This week, a good friend of mine tweeted, “Why accomplish that many celeb ladies date males who appear like a pub bathroom wall?” He was responding to a paparazzi photo of Kourtney Kardashian and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, Kardashian greedy Barker’s tattooed hand, connected to Barker’s very tattooed arm, neck, chest, and face.
I bristled and went on the protection, not simply because Blink-182 was a formative musical affect for me. It was as a result of I got here to the reluctant resolution that I assist this odd coupling of the celebrated punk musician and a member of one of the well-known and reviled families on the planet.
At first, the pairing was straightforward sufficient to brush off as one other Kardashian attention-seeking stunt, a method to distract us from the truth that Kourtney’s 38-year-old ex-husband Scott Disick is busy shacking up with a girl who simply turned 20. Perhaps it nonetheless is. However a number of issues could be true without delay: The Kardashians know the way to get individuals speaking, Barker loves a glamour lady, social media is as extremely manufactured as celeb couplings, and…and… Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker are an oddly endearing couple.
“She likes driving with the highest down,” reads one Instagram publish by Barker, accompanied by a set of photos of him and the eldest Kardashian sister. They posed with a black automobile that certainly had the highest down, each their all-black-everything outfits ending off a portrait of edgy, different bliss. This was what received me over.
However whereas I could have thought the “pub bathroom wall” slight was impolite, my cynical good friend had some extent: The Tattooed Dude and fairly celeb girlfriend coupling is having a second. Simply check out Barker’s emo-rap buddy Machine Gun Kelly, who has been relationship actor Megan Fox. They had been a prime example of this dynamic earlier than Barker and Kardashian hit the scene and so they’re already reaching iconic couple standing, from their red carpet hijinx and rooftop escapades to their Instagram photos that elicit a deluge of heart and flame emojis from followers.
As tattoos change into more and more mainstream, it’s necessary to notice that there’s a distinction between a Tattoo Boyfriend and a boyfriend who has tattoos. For the Tattoo Boyfriend, the tattoos are a part of his general persona and he’s inseparable from them. He’s not essentially a stereotypical dangerous boy, nor a dirtbag, but it surely actually doesn’t harm. In the meantime, the Fairly Girlfriend is, nicely, classically fairly, possibly even a intercourse image or bombshell in her personal proper. It’s widespread for her to be extra well-known than her Tattoo Boyfriend as nicely, and he or she delights being seen on his arm, eliciting some feedback of “Wait, him?” alongside the best way.
Justin Bieber is a boyfriend—or reasonably, husband—who has tattoos, however he’s not a Tattoo Boyfriend; sorry, Hailey. Identical with Ben Affleck. Pete Davidson, in the meantime, is a Tattoo Boyfriend, and he as soon as dated Fairly Girlfriend, Ariana Grande.
One other instance of this trope could be seen in rappers Lil Uzi Vert and JT of Metropolis Women. At first, the 2 had been a little bit of an odd couple: The small-statured Uzi, outlined by his plethora of tattoos and the $24 million diamond that was implanted in his brow alongside a rising queen in hip hop, an simple magnificence who was completely proper when she rapped, “All these n***as wanna fuck JT.” And the 2 look like absolutely smitten with each other, with JT casually speaking in regards to the nice mundanities of life with Uzi whereas Uzi is photographed whereas nuzzling on JT like a new child.
This dynamic has ebbed and flowed within the celeb world for the final 30 years. Within the 2000s, Disney Channel starlets Hilary Duff and Brenda Tune dated Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden and Metro Station’s Hint Cyrus respectively. Neither couple lasted—Tune and Cyrus’s coupling ending on a particularly chaotic tenor of passive-aggressive social media messages and fake pregnancy rumors—however their legacy retains a robust grip, notably as aughts nostalgia hits a fever pitch.
I reached out to Matt David of Pop Culture Died In 2009 for some added context to this phenomenon.
