This trope is slowly becoming discredited for several reasons:
- Tattoos are much more mainstream now than they were in the past. Tattooed people used to be acceptable to mock, but not anymore. The general compromise is not to tattoo your head, neck, or hands, which you can't cover with clothing. This is especially true if (1) it's your first time getting a tattoo, or (2) in an even more sensitive area than described previously. For a tattoo to be truly embarrassing nowadays, it's got to be something really stupid, wrong, or offensive, or one that the artist messed up beyond belief.
- Large tattoos are expensive and require multiple sessions to complete, so you're not going to wake up one morning with an entire back piece due to a drunken whim the night before. Most tattoo parlors will require you to book an appointment weeks in advance, so it's very unlikely for you to just walk in for a session and get inked the same day. If the shop does accept walk-ins, the artist will not do anything custom (unless it's small and simple) and will have a number of designs available for walk-ins to choose from, none of which are large or overly complex.
- Tattoo parlors, or at least the reputable ones, are well aware of this trope and will refuse to ink you if it's not in your best interest. They won't tattoo teenagers without a parent present (in some areas it's not legal to tattoo anyone underage). They also won't put it in an embarrassing or highly visible place unless you're already heavily tattooed and it won't make a difference.
- Any good artist will stand behind their work and will do touchups as needed - sometimes certain parts fade, don't come out right once they've completely healed, or age poorly, and while age and weight fluctuations will still usually warp a piece beyond what an artist can reasonably address, minor touchups to address small issues are a perfectly normal and expected part of having tattoos. These are also generally free - if they aren't, then you either need a ton of work, or you did something that they told you not to do and it didn't heal right (e.g. you didn't clean it and let it get infected, you picked the scabs, you failed to moisturize it, or you let it get sunburned).
- If you're clearly intoxicated or in a compromised state — manic episodes being common ones — they won't serve you due to issues with consent (not to mention drunk people bleed more due to alcohol being a blood thinner).
- Infections are far less frequent than they used to be due to the advancements in government oversight over shops (particularly with sanitizing and tool cleanliness), as well as the advancements in aftercare options. Generally, if a tattoo gets infected, it is due to the client not doing what they were told to do, the artist not cleaning their tools or space (which usually means you went to a poor-quality or illegal shop or got it from an unlicensed amateur artist) or overworking the skin (another sign of a bad artist), or the client failing to disclose some sort of health condition. On the rare occasion that it does happen due to some mistake or oversight on an otherwise-good artist's end, they will do their best to make it right.
- More and more jobs care less and less about visible tattoos, meaning that individuals with visible body modifications are less likely to have trouble finding work, and there are a decent amount of fields (construction, most trades, graphic design, restaurant back-of-house, and hairdressing being among the more common ones) that simply do not care if you have highly-visible tattoos as long as you're professional and do good work (though most will still demand that you cover up anything offensive if people complain to HR or a supervisor). The general assumption, if you walk into a tattoo shop already covered in tattoos, is that you clearly have a job that pays enough to allow you to afford that work, the job doesn't care and you're not worried about future job prospects, and you're comfortable with your chosen career.
- The artists will create their own designs for your idea; you tell them what you want as a tattoo and the artist will discuss how the tattoo should look, how it will look on your body, and if the new design would still be in your best interest. If you don't like their design, they will respect your choice and won't do anything against your consent. They'll recommend that you do your homework on your desired tattoo, do your research on your tattoo artist since every artist has a different style, and they recommend that you are crystal clear with your tattoo idea.
- Tattoo parlors' clients are like their walking advertisements, so they have a big incentive to convince you not to get a tattoo that's going to embarrass you in the future, even if you totally consent to do it now. (For that very reason, you need to be extremely careful about your mood at the time you make your appointment.) They'll make you do the research on the cultural and historical meaning of your designs (such as how a cultural symbol doesn't share the same meaning in every country so they'll advise you to do your homework on your tattoo of choice). They'll also recommend that you fact-check your word tattoos so that you're 100% sure about the translation and pronunciation if it's in a foreign language. They'll do their best to talk you out of doing anything particularly embarrassing, and they've seen it all — lovers' names, memes, fads, and other things that are going to really date you. If asked to do racist pieces or other endorsements of open bigotry, they're well within their rights to tell you to take your business elsewhere (many such tattoos are amateur jobs).
- Finally, an increasing number of tattoo shops are willing to do heavily discounted or even free coverups of racist or gang designs for people leaving behind that lifestyle. In effect, solving an embarrassing tattoo with a non-embarrassing one. It's much easier and more reliable to do this than it used to be.
- "Prison Ink" is one of the more reliably embarrassing tattoo types still out there; aside from the content, which obviously can easily fall under the point above, they tend to be applied with the "stick-and-poke" method using improvised tools, in not-terribly-hygienic conditions, and by talented amateurs at best - and ten-thumbed overconfident idiots at worst. Laser removal can also be harder to do, due to the types of ink used and the variation in the depth to which it was pushed, and thus more expensive. While career criminals will usually not care about that, those who have reformed will often want to be rid of any visible reminder to the world of their time in jail.
