I swayed between feeling crushed by the chaos of life and believing it was all part of a larger plan. For months I railed against my lack of control over these events, going over and over in my mind how I could have prevented them. My mom died suddenly, and three months later, my husband was hit by a car, lucky to escape with his life and a few broken bones. A year before I walked into Electric Anvil, life brought me to my knees. “They remind me there are things in life I can’t control, and that’s okay.”įor me, the appeal of GWYG was also the surrender implicit in the act. “When I look at my GWYG tattoos they remind me that unexpected things in life can turn out to be beautiful,” says Kayla, who has two GWYGs: a girl on the inside of her left ankle and a rose on the outside of her left thigh. In their own way, GWYGs are a rejection of the abundance of choice. It’s no wonder some might find it liberating-rebellious, even-to not overthink something for a change. In the information age, when many of us wouldn’t buy a shoe rack without reading 50 novella-length reviews, the pressure to make the right decision can be uniquely daunting. “I found it thrilling to be able to do it without the pressure of choosing.”

“I wanted a tattoo but I didn’t want to have to decide ,” she tells me. But when I spoke to some women who recently got one, I found the compulsion goes deeper than an internet stunt.īailey, an art student from Fresno, California, got her first GWYG in November-an old-fashioned torch (like the one the Statue of Liberty is holding) on her thigh. This is in part due to social media-the #getwhatyouget hashtag on Instagram has thousands of photos and videos of people reacting as they unfold the paper to discover their tattoo. “GWYG can be a thrill, as well as a way into for people who don’t have a meaningful design in mind, but have that innate urge to decorate their body.” The Pleasure of Not Choosingĭespite being around for over 15 years, the popularity of Get What You Get has spiked in the last year. “It can serve a therapeutic purpose, doing something that feels kind of wild, and doing it with other people-it can be a real emotional high,” she says. In her experience, there are a few common reasons people seek out GWYG tattoos specifically. Now there’s a new generation of people getting tattooed purely because it’s aesthetically pleasing to them-for whom it’s not so serious.” “It was like, no one could get a tattoo just ‘cause they thought it looked cool. “There was a period of time when people felt pressure to get a tattoo that has sooooo much meaning,” she tells me. It’s since become a feature at many tattoo shops in the US and overseas.Įllis says that, at its core, GWYG is a rejection of the popular notion that a design must have sentimental significance in order to justify having it inked on your skin. Although the Get What You Get (GWYG) method was created by Justin Shaw at Faith Tattoo in Santa Rosa, California around 2004, Ellis believes Idle Hand was the first place to use a gumball machine when they started offering the service in 2009.

“There is something magical about letting fate choose your course and just riding that wave,” Holly Ellis, owner and tattooist at Idle Hand Tattoo in San Francisco tells me.

I am a wimp (I’ve never ice-skated because I fear if I fall the blade of someone’s skate will slice off my fingers) and I was stone-cold sober when I let fate decide my tattoo, also known as a “Get What You Get.” The Birth of the “Get What You Get” Tattoo Or maybe you assume I’m a cautionary tale, an example of what can happen when you get too drunk or high or lose a bet.īut you would be wrong. I bet in her spare time she enjoys downhill mountain biking and snake charming. What an adrenaline junkie! you might be thinking. A few minutes later, I got it tattooed on the inside of my right forearm. Inside was a folded piece of paper with a small illustration on it. On a recent Tuesday, I walked into Electric Anvil Tattoo in Brooklyn and turned the dial of an old-school gumball machine.

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