New Danish twin study on tattoos:

Heritability estimates for getting tattooed were low, i.e. the rate of tattooing for identical and non-identical twins (~100% and ~50% shared genes, respectively) was pretty similar. The authors noted that this is an abnormal finding for a behavior study; typically, behaviors are ~50% heritable. Replications may find a slightly higher heritability estimate for tattooing.

If this paper's findings are accurate, it indicates a strong shared environmental influence: exposure to the same culture, fashion, media, overlapping friendship groups, etc. This shared environment influence on tattooing persisted throughout adulthood, which led the authors to conclude that "tattooing is a cultural group clustering phenomenon." In other words, tattooing is a self-reinforcing and somewhat self-perpetuating cult (the term "tattoo bubble" is sometimes used in research). ~50% of people get their first tattoo to bond with friends/family and the number of close friends with tattoos significantly predicts the probability that an individual will get tattooed (β = .244, p < .001).

The male-female tattoo disparity (~30% vs. ~41.5%) is also evidence of this notable environmental influence, given that women are significantly more conformist and status-obsessed than men. The average woman is completely beholden to the values and expectations of their peers and society at large. They easily succumb to peer pressure ("All the girlies are getting tattoos, you don't want to be the LOSER of the group, do you?") or see some tatted Onlyfans whore on TikTok with millions of followers and think: "If I get tattoos, I'll get male attention too!" (the opposite is true, men on average hate tattoos on women).

The Danish study does not invalidate recent data showing that tattoos correlate with mental illness, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, low IQ, low socioeconomic status, impulsivity, drug abuse, criminality, obesity, etc. In fact, the authors found that smokers were over twice as likely to have tattoos as non-smokers (65.2% vs. 29.3%). Moreover, young women are approximately twice as mentally ill as young men (see here), which is reflected in their greater propensity for tattooing.

Tattoos are still a fairly reliable predictor of negative behavioral traits and they should be avoided when selecting a partner (note that more/bigger tattoos = more dysgenic). At best, they indicate that your would-be spouse is an impulsive conformist and not particularly intelligent.

The Danish paper notes that while tattooing was less prevalent in parental generations, the behavioral traits associated with tattooing may have been present. It is extremely unlikely that dysgenic selection among Whites played no role in the rise of tattoos. Nevertheless, it is equally unlikely that dysgenics alone can explain the meteoric rise in tattooing, particularly among women:

Early 1990s ~1% or fewer had tattoos
Early 2000s: ~15%
Early 2010s: ~25%
Early 2020s: ~35%

In conclusion, this paper is a whitepill because it implies that tattoo prevalence can be reversed, to some degree, by propaganda alone.