Tattoo parlors in the US

American e-filed tax returns and American tattoo parlors, both expanding across the 2010s. Two trends about the country becoming more comfortable with permanent records of itself, in completely different ways.

IRS e-filed returns grew from about 80 million in 2007 to over 150 million by 2022 as the IRS phased out paper acceptance and tax-prep software (TurboTax, H&R Block) expanded. US tattoo parlors grew from about 15,000 in 2007 to over 25,000 by 2022 as tattoos shifted from countercultural to mainstream. Two completely unrelated infrastructure-and-industry lines sharing a window because the same fifteen years rewarded both a digital filing standard and a normalised personal-decoration industry.

Two kinds of permanent record, both more common. The decade liked things you cannot easily undo.