“For women like [Duff and Song] it’s the proper quantity of hazard, in that it’s probably not harmful in any respect, however appears to be like it,” David advised Jezebel.
He continued: “And appears are all that matter. For a well-off, Texas-born Disney Channel star like Hilary Duff, the tattooed pop-rocker from Maryland in all probability appeared like a stroll on the wild facet. She delighted in telling Elle journal on the time that Madden’s hometown was ‘fairly ghetto’—after which backtracked as quick because it hit Perez [Hilton].”
David believes Duff and Tune could have simply been swept up in the concept that they had been relationship tortured artists, and that their pairings gave them an phantasm of depth.
However possibly it’s easier than that.
Christina Ramos, a Los Angeles-based tattoo artist, stated that she believes the enchantment of the Tattooed Boyfriend is fairly clear lower.
“Objectively talking, opposites appeal to don’t they?” Ramos stated. “Polarity in no matter kind appears to convey individuals collectively, whether or not it’s character or look. However that’s only a human factor.”
However there’d be no Tattoo Boyfriend/Fairly Girlfriend dynamic Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, arguably one of many predecessors of this dynamic within the celeb house. The previous actress and mannequin and Motley Crue drummer are on the verge of their very own second of nostalgia now that Lily James and Sebastian Stan are filming a film in regards to the couple, and so they’re routinely in comparison with Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox.
When popular culture nostalgia Instagram account, @velvetcoke, posted a photo of Anderson and Lee a number of weeks in the past, one of many prime feedback learn “I really feel like that is Megan and MGK vibes.” Others fawned over how sizzling they had been, or reminisced about their legendarily invasive intercourse tape. However many additionally famous that their dynamic was deeply poisonous and abusive—Lee spent six months in jail on a spousal abuse cost after allegedly kicking Anderson whereas she was holding their son. She was left bruised and fearful, and whereas they briefly reunited after his launch from jail, they broke up for good in 2001 after a six-year relationship.
However the aesthetics alone—Lee together with his tattoos and nipple piercing, blonde bombshell Anderson—had been sufficient to elicit comparability.
“The proliferation of nostalgia accounts on platforms like Instagram and Twitter is a silent issue on this, bizarrely sufficient, and has spawned a era of celeb cosplayers,” famous David. “Now, the {couples} we’re speaking about listed here are a bit too previous to essentially be taking their cues from Twitter—Kardashian and her worsening case of arrested improvement apart—however their followers are undoubtedly younger sufficient to be influenced.”
“You have a look at a few of these couplings now—Kourtney and Travis, Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly—it’s just about people who find themselves too previous to play dress-up, taking part in dress-up, dwelling out some kind of weight-reduction plan Tawny Kitaen fantasy at purple carpet occasions the place they’re sandwiched between TikTok teenagers and a Jonas brother,” stated David, referring to Kitaen’s profession as a heavy metallic video vixen within the ‘80s. “It’s embarrassing from afar, however cool beneath the slim and simply manipulated lens of Instagram.”
(Kitaen was charged with home violence in 2002 after she attacked her then-husband Chuck Finley, a reminder that this legacy, as with Anderson and Lee, can have uglier undertones.)
The attract of the stereotypical dangerous boy and the great lady has a maintain, and there’s one thing endearing—so Danny and Sandy, so “Leader of the Pack,” and so obviously gendered—about seeing a put-together girl alongside a dude who appears to be like like he simply crawled out of a sweaty, beer-soaked mosh pit and the scuzziest metallic venue on the town. Kardashian and Barker, in addition to their different contemporaries, evoke a sort of sappy common fantasy of the great lady who needs a foul boy. It’s a baddie Cinderella story for many who don’t need the clean-cut prince with completely coifed hair, for many who sort of wished Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8r Boi” had an alternate ending. He was a punk, she did ballet, and now they’re taking mirror selfies collectively and posting them on Instagram.
