black-out sleeves were also not a good sign.

“What r u tryna to hide?” the text continues.

The final tattoo on this list was of a wolf. “Ur not alpha chill,” the text in this clip concluded.

This TikTok video has over 2.4m views, so far, with many viewers in the comments noting that tribal tattoos aren’t always “red flags”.

“If the tribal tattoos are actually valid to their culture then I don’t think it’s a red flag I think it’s a beautiful way to show your culture off,” one viewer said.

In response, Michelle agreed and noted that in this situation, it would be a “green flag”.

Many other viewers disagreed with Michelle’s tattoo opinions and claimed that she was being too harsh.

“Red flag is judging others bc they have different taste from yours,” one viewer wrote, while another said: “This seems judgmental. Like I know plenty of men with some of these tats and they are the nicest people ever.”

In response to a comment that said: “let people get whatever they want,” @flowstateink explained that even though she has “red flags,” she doesn’t “genuinely care” what tattoos people get.

On the opposite side of the coin, some people agreed with the TikTok user and found humour in the video itself.

“I’m so glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like black outs!!!” one comment reads.

“My ex has all of these…” one user wrote.

In another video, Michelle revealed which tattoos she thought were “red flags” on women. Her list included: collar bone tattoos, cheetah print, butterflies, and infinity symbols or anchors, both of which she called “the holy grail”.

This video has over 571,300 views, so far, with many TikTok users justifying why they’ve received some of these tattoos.

“Collar bones tattoo can be really nice,” one wrote. “Depends on the design just my opinion but I think it’s a beautiful place for tattoos.”

“I know this is supposed to be a joke, but Butterflies actually have a very deep meaning in tattoos,” another comment reads. “I kinda feel it’s disrespectful to joke about it.”

Speaking to The Independent, Michelle noted that all of these videos were “anecdotal” and not research-based. “It’s all just things I’ve experienced and that means others will think differently,” she said.

“It’s important to note that these are my personal opinions and they may not resonate with everyone,” she added. “This content was made satirically, however, I do think that there are a lot of copy paste tattoos out there which is more what I was poking fun at rather than tattoos with deep meaning.”