Hey, just a heads-up. This episode contains some crude language and adult themes.

This is Underunderstood.

Hello.

Hey, Billy.

Hi, Billy.

Hi.

We’re back.

Wow.

Yeah. I’m happy to be here on the new weekly version of Underunderstood.

It’s good to be back.

Today I have something from a listener who called into our voicemail.

Hey there. So, this is Erich. I have been watching, or I have watched a show called How Far Is Tattoo Far? I’ve been seeing it on Snapchat, but believe it is originally an MTV show.

Okay. So let me stop there.

He’s seeing it on Snapchat.

Yeah. Clips of it on, I think it’s like one of the official-

Snapchat Discover.

Yes. Yeah. I think you can watch it through Snapchat Discover. So, are any of you familiar with this show?

Absolutely not.

I have not heard of this show.

What was it called?

How Far is Tattoo Far?

Yeah.

Oh God, no.

Okay. This is the show that’s on MTV. Here’s the description from IMdB. “Relationships are put to the tests by asking pairs of friends, family members, and couples to design tattoos for each other that won’t be revealed until after they’ve been permanently inked.”

No. No.

Wow.

So you still not familiar with this?

No.

No. That’s a terrible idea.

Okay. So well, like many terrible ideas that end up on American television, this was based on a British show called Just Tattoo of Us.

Oh my God.

They were like, let’s come up with a worse pun.

How can we top this?

But there was a lot of fans of this show before the American version was made. A headline from a 2017 Vice article called Just Tattoo of Us, quote, “The greatest show on British Television.” A headline from a 2018 writeup on The Wrap calls it, quote, “The best worst show on TV.” And a 2019 piece in The Guardian said the show was, quote, “A bit like getting waterboarded by a Ministry of Sound compilation — exhausting, frenetic, and bulging with the excitable energy of being young.”

Oh.

I’m not British enough to know if that comparison is a compliment or an insult.

You’re being waterboarded with the sensation of being young.

Let’s watch a clip and you can be the judge.

Oh boy.

I can’t believe you’ve done that to me, Jack.

So, this is a reveal of someone’s tattoo.

It’s the Mean Girls cast.

So, she’s got the cast of Mean Girls on her leg, but what does it mean?

Oh my God.

What I don’t get, what is it?

So basically, yeah-

You’re such-

She realized that she’s a nymphomaniac, and this one time she made me go down on her for so long, I watched the whole film of Mean Girls whilst going down on her. So, she’s got the Mean Girls cast tattooed.

Oh my God.

Okay. So…

Oh my God.

So that one was actually pretty tame. Some of them are, I would say very overtly-

That was tame? I was going to be like, wait, are we putting this on the main feed?

But so, her partner is completely covered in tattoos, and she doesn’t have any visible ones.

Yeah. I think she has not really visible here, but yeah, again, some people are people who are very inked up and some people don’t have, don’t seem to have any tattoos.

The tattoo is also not really recognizably the cast of Mean Girls.

Oh, yes, it is. I recognize it.

Oh, I thought it was recognizable.

Okay. Adrianne and Regina both recognized it.

Okay.

But the tattoo itself is pretty tame in that one, is what I’m saying. The story behind it is very personal, but some of them are really overtly grotesque. But anyway, so this show, again, was kind of a hit in the UK. So, naturally MTV made a separate American version, again called How Far Is Tattoo Far. Also, naturally, they got Snooki to star in it as one of the hosts. It was originally hosted by Snooki from Jersey Shore of course.

Does Snooki have tattoos?

Yes.

She must.

And then Nico Tortorella.

Never heard that name in my life.

And then Snooki was out for a while on maternity leave, and someone else filled in — Justina Valentine. But Snooki is the main star, I would say, of the American version.

Nicole and Nico are teaming up to host their new reality show. It’s called How Far Is Tattoo Far?

When the US version came out, it actually promised to be tamer, kind of, in some regards, than the UK version. So, this is from an article from October 2018 when the show was first in introduced in the United States. It’s from Refinery 29 says, “Despite all the emotions on set, Tortorella, who has dedicated much of their time to sex and body positivity, made sure to, quote, ‘put a positive spin on every single tattoo featured on the series.'” Quote, “So much of the work I do is about celebrating life and humanity and identity and expression,” Tortorella said.

It’s a trust factor. It’s communication, it’s honesty, it’s also a way to get your secrets or air out your laundry in a way that you can’t do just talking to somebody.

They go on to say something about how there is this famous tattoo from the British version that is the word, S-L-U-T spelled out on somebody’s back and in the red sensor font with a box around it and kind of with burn marks to make it look like it was branded into their skin.

On the lower back?

I believe it was actually her butt cheek, but Tortorella actually does say lower back in this quote. But yeah.

And that was given to her by someone else.

Yes. By a friend. Anyway, they go on to say, “I’m not going to be part of a show that is degrading women anywhere in the United States right now. We’re just not doing that.”

Uh-huh.

Well. Well. Well.

That’s the claim. I would say that claim doesn’t totally hold up. So, let’s watch a clip of How Far is Tattoo far, the US version. Here’s a reveal of a tattoo.

