You probably saw that yesterday, Ariana Grande posted a photo showing off a brand new tattoo that ended up being the subject of many jokes and some serious criticism.
The tattoo, inspired by her new song, supposedly read “7 Rings” in the same Japanese Kanji symbols that appeared in the song’s music video.
While many people took the opportunity to make jokes, some people pointed out the more serious side of the situation, saying Ariana shouldn’t use a language she doesn’t understand simply for the “aesthetic”.
ariana’s tattoo... 2012 tumblr girl getting a kanji tattoo for aesthetics without actually caring about japanese culture/people teas
Cultural appropriation of EA languages is a problem + this Ariana situation just highlights it East Asians get their names mocked but here you have white ppl who get tattoos that are completely grammatically incorrect + have people defending her + blaming others for speaking out
not dragging anyone just here thinking about how ppl think ariana using japanese culture for the aesthetic is great but when it comes to actual asian singers ppl are gross and xenophobic
She was also accused of exploiting and appropriating Japanese culture after she originally dropped the video for “7 Rings”.
Now Ariana has attempted to fix the mistake. She posted a screenshot of a conversation with her Japanese tutor, who told her to add the character for “finger” (指) in between and above the original tattoo.
But when Ariana posted a photo of the updated tattoo to her Instagram story, it showed the new symbol had been added ~directly underneath~ the character for seven (七) rather than above and in between the two existing characters.
So Ariana’s new tattoo — “七輪指♡” — actually translates to something like “Japanese BBQ finger ♡”.
Why... how... now Ariana’s tattoo reads “Japanese BBQ finger” 💅
She captioned the photo: “slightly better. thanks to my tutor for helping me fix ... rip tiny charcoal grill. miss u man. i actually really liked u.”
I think we can all agree on the moral of today’s story: If you’re going to get a tattoo, make sure it’s in a language you fully understand.
