You may know Jamie Lo from your phone or TV screens.
The Dublin-based tattoo artist has amassed a whopping 115k Instagram followers on his personal account, and a further 72.7k on his artistry account.
Even more impressive, however, is his TikTok platform – on which he has accumulated 1.7 million.
We spoke to Jamie for our most recent Up and Coming feature, in which he spoke about how he got into both tattoo artistry and content creating.
The TikToker also discussed the hardship of being a minority in the tattoo industry, and his plans for the future.
Find out more about Jamie in our exclusive chat below:
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How did you get into tattooing?
I’ve been drawing my whole life, ever since I can remember. Me and my cousin used to watch all these tattoo shows growing up with like Kat Von D, so like LA Ink and Miami Ink.
She knew I was so into art and drawing, so she was like ‘You should become a tattoo artist’ and I was like ‘Ok!’
Ever since I was 15 I’ve wanted to tattoo, and just before I finished school and my exams I actually managed to get an apprenticeship.
I’ve been tattooing ever since I was 18, so that’s how I got into it.
I actually used to get in trouble at school for drawing tattoos on people’s arms and copy books.
Even my mom – when we were younger we used to go away on holidays and get henna tattoos, I don’t think she realised that I’d actually follow through with it!
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Q. Have you ever inked one of your past doodles on yourself?
I haven’t inked it on myself, no.
But as I said, I’ve been drawing since I was young. But I did a drawing years ago, I’d say I was four or five and it was absolutely terrible but my mam actually got it tattooed on her.
It was just because it was one of my first drawings. The tattoo was done well, but the design is a bit questionable.
Q. How did you get into the content creating side of things?
It was over lockdown – when lockdown happened, everyone was online.
Personally, I was so against TikTok and content creating, I was like ‘That’s just for kids, I’m not gonna do it…’
Then I started posting just for my friends to see and the videos started going a little viral, so I thought ‘Ok, maybe I’ll try my hand at this,’ and I just kept posting.
My videos started going viral and I haven’t looked back since.
I was doing Instagram just for tattoo appointments, but I think I had literally less than 5,000 followers or something.
When I started doing TikTok, my Instagram just shot up.
It started as more of a side thing, but has become more of a main thing now.
@jammydodged Girls just handle getting tattooed better #foryoupage #fyp #trending #irish #gay #funny #tattoo #uk #houseoftiktok ♬ original sound – Jamie Lo
Q. You’re well-known on social media for sharing both hilarious and absolutely horrific client stories. Have you ever refused to tattoo someone?
Oh yeah, literally too many times.
I’ve had people come in asking for a sexy woman [tattoo] with a portrait of their mam, just absolutely out there ideas.
Or, you know, I’ve had people come in looking for neo-Nazi symbols on their face, and I’m like ‘No’.
Where does the line need to be drawn? I don’t know, I think asking for a family member to be drawn sexily is a bit weird.
Q. Content creators tend to receive quite a lot of online hate. Have you ever experienced this and if so, how do you deal with it?
Cry – I’m joking.
Yeah, you do get a good bit of hate, but thankfully I haven’t had too much hate, but the hate I have received has affected me in some sort of way.
No matter how thick a skin you have I think it’s going to make a crack underneath the surface.
The best thing is to remember that these people are coming at you for no reason other than they’re bitter and are either jealous of you or have a preconceived judgement of you.
It’s best to just brush them off because you know what type of character you are.
It’s probably best to block it and just move on.
@jammydodged I always get asked to show my work and how much i charge so here you go ! #foryoupage #fyp #trending #irish #gay #funny #tattoo #uk #houseoftiktok ♬ If We Ever Broke Up – Mae Stephens
Q. What other tattoo artists and content creators do you look up to?
Before I started doing TikTok and content creation as a job, I used to watch Miriam Mullins all the time.
I actually said this to her the other day, but she was the first person I properly started following on social media. She’s killing it.
She’s an Irish content creator I used to really love watching.
As for tattoo artists – there are so many tattoo artists out there. As I said, Kat Von D was kind of the one who inspired me to become a tattoo artist.
But there’s this tattoo artist named Ryan Ashley, she’s one of the best in the world and I look up to her a lot.
Q. The tattoo industry is a saturated one, and you’ve previously spoken about being a minority. How do you deal with that?
Being a minority in the tattoo industry can be quite difficult.
It’s difficult because you are perceived as someone who can’t do their job right, or perceived as someone who’s a wuss or whatever.
I think tattoos are perceived as quite masculine, but I think I’m a mix between masculine and feminine – so if you walk into a tattoo studio you will get a bit of judgement and stares.
But if you’re doing good work, it kind of speaks for itself. If you get clients that come to you and are happy with your work, that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
People can judge you all they want but once you know you’re doing good work, and the client is happy that’s all that matters.
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Q. You appeared on Virgin Media’s Eating with the Enemy – why was that something that was important for you to do?
I think it’s important to show because I don’t think there is a lot of representation for people like that.
If you have a platform it’s good to speak up and try to raise awareness, especially on widespread media like TV.
I was actually a fan of the show and they asked me to come on, but I didn’t know what I was going to be talking about.
They were like ‘Oh, it’s going to be about tattoos’ and I ended up chatting about being gay and Asian and all that.
It is important to like raise awareness because I don’t know many gay tattoo artists, or even person of colour tattoo artists – everyone’s majority white.
If you’re not experiencing any hate in the industry you’re not really able to speak about it, so it was good for me being gay and a person of colour to speak about it.
At the end of the day we’re all just humans, we’re all just going to be bones. It doesn’t matter what ethnicity, race, sexuality you’re from, once you’re doing a good job and you’re a good person that’s all that matters.
Q. Onto lighter-hearted things, what’s the most meaningful tattoo you’ve ever done on someone?
A lot of women that have breast cancer have to undergo breast reconstruction or removals, and they’re actually lacking nipples.
I’ve actually had the honour and pleasure of being able to tattoo nipples onto people, or I’ve done designs over where the nipples would be, so it kind of frames them nicely.
They’d be the most meaningful, tattoos aren’t just for design they can make people feel more confident and stuff like that.
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Q. What’s the most meaningful tattoo you have.Â
I randomly got a candle tattooed for my mam.
I don’t know why, she just likes candles.
Q. What’s you’re career plan now? Are you putting more of a focus into your content creation, are you going to keep tattooing?
I’m not really sure, because I used to do YouTube years ago when I was like 12 or 13, and I always loved that aspect of being able to create something and put it online for people’s joy.
So, I do want to focus on my content a lot, but I also want to focus on my tattoos because social media isn’t going to last forever.
It’s nice to have a foundation you can fall back on.
I’d love to get more media opportunities, but yeah I’ll keep tattooing and I want to open up my own tattoo studio hopefully in the future.
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