Bitch. What the **** is that?

Balls.

Oh, no.

Are you serious. Balls?

Testicles.

What the **** were you thinking?

What were you thinking?

Okay. So, in case you didn’t catch that, the reveal there, was it the tattoo was testicles.

It’s in color.

Yes. Yes. A color tattoo of testicles coming out of the back of her hind quarters. So again, very highbrow, very high brow show. But our caller says they enjoy it and they-

Oh, right. There was a caller.

Yes. They say they enjoy the show, and they have a question about it.

Great show. Very entertaining. The show claims that the tattoos are real, but I saw some posts on Reddit where people were doubting that, that the tattoos don’t look swollen or bloody enough.

Oh my God.

To be real rather than marker.

That’s a good point.

Oh wow.

The question is, are all the tattoos real or are some are all fake? I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.

That’s totally right. That tattoo looks old.

Yeah. But maybe they just… do they fake the reveal?

That looked like the first time she had seen it.

Well, but then either way, she’s acting because she’s like acting really well that this is on her body forever. And she’s disappointed, right? Or she’s acting really well because she’s seen it.

I want to believe it’s fake. I want them to be fake.

There’s another option too, right? Like how you cover them with plastic and stuff? They could have also covered it with something opaque, and she might have waited however many weeks to actually see it on the show.

I was just reading about semi-permanent tattoos.

Oh, yeah.

What are those?

Tattoos where the ink dissolves after 18 months.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. That is a thing. Specifically, there’s one company that gets all the press attention for this. They’re called Ephemeral, is the name of the company, ephemeral.tattoo is the website.

That’s a good URL.

Are those less bloody in any way?

I think the process is basically the same for them.

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Quote, “Made to fade in about nine to 15 months.” And these have been around long enough now where there’s lots of, you can find, there’s like a Buzzfeed article where they try them out and they show here’s what it is after so many months and you know, do see them eventually go away. So, it could be something like that. That is relatively new tattoo technology, though.

It’s intriguing, and I kind of want one.

I also think all of the pictures I’ve seen of it are black ink. I don’t know if they do color tattoos yet with this kind of tattoo tech.

That’s fine.

Well, it’s fine. But that on how far-

Oh, but on the show. Right. Right. Right. On the show, they’re color… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

… yeah. They’re full color tattoos.

Right. I see, I thought you were just advising me on what tattoo I could be getting.

No.

All right. I’m full in now. Yeah.

Okay. So first, let me give you some of the skepticism from Reddit that I believe our caller Erich is referencing. So, here’s some comments. These are from a thread on Reddit titled, “On How Far Is Tattoo Far by Snooki, are the tattoos real or fake?” I also love how they say by Snooki. Like it’s like from the mind of Snooki, like she’s like Alfred Hitchcock or something.

Here’s what people on Reddit say, Megsk says, “Doesn’t make sense how they all looked fully healed. LOL.” Then someone replies, “Exactly what I was thinking. Some of the girls are extremely pale too. There’s no way their skin wouldn’t be even slightly red after getting a tattoo.”

These are good points.

Someone else says, “Fake. No swelling, no bleeding, all fake.” And someone says, “Some of the tattoos, like the pageant girl with the nut sack on her waist.” That’s our friend. That’s our friend. “Some of the tattoos, like the pageant girl with the nut sack on her waist look extremely fake.” And another person replies, “I saw two seconds of this show today, and the girl was touching her new tattoo, no swelling, no bleeding, and touching it. That’s not real.” So, if you simply Google are the tattoos from How Far is Tattoo Far real or fake? It’ll give you an answer. It basically says that they’re, “100% real.”

According to the Distractify, the ink shown on camera is 100% real.

What Google is doing is citing a Distractify article.

The investigative journalists at Distractify.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very SEO article because it contains different sections with different common questions, questions like, “Do the How Far is Tattoo Far contestants get paid?” “How to apply for How Far is Tattoo Far?” And of course, “Is How Far is Tattoo Far, real or fake?”

So, in that section it says, “The ink shown on camera is 100% real. Co-host Nicole Snooki Polizzi revealed that the process can be painful to watch. Quote, ‘We cried every episode,’ the Jersey Shore alum said, of herself and co-host Nico Tortorella. So, these quotes don’t really address whether the show is real or not. I’m not sure how they’re supposed to support that claim, but also the quotes aren’t cited.

Okay. So, did you figure out where they come from?

I did. I’m pretty sure it seems like they come from actually that Refinery 29 article that I mentioned earlier, the article where they say that they don’t want the tattoos to be degrading to women.

And they say the tattoos are real.

They don’t. That’s the thing. They say those quotes about how it was emotional, but they don’t say anything about whether it’s real or not. But if you try to Google for answers on this, again, it always brings you back to this Distractify article.

It’s like Distractify has flooded the scene with information on the validity of tattoos on How Far is Tattoo Far.

