Would You Let A Machine Choose Your Tattoo? A “Get What You Get” Machine In A Tattoo Shop In Hawaii Gives Undecided Clients That Choice
Photo by videographer-editor Monique Arenas @giraffeliving
By Sidra Lackey
For indecisive tattoo clients, having a machine pick a tattoo for you probably seems like something out of a futuristic tattoo shop rather than a plausible choice in tattoo shops today. Well in one tattoo shop, Tattoolicious in Waikiki Hawaii, there’s such a machine in existence dubbed, Hawaii’s one and only, “Get What You Get” machine.
According to Tattoolicious’ Instagram post on this really cool machine (really a gumball machine) that debuted in July of this year, the Get What You Get machine is “filled with dozens of custom flash pieces” and for $200 you can “try your luck and take a spin” for a tattoo.
FOX TV Digital Team in “‘Get What You Get’: Let this machine decide your next tattoo”
gives more details on Tattoolicious’ Get What You Get machine: “For $200, the customer gets two spins on the machine, and they can choose out of the two designs that emerge. If neither of those are appealing, the customer can get extra spins for $20 each.”
Where did this fun idea come from? Sean McCready, the owner of Tattoolicious said the idea of the Get What You Get machine came from fellow tattoo artist Ricky Bird, who owns a shop in Florida. "Tattooing has gotten so mainstream, sometimes they just want to get something cool, and they’re not dead set on it yet," McCready explained more on the concept behind Get What You Get. "They know an area maybe, or their friends are going and they say, ‘Cool let’s go get tattooed.’"
McCready said the machine can turn into, “a fun social game if multiple people come in together and each of them spin, they can trade tattoo designs with each other.” He says the machine has been a fun addition to the shop. He points out there are “a few hundreds tattoo designs in the machine on any given day.” Tattoolicious caters to “a large military population and a healthy mix of tourists and locals” making Get What You Get’s addition to the shop a hit.
Tattoo artist Michael Russell of Tattoolicious said on using the Get What You Get machine to help clients choose a tattoo: "Sometimes they have a general idea of what they like and what they’ve had speak to them in the past, and it’s more about them kind of deferring to the professional and using our judgment as well. We’re not going to steer them in the wrong direction. This is just giving people options that they may not have known that they had.”
This past Halloween Tattoolicious had a special when using Get What You Get for a Halloween flash tattoo. For $125 a client got two spins and a choice of 1 design out of the 2. But it had some stipulations: no tattoos done on the neck, ribs, shoulders or joints.
The Get What You Get machine is a really clever idea not only for undecided tattoo clients, but clients who are tattoo collectors and want something unorthodox. How cool would it be to show off a new tattoo and when asked the story about it, you say that a machine picked your tattoo for you! Tattoo collectors, if the Get What You Get machine spreads to tattoo shops worldwide, would you let it pick a tattoo for you?