Pre-pandemic tattoo was ‘hilariously unfortunate timing’ for Kentucky woman
For around two years, Leah Holland had contemplated getting a tattoo of a quote one of her friends said about her.
The quote was said in a conversation about things they admire about one another. It meant a lot to Holland, a 25-year-old Kentuckian, because it represented her values in not pretending to be someone she isn’t.
“Courageously & radically refuse to wear a mask,” Holland’s tattoo reads.
Then the coronavirus pandemic began.
Holland got her tattoo at Lexington’s Black Rose Tattoo on March 4, just two days before Kentucky confirmed its first coronavirus case. Ten days later, the state reported its first death.
As of Tuesday, there have been 397,526 coronavirus cases and 4,460 related deaths reported in Kentucky.
Holland is not an anti-masker — in the literal sense, at least — but her tattoo appears to say otherwise.
“A lot of people think that when I got the tattoo I had never heard of COVID. That’s not completely the case,” the Georgetown resident told McClatchy News. “The thing that wasn’t a thing then was anti-maskers.”
As the term “anti-masker” — referring to people who are against wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus — was going around in the spring and summer, Holland often wore long sleeves or cardigans to hide the tattoo, she said.
But now, in a hilarious TikTok she posted this week, Holland was true to herself — just as her tattoo’s message intended.
A recent TikTok trend asks people to share “what is the dumbest tattoo you’ve gotten.” Holland chronicled her tattoo story and showed off the ink in her own TikTok, which has been viewed 2.2 million times this week. TikTok users have found plenty of joy in Holland’s response, with more than 5,300 people commenting.
“Enough time has passed, where this is just hilariously unfortunate timing.” Holland told McClatchy News. “It makes me laugh now, so i thought it would be fun to post.”
@wakaflockafloccar ##stitch with @hannanicbic I could NOT have had worse timing. ##fyp ##foryoupage ##tattoo ##worsttattoo ##winner P.S. I’m not anti-mask I promise ♀️
♬ original sound - wakaflockafloccare
Holland has received national and international attention following her TikTok post. She said she wanted to make the video so people would not misconstrue her tattoo and think she is anti-mask.
“It’s been really cool to see it go viral. We’re all just kind of mind blown,” she said. “I hope people can laugh about it with me as much as I am.”
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