So, where I started was that I tried to look for the tattoo artists on the show. So, I started to look for the tattoo artists. They all seem legit as far as I can tell. They’re not like actors. They’re like legitimate tattoo artists. But as you pointed out, Adrianne, that doesn’t mean that they’re doing permanent tattoos, right? So, a lot of people, as I pointed out with the Reddit post, a lot of people are just extremely skeptical of this show. I think that’s bled into other parts of the internet. I think it’s a common thing. People on Instagram, people on Twitter are trying to figure out if this show is real or not.

Maybe this is naive, but I have to think what is the point of even making the show if they don’t end up with real tattoos? Right?

I wouldn’t be surprised if real people would do this to each other and real people would sign up for it. That wouldn’t surprise me. But the fact that the tattoos look like they’re two weeks old is weird.

So one of the tattoo artists on the show directly addressed these internet rumors in a post.

Oh, okay.

On Instagram. So, this is from Jordan on the show, who goes by Dollars Tattoo, “One time for all the skeptics. The tattoos @MTV_tattoofar are very real. Don’t believe me. See for yourself. These people sat for hours of tattooing while blindfolded. Don’t let your TV conspiracy theories discredit the contestants who really went through this experience. Thank you to all who took a risk and went for it. And for those still in disbelief, we are casting for season two. So sign up and find out firsthand.”

What does see for yourself mean in that post?

So, I’ll send you a link here.

Come get inked.

This will be in the show notes too. Of course.

Oh boy.

Can you describe it?

Okay. So, I don’t know what part of the body is this an arm?

I think that’s the upper thigh, right?

Yeah. This is like side exterior buttocks.

Yeah.

Sorry. I don’t know why I said exterior as opposed to interior buttocks where people get tattoos all the time.

Their butt hole. Yeah. This ring would be the size of a person’s head.

Yeah. So, can you describe what’s in the photo?

It’s a big diamond ring. It’s a huge, huge diamond ring. And under it in script it says third time’s a charm.

Not even third time’s the charm.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s wrong. But also, okay, I have questions about this image.

Sure.

It looks a little swollen.

Although it’s like a little ring around it in a way that looks like fake.

Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. This looks like the thing where when you select an object in Photoshop, a little bit of white gets left on the edges of it?

Yeah. It’s like a content aware mishap.

This looks like a stick-on. Regina, you’re totally right. The third time’s a charm is so much tackier than it.

Yeah.

Wait, so you’re saying it should be third time’s-

The charm.

The charm?

Yeah. Because third time’s a charm means nothing.

Means there could be a fourth.

But isn’t the saying third time’s a charm?

No. The sayings third time’s the charm. The charm.

Oh, really? Oh, wow.

Because it’s like it’s supposed to be definitive. It’s not supposed to be one of many.

Oh, you’re right. I mean, yeah. So, the person that this tattoo is on is actually Angelina from Jersey Shore.

My name is Angelina. I am here with-

Fans of Jersey Shore might remember as the cast member refer to as a dirty little hamster.

Yeah. You think I’m a dirty little hamster?

I’m sure that’s ringing your bell with you.

Yeah. That classic TV moment.

Snooki is the only character that I even know.

Okay. So… has she posted any pics since then?

Yes. Yeah. So…

Any bikini pics?

That was my thought, because she was on the show as a celebrity guest. She was on the very first episode of the show. So, it was like to help promote it, a fellow Jersey Shore person on the show with Snooki.

Do you remember Angelina from Jersey Shore?

The girl that you kicked out of, and then she left the house?

Hardly. I was wasted. She’s such a trash and I love her. She’s coming with her fiancé-

Her and her, I believe her fiancé at the time, got tattoos. This is the one she got because the fiance was the third person who’s proposed to her that she’s had a ring from. So, it’s her ring. Third time’s a charm.

It say what? I think it says right now.

Why would you put that on me?

Third time’s a charm. I’m the charm.

And yes, I wanted to look up I to see if there were other pictures of her where you can maybe see the tattoo. And sure enough, if you look on her Instagram, you can find bikini photos of her where you can see the tattoo. So, here’s one.

There it is. Yup. Yup. It’s in a bunch of them.

This was a real one. So, this was posted on March 28th, 2022?

Oh, it doesn’t look as big when you see it in context of her whole body.

Does look smaller there perhaps? The butt increased in size.

It’s a big tattoo. It’s a big tattoo. It’s like six inches in diameter.

Now if you look at this example from Reddit, the tattoo looks… do you see it?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Huh.

It looks faded, right?

Yeah.

And it almost looks like the text below it has been smudged or something. Maybe she tried to remove the text below it.

Oh, you think she tried to remove it in Photoshop? Or she tried to remove it in real life? Or is it an ephemeral tattoo?

I have no idea. It doesn’t look Photoshopped to me.

Here’s a photo from 34 weeks ago. How long ago is that?

Not that long ago. I mean, she was on the first season of the show, which was in 2018. So…

Yeah. So, it’s still visible. This is not a close up, so you can’t see whether it’s smudged or faded, but it’s still there.

Yeah. It is coming up on… I think almost five years since that first episode, so about five years. So, I would think if it was an ephemeral tattoo, that would’ve faded.

