The Social Tattoo Project Fights Apathy with Ink [VIDEOS]

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Five people have already volunteered to do exactly that. The Social Tattoo Project is sponsoring unique tattoos based around major world issues too quickly forgotten.

"Someone's empathy can expire," says Jenn Huang, cocreator of The Social Tattoo Project. "If you ask someone now what's happening in Haiti they probably couldn't tell you, so we came up with a social experiment where we make empathy permanent by tattooing volunteers."

Each week, the project asks its Twitter and Facebook followers to vote between four trending Twitter topics. At the end of the week, a lucky volunteer gets inked in the crowd's favorite trend, making the chosen cause a permanent part of his or her life. The tattoo's recipient doesn't even find out the content of their new body art until the job's done.

The first five tattoos read #humantrafficking, #Haiti, #Norway, #poverty and #Japan — hashtags included.

Huang, along with two other interns at BBH Barn, were challenged to make something famous while also changing public perception. Their hope is that tattoo shops around the country will ask to join the project. Volunteers have reached out from Australia and Brazil.

So far, the internship subsidy paid for the first batch of tattoos at a reduced rate thanks to New York's Sacred Tattoo. Their budget can only pay for another tattoo or two, so the interns are hoping future volunteers will agree to cover their own costs.

What do you think: are social tattoos the next big thing? Would you consider getting one of these or a geeky tech tattoo?

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