I got my tats for a number of reasons, but I'll only get into one, imho the most important reason to me.
I do not want to be viewed as a classy educated, aka boring kind of person. I come from vikings on one side, and Italian thugs on the other, and while I live in a fancy house in a nice neighbourhood, it's not me. Tattoos have always represented to me, as you said "poor man's art". Maybe poor is the wrong word though, "working class" could be a better term? Basically, it's always been the stamp of the working man, a man I can relate to best.
ninjas[HTML_REMOVED]vikings
meh