What did you say earlier? It was like a year and a half it takes to fade?

Nine to 15 months. Yeah. So, it would’ve been long faded. And again, you can find people who’ve sort of tested this.

Wait, did we cover if she’s still married to the person?

Yeah. This is what I want know.

I’m not too up to date on the Jersey Shore gossip.

Oh, man.

Oh yeah. It looks like they broke up. They broke up in 2022.

So, it was just a charm.

Yeah. Maybe they knew. Yeah.

And he still has her tattoo, which is a hamster having explosive red something out of its butt.

So she seems to still have the tattoo, right? I think we can all agree on that. Granted, it’s not a particularly bad one, especially if you don’t think about the text. If you take the text out of the equation, it’s just a got a big-

Well, she is divorced. So, in that sense it is not a great tattoo to have now.

I know, but compared to what she gave her fiancé, which is a hamster-

Sure. Okay. Yup. Yup.

… having various body fluids spew out of its rear end. It’s not like repulsive to look at, right?

Uh-huh.

So, it seems real, but again, she’s a celebrity, so maybe she had more of a say, maybe it’s possible that hers is real and others aren’t. Or she ended up liking it and had the means to get it turned into a real tattoo. We don’t know. So, I started to search around on YouTube and TikTok. I didn’t find really anything on YouTube, but on TikTok I found at least three people who were on the show and seem to still have their tattoos like visible. You can see them in the videos, and there’s at least one example of someone who is on the show who says that they have the tattoo for life is how they say it in the video. Someone named Darcy who was on the show.

[Autotuned] One time, my friend Brad called me and said, “Would you like to be on MTV?” Of course, I would like to be on MTV. How could I not want to be on MTV? So, he signed us up for How Far is Tattoo Far? And I go to New York, and I meet Snooki, and I have black car service and I have a great time until the reveal and I see that I have this stupid tattoo and I don’t want this tattoo, but it’s stuck on me for life.

What a performance.

Yeah. I know, right?

For all of that though, we only got a short blurry glance at the tattoo, and I have no idea what it was about.

John is a tattoo truther. That’s so funny that some people are like, of course I want to be on MTV.

I don’t… yeah.

If you called me and said, do you want to be on MTV? I would say, you know that I don’t want to be on MTV. Why did you even think of me? Have you already called everyone else you know?

Okay. Here’s a screenshot of her tattoo from the actual show.

We can’t read this on the internet.

Yeah. So basically, it’s like a schedule.

This is unfortunately also very ugly and just full of primary colors.

Yeah. It looks maybe like four by six inches or something.

It’s like a day planner.

And it’s a day planner and it’s like a schedule of sexual activities to do throughout the day.

12:00 PM the hottie next to work, 3:00 PM appointment 4:00 PM try ****. You’re free at 5.

Lightly censored with asterisks instead of full words.

Yes as if that makes it better. As if the curse words were the problem.

Yeah. This is not a good tattoo.

So, she says that she’s stuck with the tattoo for life and that she doesn’t want it. But to your point, you can only see the tattoo really quickly. It looks like it might be faded or something. It seems possible that it’s not actually permanent tattoo ink. I believe her but all I have is this TikTok and I feel like I need some more direct sources. So, I try emailing people who have posted publicly online about being on the show. I don’t have much luck with that at first. So, then I try being more direct and DMing people on Instagram with basically just the question that I want to know the answer to.

Uh-huh.

I’ll also keep these anonymous.

I’m imagining getting a DM on Instagram that just says, are the tattoos real?

Yeah. That’s what I did basically. So, the first person I asked are the tattoos on How Far is Tattoo Far real?” And they actually responded, but this is what’s interesting. They said, quote, “It is done with studio ink. Only for the camera.”

What?

What is studio ink?

“None of the duos actually come up with the tattoo ideas. Some duos don’t even know each other in real life.” And then they did the tipped over crying, laughing emoji.

This someone who’s on the show?

Yes.

Huh, what?

Yeah. So, I said, “Oh wow, so not permanent?” And then they didn’t get back to me. So, the next day I responded. “Sorry, one other question. Did they give you the option to turn it into a real tattoo afterwards if you wanted? It seems like some people from the show still have theirs.” And then the person said, “I mean, technically I’m not really supposed to be answering any questions since there’s contracts about defaming the show. I can’t speak for other people, especially those who were on other seasons because I’m not sure if there were any differences between the seasons. I just speak from my experience, what I saw and what I was told.” Shrug emoji. “I hope that’s helpful. I did go back to the same tattoo artist to have mine redone in real ink. As a memorable tattoo. And he told me some of the shit show that went on behind the scenes and stuff, but by month six, the show the ink was extremely faded.” So, I think they mean what they were calling show ink.

Ah, okay.

Okay.

So, I told them I appreciate it. They were like-

They said, “Do not read this.”

No. They were like, “Okay. Just don’t say my name.” Basically.

Oh my gosh.

So, like I said, I reached out to a bunch of people with my very direct Instagram DM queries. I heard back from someone else, and this will also remain anonymous. I sent them a message that says, “Did you have your tattoo from How Far is Tattoo Far made permanent after the show?

