Tattoo Culture Is Fake — with Yiwu Duan

This episode starts with a post on Instagram: “No Apprentices in 2026.”

This episode is about promises. The kind that say you can be fully booked in 90 days. That you can skip the apprenticeship. That you can build a six-figure tattoo career if you just “optimize your content.” I’m joined by Jeff Zalesak — tattooer of 20 years and owner of Camp Hill Collective in Pennsylvania — and we go deep into the rise of marketing gurus in tattooing. We talk about the $5,000 sales calls and the predatory tactics behind them. About cold-messaging clients and why that quietly destroys respect. About online tattoo education versus real apprenticeships. About why technical foundations still matter. Why so many artists burn out. And about a question almost nobody stops to ask: why do you tattoo what you tattoo? This isn’t an anti-marketing rant. Learning how to communicate your work matters. Understanding social media matters. But selling shortcuts to mastery is something else entirely. Tattooing was never built on hacks. It was built on repetition, humility, mentorship, and respect for the craft. And if we lose that, we lose more than bookings. We lose the culture. — Follow Jeff on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube: @imatattooer Follow the podcast on Instagram: @under_the_skin_podcast Watch full episodes on YouTube: Under the Skin – The Tattoo Podcast If this one resonates, share it with another tattooer. See you next week — under the skin.

This week’s episode is out in video format, and I’m joined by Ron Smith — tattooer from Vancouver, Canada, known online as @crybabyron. We start with the reality of the last couple years: tattooing feels oversaturated, especially in big cities like Berlin, London, Paris, LA, and Vancouver. But Ron makes a point that matters: it’s not oversaturated with good tattooers — because quality still stands out when the fundamentals are there. From there we go deep into the stuff that actually makes a tattoo work long-term: drawing, composition, and flow with the body. Ron’s been tattooing for 15+ years, specializes in large-scale Japanese work, and recently started posting drawing breakdowns that exploded online — not “how to tattoo” tutorials, but the foundation behind strong tattooing. We also talk about gatekeeping vs responsibility, client experiences, fast track learning and why simplicity is so hard. This episode explains why the best tattoos always come back to the same truth: Tattooing follows the art.

For this episode, I’m joined by Doug Hardy — a tattooer who quite literally grew up inside tattoo shops, surrounded by tattoo history, but who took the long road to finding his own voice in the craft. We talk about what it really means to grow up around tattooing, learning through apprenticeship, making mistakes, and understanding the responsibility that comes with putting permanent work on people’s bodies. From there, the conversation opens up into: ​Apprenticeship, patience, and learning the craft the hard way ​Being Ed Hardy’s son — and becoming your own person ​Tattooing before and after social media ​Trends, speed, and tattoo longevity ​ADHD, autism, focus, and creativity behind the needle ​Tattooing in Japan and cultural misunderstandings ​Pop culture, tradition, and why tattooing has always lived between the two ​Digital tools, AI, and where the line between tool and crutch really is ​Client relationships and why connection still matters most This isn’t a hype episode.It’s not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, and it’s not about chasing trends. It’s an honest conversation about tattooing as a craft, responsibility, and why staying curious — without standing still — is the only way to last in this work.

This is the first episode of the year — and the first one we’re releasing in video format. For this episode, I’m joined by Chris Cockrill, tattooer and tattoo machine builder from San Diego. We spend most of the conversation digging into tattoo machines: how coils really work, how pens and rotaries changed the way people tattoo, what gets gained, what gets lost, and why understanding your tools still matters if you want to tattoo well long-term. We also talk about machine building from the inside — tuning, materials, geometry, breaking machines in through actual tattooing, and why there’s no such thing as a “perfect machine” that does everything. Along the way, we get into tattoo history, shop culture in the 90s vs today, the trade mentality, apprenticeships, and how tattooing slowly shifted from a craft you had to earn into something that often looks easier than it really is. This isn’t a gear review and it’s not nostalgia for the sake of it. It’s a long, honest conversation about tattooing as a trade, responsibility, and why shortcuts usually come with a cost. Chris Cockrill on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriscockadoodledo Under the Skin – The Tattoo Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/under_the_skin_podcast https://www.youtube.com/@under_the_skin_podcast