Many people like to get body modifications such as tattoos to express their individuality.
However, some people are completely against these kinds of things. Kerstin Tristan was one of the latter till 2015, when one incident changed her mind for good…
Keep reading to find out more about her journey.
56-year-old Kerstin Tristan is a mother and grandmother. But her hobbies vary a little outside of what might be considered the ‘norm’ for a grandmother. She likes body modification art, mostly tattoos.
She has her entire body covered in tattoos at this point, and to dedicate herself to this level, she had to spend a lot of money. But she did not always love tattoos so much. In fact, she revealed that till 2015, she actually hated tattoos. What changed her mind about them? It was in the same year that she got her first one, which completely shifted her view on the practice.
“I simply just wanted to try something new. We all live just once, and I thought that at my age, something real has to come,” she shared.
Since 2015, she has managed to spend 30,000 euros (approx. US $32,000) on modifying her body with tattoos alone. But thankfully, she has gotten a lot of attention and love because of her actions.
Her Instagram account has over 190,000 followers, and her TikTok videos have millions of views.
She is not shy to show off her looks! She posts pictures of herself showing off her entire body on Instagram. But she did not always look like this, just a decade ago, she was tattoo-free and looked completely different. She sometimes posts comparison photos for people to see the drastic change.
The German-based influencer has images of vibrant roses on her legs, a leopard print tattoo on her shoulders, and several detailed portraits on her arms. These tattoos happen to be among dozens of others on her entire body.
She loves how she looks now, saying, ‘”When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a beautiful meadow full of flowers that one has to love.”
And she is not the only one who loves her look, one fan wrote, “A beautiful work of art.” While, another person wrote, “Wow stunning photo.”
If you liked this piece, you might like the story of Melanie Griffith’s tattoo for Antonio Banderas and the shocking appearance it has today, almost a decade after their divorce.
Expressing yourself is not something that should end with age. If anything, Kerstin is a wonderful example of how age should not define how you choose to express yourself to the world. What do you think of her tattoos? Let us know in the comments.
Walmart alters course: Drops self-checkout expansion amidst customer concerns
The advance of technology helps facilitate our lives a great deal, but do we pay a high price when it comes to relying on the machines way more than we should?
In order to speed up the process of running errands and shopping for groceries, Walmart introduced self-checkouts. What they didn’t expect, however, is to face backlash because of this decision that many of the customers consider controversial.
The self-service machines aren’t something new. In fact, they were first introduced in the 1980s to lower labor expenses.
But this service faced plenty of obstacles and customers complain to the added responsibilities.
For example, certain items may have multiple barcodes, whereas the produce, including the meat, fruit, and vegetable, typically needs to be weighed and manually entered into the system using a code, which might be time consuming for the ordinary shoppers. Other times shoppers won’t hear the “beep” confirming an item has been scanned properly.
Another issue is the increase of theft. Walmart announced that thefts at its stores has reached an all-time high.
The machines not only fall short at their purpose of making shopping easier at times, but they also make it harder for the employees they were meant to help.
Christopher Andrews, a sociologist and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy, says the system “doesn’t work well for anyone.”
He continued: “Everyone feels like they have to have it. Companies are thinking: ‘If we can just get more people on this, maybe we can start reducing some overheads.’”
What’s most, most of the customers have reported that they miss the human interaction while shopping.
Randy Parraz from Making Change at Walmart perfectly summed up customer sentiments by saying, “You can’t convince customers to do the job of a cashier just because you don’t want to pay for the work.”
Walmart decided to listen to what their customers had to say and instead of further expanding automation, the retail giant will hire additional cashiers to provide their customers with a pleasant shopping experience and service.
What Walmart and the rest of the retailers, among which Costco and Wegmans, learned is that efficiency is important but maintaining a balance with positive experiences remains crucial.
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