For years, tattoo schools were perceived as a threat to an industry that grew out of apprenticeships. Established artists criticized them, calling them a “quick path,” while the schools themselves preferred to remain silent. Dialogue was impossible: when one side of an argument doesn’t respond, negativity and speculation fill the void, solidifying into “facts” over time. To understand what’s happening here, we need to rewind and look at how tattooing education was formalized in the first place.