Oh, interesting. That’s an interesting way to ask that question.

Uh-huh.

Thank you. And they eventually responded, “Hello to you too.” And then the crying laughing emoji, and I said, “LOL, sorry. Hi. Just asking around, because I’ve seen mixed reports of the tattoos being real versus fake. Sorry to bother you.” And they said, “They’re definitely real. And no, we didn’t get them fake drawn on then tattooed.”

Huh? This is all over the place.

I think it’s a mix. I think it’s a mix.

Then I responded. “Oh, interesting.”

And that was the end of-

No. Then I said — that probably should have been the end of the exchange — nut then I said, “Someone who was on season two told me, ‘It is done with studio ink only for the camera. None of the duos actually come up with the tattoo ideas. Some duos don’t even know each other in real life.'” And then this person responded, “They lied to you.” And then they said, “Are you just going around to people on the show asking them about it?” And I said, “Yeah. I’ve asked a few people because the info that’s publicly available about it is lacking. And there are a lot of random people who insist that it’s fake without any specific evidence.” And then the person responded, “Okay. Well, I’m done talking about it. Mad weird you’re hitting people up like this, to be honest.”

Huh?

That’s fair.

I don’t know. I have a guilty conscious in general. I have extreme social anxiety about reaching out. Every time I reach out to somebody, even if it’s the most innocent thing, it’s like I’m throwing down the most disgusting liquid medicine or something. I’m like-

I share this with you.

… I’m just like down the gullet-

Yes. Yes.

… Whatever. Got to do this.

Yup.

I don’t know how you guys do this thing that we do.

Oh, it’s torture. It’s torture. It’s complete-

How have we been doing this for five years?

I ask myself that every time I have to send an email or call anyone. So, it’s like an hour of hyping myself up.

I have some of this. But nothing like what you’re saying.

No. It’s extreme.

Yeah. Mine is also very, very extreme, like debilitating.

I think it’s like for most of the time, this is an interesting thing that breaks up someone else’s day. Even though this person is saying it’s mad weird, they’re enjoying this interaction.

I don’t believe anyone enjoys any interaction. I think that’s the fundamental problem.

So, I’m very sorry to this person if you’re listening. Okay.

It’s really strange to me. This seems rare that you get a bunch of people, like you’ve actually found people to ask, and the answers vary so widely. That seems very strange.

Yeah.

I feel like we’ve had these kinds of questions before and they’re it like you get an answer, but I don’t get it.

Yeah. I was feeling that way too, but I got an interview with someone who was on the show, and it suddenly made all of this make a lot more sense.

Really?

So, we will play that interview after the break.

Hi listeners. Adrianne here. Underunderstood is an independent production made in our spare time because we love to do it. We’re able to do it because of the generous support of listeners on Patreon. Underunderstood Patreons make it possible for us to license music, published transcripts, access research tools, buy software, and now even pay an editor to help us make the show better. We now have two tiers on our Patreon. $3 a month gets you access to our awesome Discord community and a monthly live stream. $5 a month gets you all of that. Plus a podcast feed containing our extensive back catalog of bonus episodes and new recordings of the live streams and maybe some other extras.

Both tiers help keep the show sustainable and ad free. Plus, you get to join a very cool group of people who hang out together online. For those of you who are already Patrons or have ever been a Patron, we can’t thank you enough. If you’d like to join, go to patreon.com/underunderstood. One more thing, we have a voice mailbox now where listeners can leave messages and ask us to solve mysteries. The number is 212-994-4882. Seriously, leave us a message. We want to hear from you. Again, that number is 212-994-4882.

Now back to the show.

Hello.

Hello.

Hey Billy.

We’re back.

I feel refreshed.

And as promised, I have an interview with someone who was on the show.

Oh my gosh.

Okay. So, do you remember this TikTok I played?

One time my friend Brad, called me-

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, her name is Darcy and I talked to her.

Nice.

Did you talk to her in that singing thing?

No. She took the filter off.

Hello.

Hello, Darcy?

Hi. Yes. This is Darcy.

Just a reminder, this is the woman who had the day planner on her lower back, the large day planner.

Does she still have the… I guess you’re going to find this out.

Yeah. We’ll find out. Just to ask the big question upfront. The tattoo you got on the show, that’s real?

Yeah. The tattoo was real, and it was a real celebrity tattoo artist that created the tattoo and then put it on me. And it was about five and a half hours for the tattoo to be complete from start to finish.

Wow. Okay.

Yeah. And I was wearing noise-canceling headphones and blinding goggles the entire time.

So, this is just torture.

So, it is like, it’s almost like sensory deprivation or something for that whole time.

Yeah. It definitely was. And I think that’s something that they did to up the dramatics because it made me super emotional to be going through such a dissociating experience.

I’m absolutely petrified. I hope it’s something that I’m not completely embarrassed of for the rest of my life.

So, as you might remember, one of the people who I spoke to anonymously said that they had a contract that prohibited them from openly defaming the show. Darcy confirmed she had a really extensive contract, but she told me that it was no longer valid.

