u/Traviality

I have a simple tattoo down my ribs on the left that in medium black font says "Does this tattoo make me look cool?"

People my age and older that comment at all usually just chuckle. Even if that's not their sense of humor, they at least recognize that it's a joke. I only have a few tattoos, and none of them are serious. Most of them poke fun of myself.

However, in the past 5 years or so every time I go swimming I get confused looks from Gen Z and younger. These co-workers or family members that comment about it always seem to be completely baffled. It's not just a difference in humor, they look at it as if it's an entirely different language. Some have asked if it's a song lyric or movie line.

The first time or two one of them asked for an explanation I thought they were joking. There's nothing to explain, it's just a simple somewhat self deprecating, and I guess somewhat meta joke of a tattoo. I've yet to succeed in explaining it to them in a way they find satisfactory. They then usually show me some of their tattoos which always have a long, overly dramatic, personal backstory attached that is a bit much to share with work acquaintances.

It's just a silly tattoo I got when I was 21. I still like it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think anyone would ever be confused by it.

Edit

Holy hell some of these reactions are ridiculous. It's a normally non visible tattoo that fit my group of friend's sense of humor and still gets a nostalgic smile out of me. Despite some odd assumptions in this thread, I live in a cold weather climate and almost never go shirtless in public. It's something I found funny....scratch that, something that is funny, and something that is only seen by me and my significant other 99% of the time. This post was just an oddity I recognized.

Despite all that, some of these comments are acting like I tattooed "Fukc" on my forehead and walk around proudly showing it off. As if it's the most asinine thing they've ever heard of. I'd rather have the baby boomer total anti-tattoo attitude than this weird attempt at high brow tattoo curation. It's like sommeliers who routinely fail controlled testing but take themselves far too seriously to ever stop trying to tell people they're wrong for liking what they do.

I'm muting notifications, but not deleting the thread. The absurdity of these replies should remain.

Despite me once being a pretty serious gamer, the past year I can count my total game hours on one hand. However, awhile ago I gave my still decent rig to my daughter and thankfully she's bucking the recent youth tech illiteracy trend and seems to have picked up PC gaming pretty quickly.
 
For awhile she was playing the normal kids games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and I think Roblox. Recently however she asked me to help set up a steam account. Which I went ahead and did. Other than making sure obvious stuff like adult games wouldn't show up in the steam store, I avoided most of the parental controls. I trust her, plus I know if she's anything like I was when I was her age, she'd be able to bypass controls if she really wanted to.
 
I don't however trust the people I've occasionally heard in her headset. For awhile it was mostly the voices of a few of her friends I know and recognize. Recently however I've heard a couple of older voices I didn't know and at least one who sounded way too old to be playing games with elementary schoolers. Her mom and I are both pretty liberal and like I said I completely trust her.......but all that sort of goes out the window the second I hear what sounds like high school boys talking to my daughter.
 
I don't know if this more gaming or parenting, but I'm looking for advice either way. Hell, maybe there's some light handed tech or software I'm unaware of that can somehow help. Or do I just bite the bullet and tell her that she can only play with her friends for now?