12-Year-Old Tattoo Artist Goes Viral

From Cosmopolitan

Though getting a tattoo is still largely restricted to the under-18 population, what about a situation where the tattoo artist is the one who's underage? That's the center of the conversation around Ezrah Dormon, a 12-year-old boy who's under the internet spotlight for his tattooing skills.

Dorman was introduced to tattooing after witnessing his mother get one in Panama City, according to a video posted by NowThis late this month. As shared by Teen Vogue, his mother encouraged his interest from the start: "I was just getting that tattoo and Ezrah was just sitting there watching us and talking. And he was like, 'Wow, I really wish I could try that. I would love to know how to do that,' and Ali was, like, 'Well, why don't you try it now?'"

From there, Dorman's first tattoo tryout was on his other father. Since then, he's worked on a couple dozen more as a helper, mostly for "traditional" tattoo designs. His ink moniker? "The Shark."

Has his new hobby earned the middle schooler any cool points? Not at first, but as he explained, "My friends, at the beginning, none of them believed me. Like when I did my mom, I told them that I did the tattoo and they were like, 'Ugh, please.' And some people at school think that it's awesome.

What I want to do is, maybe I would, like, travel around the world with my tattoo gun, or when I go to college I'll have that in my suitcase that I can just pull out and give a tattoo to earn money."

Ah, youth. Watch the NowThis video (which lists Dorman as 11, though his Instagram says otherwise) below:

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