I believe the contract was about 22 pages. It just recently expired though.

Okay. That’s good. So, is that why you feel you can talk freely about it? Or…

Yeah.

Okay. I don’t remember. Was this Darcy’s first tattoo?

This was her first tattoo, yes.

Oh my God. Oh my God, this experience. Five and a half hours blindfolded with noise-canceling headphones on, not knowing what the tattoo is going to be on your back. This is terrifying.

And the thing that’s even more wild on top of that is that she didn’t directly sign herself up for this experience.

What?

So, actually in my case, the person that I went on the show with signed me up first. So, I had no idea I had been signed up until the representatives from MTV called me. And once that happened, I felt like, “Okay. I’ll just continue with this. But I do believe that he applied online and went through that process. And before we started filming, MTV would call me about once a week just to catch up, go over ideas and to discuss the process more. They didn’t give you tell you everything that’s going to happen in the first call.

Interesting.

So, with every call, I had a little bit of a better idea of what I was going to be going through once I got to New York.

So on, what did they say on the first call?

I think they just say like-

They’re like, so you come to a room, and we turn on a camera, that’s it.

I did have a pretty good idea that I would be going on the show. And Brad, the person who I was on the show with was, him and I were separated the entire day, but they didn’t break down the different segments that we were going to be doing or what we were necessarily going to be filming until I got to New York.

Got it. Okay. But she knew there was going to be a tattoo, right?

She did, yes. However, she didn’t have any say in what it was.

I had absolutely no control over my tattoo. However, for the other person I got to choose, they gave me three options. They designed the tattoo. I didn’t draw anything. They gave me three options to pick out of. And then once I pick the design of the tattoo, I get to pick the size, the colors and the placements. But this was for the other person, so he was in charge of doing that for my tattoo.

So, what she’s saying is essentially she had no oversight in what she was getting that was genuine, that she did not know what it was. But for the other person, she was given the light choice of being able to choose from three kind of pre-designed options.

And did you have any hesitation as you were getting close to the moment where you knew there was like no going back?

Yes, I did, and I actually spoke with my representative at MTV that I was speaking to weekly, and I was like, “What would happen if I didn’t do it now that I signed a contract?” And I, at the end of the day, basically could not afford to do that.

However, that was communicated to her. It was communicated to her in some way where they were like, it’d be very expensive for you to not go through with this now that you signed.

What?

I cannot imagine a contract where you would be in trouble for refusing to get a tattoo for a reality show. That just seems so arguable in court.

Well, yeah, but when you’re the person who’s being told that by a producer-

Right. Who is seemingly on your side, they’re like, you’re a rep.

Yeah. Wow. This is worse than I thought.

Yeah.

They wanted to portray me in a way that I fighting them on set about. They were like, “Oh, say this.” And I was like, “No. I’m not comfortable saying that.”

I know what I’m in for, but Brad better be ready. I’m using this tattoo to expose Brad because I just need him to know that we love him just the way that he is, and he needs to learn to be comfortable in his own skin.

The two parts on the show that were completely not scripted, I don’t know if you’ve seen the whole episode.

Yes.

There’s like an interview with Snooki and Nico and Brad, all four of us sitting on couches. That was completely not scripted.

I mean, I’ve had my fair share of one-night stands, not too many, but enough.

So, this what you’re portraying in the tattoo?

I’m just a little fed up with Darcy and I kind of just want to get my point across.

And then the reveal. So, when both Brad and I are in front of the mirrors for his reveal and my reveal, neither of us were being fed lines or had any earpieces or anything.

Got it. So, the emotional reaction is more or less genuine?

Yes. All of the emotions on set were genuine. I will say when they came in to see me while I was getting tattooed, they were prompting me to get me to cry. “Oh, this is the worst tattoo we’ve ever done on the show. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have signed off on this.” But then they would start recording right after they say that. So, then I’m crying.

Oh my God.

Is it really that bad, Nico?

Oh, my God.

She said, it’s the worst one she’s done. You’re going to make me cry.

So, a lot of the time they’re pushing that emotion out of you, but the reveal was completely raw.

So, I’m just mind blown. Not anyone would even think of this tattoo. It’s not right. I don’t think it’s red at all. And I’m quite upset actually.

What did the other guy get?

So, he has a very spray tanned look. It’s like a tattoo of a spray can, spraying orange bronzer.

Oh, it says fraud on his.

And it’s much smaller.

Okay. That’s not on the same level.

No. Not at all. That’s a completely different league.

Before we went on the show and everything, we were in, I guess you could say cahoot, and I told him, “Hey, this is what your tattoo’s going to be.” And he was like, “Okay.” And then he was like, “Just so, you know, this is what your tattoo’s going to be.” But I do feel like upon getting there, they changed my tattoo or Brad lied to me because what they told me his tattoo was going to be was exactly that, but mine was not what he told me his was going to be.

What?

Wow. I would be so angry.

Yeah. I mean, I would imagine if I was to put myself in the mindset of a villainous producer of this show, right? It actually is a better dynamic to have one tattoo that’s really bad and then one that’s not so bad because it creates this tension of someone was really wronged. And it was… there’s some inequity. Right? An inequity is great dramatic fodder.

Yeah.

I was genuinely really shocked, and I’m not speaking for Brad here, but I do know for his reveal, he was genuinely acting like he was acting and putting his best foot forward because he knew exactly what his tattoo was going to be.

Sure. Oh, that’s interesting. And do think-

You’re not supposed to be in cahoots like that, but of course we’ve been friends for years.

Until MTV destroyed their friendship.

No. They’re still friends, they say. One thing I think that leads people to having a lot of questions about the show, the reason someone sent a question into our podcast about it is that if you search on Google for how real are the tattoos on How Far is Tattoo Far, you’ll find stuff. There’s a lot of Reddit threads and most of the comments are people saying, “Oh, this is definitely fake. The tattoos don’t look fresh enough. They’re not red. They’re not swollen.”

Yeah. So, after the tattoo happened, just because I’ve gotten thousands of those comments.

Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I don’t need to explain that to you.

Yeah. Everyone’s all these tears for a fake tattoo and it’s the tattoo experience is the same. What the artist told me, the celebrity artist who did my tattoo was like, “This is stage ink.” So, it’s meant to look really bright and colorful. I didn’t go as deep as you normally would in a normal tattoo, so this should fade. She even told me, she was like, “If you don’t take care of this tattoo and lay out in the sun for a bit, it’s going to fade a little bit and a lot quicker than a normal tattoo would.” However, it still was permanently on my body, and it only faded slightly after two years before I got it covered up.

So, this was a big clarifying moment for me.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because when the one person who I DMed said that I can’t remember if he called it stage ink, but he basically said the same thing.

You said studio ink in the first call.

Studio ink. Right. Yeah. I assumed that meant it wasn’t a permanent tattoo, that it was something like the company Ephemeral that makes ephemeral tattoo, so it was something like that. Or maybe even something even less permanent than that.

Right. Hers does look a lot different in the show versus her TikTok. The colors look completely different.

Right. So, I think some of that faded, but she says after two years it was still very clearly the same tattoo. It wasn’t like you could barely see it. It was still very prominently there.

I waited, takes like wait for it to fade to get the cover-up, but then after two years it had barely faded and so I wasn’t going to wait any longer. And it ended up being cheaper getting a coverup than removal. But I like it is a very real tattoo. They use needles, they clean it, they shave your back, they do all of the same steps as a normal tattoo.

So, do you have any sense of how universal that experience is? Do you have any insight into other people on the show outside of your specific experience?

So, while you’re filming, there’s like another couple going around filming different segments at the same time on set. So, once I was done, I saw another couple who were just regular people who weren’t in the industry, and they were getting the same tattoo process as I was like their tattoos were real. I never had any indication while on set or speaking with MTV that in any case, on their show, they’ve ever given a fake tattoo.

So, our caller who called into the show, they asked are the tattoos on How Far is Tattoo Far, real or fake? And I talked to a bunch of people who were on the show. Every single person that I was able to talk to directly told me that they still have their tattoo or that they had it covered up. There was that one anonymous source who originally told me that their tattoo was done with studio ink. I later confirmed that they did have their tattoo from the show covered up and transformed into something more attractive. So, while they claim it faded a bit, it was permanent enough that they needed to cover it up. And I have found a number of people since talking to Darcy who have either shown their tattoos or talked about them, these range from industry people like this guy B Dave, who is an influencer who did the show and is now doing celebrity boxing matches where you can see his tattoo during weigh-ins. You can see it as recently as a few weeks ago in a boxing weigh in.

What does the B in B Dave stand for?

Great question. I don’t know. And now it stands for boxing, because he’s boxing. Boxing Dave.

And I will say I also found people who are just normal non-industry people, people who are more like Darcy. There’s these guys, Connor and Trevor who were on the show, they don’t have a big following online, but they did do a YouTube video where they address people’s questions about the show and if it’s fake and they show their tattoos to prove that they still have them.

This is not what I wanted the answer to be.

Yeah. It’s real, baby. So, I can say fairly confidently that while the tattoo artists might be making some modifications to their normal practices to make sure these tattoos are vibrant and not too swollen on TV, the tattoos on How Far is Tattoo Far are actual genuine, real tattoos.

What a bummer.

Yeah. It was especially a bummer for Darcy.

Right? Yeah. It’s a bummer for the people on the show.

I did not do very well mentally after the show. After the show I almost felt like I was in hiding because I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what my tattoo was, and I wasn’t allowed to show anyone. So, I was very secluded to myself. But I will say when the episode finally aired and I was receiving all of these hate comments and thousands of people calling me names, that definitely took a huge toll. That was probably those couple of months when MTV was releasing everything on Snapchat and YouTube. That was definitely the time where I was like, “Damn, I shouldn’t have done that.” Or I regretted it then.

Yeah. And one thing I find interesting is the first season of the show, there’s a news article I was reading where they were talking about, they said in the British version that it was based off of, the most famous tattoo was someone got like S-L-U-T really big on their lower back. And they said, “Oh, one difference in this version is we don’t want to do stuff like that. We don’t want to degrade women like that.” Do you feel like that- I think I know the answer, but do you feel like that promise held up? Or do you think the show went in a different direction?

Yes. MTV degrades women as part of their brand in all of their shows that they do. I know production wise, MTV didn’t care, but Snooki and Nico both sat me down once the cameras were off and sincerely apologized and said, “Look, we didn’t know what the tattoo was until they showed us today. I’m really sorry. We would’ve never signed off on this had we known. You’re a 19-year-old girl who’s literally just in college, who’s never been in a relationship.” Nico, the host, felt really bad and so did Snooki and I do believe that was one of the factors that led Snooki not to come back for the season after. And that’s why even though she was pregnant and she had a kid, and that’s one of the things that it… there were several things that went into Snooki not coming back to the show, but the fact that she realized that they did not care about women and what they were putting on these women’s bodies… because I wasn’t the only woman who was on the show who had a severely degrading tattoo. You know?

Yeah.

Ugh. I’m so mad for Darcy.

Yeah.

Also, she sounds extremely reasonable, and she tried to advocate for herself and just got steamrolled as a 19-year-old who signed a contract that was scary.

Yeah.

How do these people sleep at night? I realize it’s just a tattoo. It’s not like they had permanent harm, but it still seems really invasive and destructive for a show I hadn’t even heard of until we did this episode.

Yeah.

Okay. She’s still friends with Brad, though?

She is still friends with Brad.

I guess a lot of people questioned why I’m still friends with Brad, and I talked to him pretty regularly, and my answer to that is always that like MTV was in control of almost everything. I know my experience was just picking out of a three choices. And so, I can imagine his experience was the same, and I’m not going to sit here and hold a grudge over it. And a lot of people are like, “Oh, he fucked you over.” Like, no. MTV, fucked me over. He was just the scapegoat they used.

This is sort of the beautiful thing from Darcy, in my opinion, is that she doesn’t blame anyone individually for the pain, the physical and emotional pain that the show caused her. What she expressed to me was that she just thinks that the approach that they have at MTV, and they have for making this show is bad, specifically bad for women. And despite the tattoos being real, despite the consequences of the show being real, her and her friend were being fed lines, they were arguably being emotionally manipulated, and they were being kind of set up to operate within these really predefined rails of the show, regardless of what they wanted to happen. The only possible outcome for her was to basically end up with this large, again, very real and very degrading tattoo.

So, this is a reality TV show where the one piece of this that you would hope would be faked was not.

Hmm. Correct.

Right. Yes. Yeah.

It’s the worst of both worlds.

Yes.

Yeah.

It’s fake when you don’t want it to be and real when you also don’t want it to be.

Yeah. And Darcy had said like, oh, she thought she had a lot of moments on the show that were really funny, but they didn’t want to portray her that way. She sees herself as a funny person, and they wanted to portray her as more of this, I don’t know, kind of a-

Someone devastated by a tattoo. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they wanted to portray her first as promiscuous and then as fragile.

Yeah. Yeah.

It’s infuriating.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Darcy explored having her tattoo removed. It was going to be very expensive, too expensive, but also, she said it was going to be somewhere between five and seven sessions, and those sessions are very painful. And she said, frankly, that was the biggest factor in her deciding to not have it removed and to instead have it covered up.

From what I was told, five to seven sessions of tattoo removal is way more painful than just getting a coverup, which is what the main factor in why I did it was the pain aspect.

So, you got it covered up. What did you have it? How did you have it covered up? What does it look like now?

So, it is the biggest chrysanthemum to ever exist. That was the only thing the artist that I worked with was able to do to cover it up. You totally can’t see the old tattoo through it at all, but my new tattoo is twice the size of the original one, so it does cover my whole entire lower back.

And how do you feel about your new tattoo that you got as a coverup?

I actually hate it.

Oh, no. I’m sorry.

I just, I’ve never liked chrysanthemums.

Right.

But it is much better than the tattoo I had before, so I’m not necessarily complaining.

Right. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate this.

Of course. It was lovely talking to you. I’m glad I was able to get my side of the story out there.

So, we answered if the tattoos are real or fake, they’re real. But I think also in talking to Darcy, I answered another question for myself, which is the question, How Far is Tattoo Far? And the answer is well, the show, how far is… that’s tattoo far. The show is too far.

That’s good. Yeah.

Underunderstood is Billy Disney, Regina Dellea, John Lagomarsino and me Adrianne Jeffries. This episode was edited by Ryan Manning. If you have a mystery, the internet can’t answer, we want to hear about it. You can email us at hellounderunderstood.com, or you can call and leave us a voicemail. The voicemail may be played on the show. The number is 212-994-4882. We love getting voicemails. That’s how this episode came to be. Thanks, Erich! If you want to find more episodes, transcripts, and information about the show, visit our website underunderstood.com. Thank you so much for listening. It’s great to be back. We’ll have a new episode next week.