My Dear Friends of Figma in It was kind of crazy he was uh he was doing my throat and he kept hitting me with the tattoo machine on my chin it was electrocuting me at the same time so i was just like okay but back then it was kind of funny he was like now i’ll just be like yo dude just make it as easy as possible i can’t get into like the numbing creams and.
Stuff like that so to me it’s like you go get a tattoo you get a tattoo but uh yeah i’m not psyched to get a sit in that chair anymore but i love the end result and i love the art form and i respect the artist tremendously my name is michael amoya i am i guess an entrepreneur i’ve been.
Running businesses for the last 25 years mostly in the entertainment space i used to run a production company previous tv shows have a music publishing company right now and you know kind of one of the reasons why i’m here is i have an nft project that we’re bridging the gap between tattoo.
Culture and web 3 where we’re actually tattooing pfp characters we’re not putting tattoos on people we’re actually putting tattoos on the little characters the nft characters from famous tattoo artists i was born in queens i lived in queens and long island childhood was definitely not the best for me the whole reason why.
You know i have tattoos on me kind of is part of my story from my childhood my whole body is covered in insect tattoos and there’s a reason why that is you know when i was a kid besides all the struggles i went through i also went to misdiagnosed with leukemia i went to dialysis.
I didn’t have leukemia i actually was scared i had these visuals of dying and bugs eating away at my body and i kind of wanted to overcome my fears and just kind of put this as armor on my skin and now it’s funny because what used to.
Torture me is actually power you know these insects actually have power long island was like kind of an interesting tattoo culture back in the day it was uh you know frank romano ran a company called um davinci was mike ledger was uh back back in long island um you know all the hardcore.
Bands back then were getting tattoos so it was kind of like in that scene i don’t remember specifically the first time i actually saw one but that’s when i started to get enthralled with the culture and you know mike rubenthal king’s avenue tattoo is the first person to put a needle to my skin.
I got the mother aunt tattooed on my forearm and she had babies that’s where it all started mike actually did my whole head to really back in the day mike um he was probably like i don’t want to say i don’t put words in his mouth but maybe a little reluctant to tattoo my head or certain parts of my body because i don’t.
Think he i think he thought i wasn’t really fully in at that moment and then he was like okay you know i’ll do it for you you know because it was um it was it was back then it was a it was a code of ethics that you had to follow as a tattooer and you couldn’t just tattoo any parts of anybody’s body or go over.
Somebody’s pieces of art unless you circle back with that original artist so there’s a lot of rules in the street culture of tattooing that he followed but uh but yeah i mean he did my back he did my arm he did my head he’s done a bunch of couple things on my face i mean i’m you know.
So honored to have his art on my body for sure when i first started getting tattooed i know it was uh that was it it was an addiction i don’t have a lot of ices you know for me it’s like i’ve done some stuff as a kid but i was always like level-headed and you know didn’t screw around with.
Drugs too much and just got my head clear tattoos were like my advice and i was just like couldn’t i constantly looked at my empty skin you know anytime i get a tattoo i couldn’t even see it anymore i was like okay what else can i put you know in the empty skin so yeah right.
Away it was like i had the you know the fix you know as soon as he tattooed me day one i was like all right what else am i doing i was an angry kid i was it was a therapy for me it was it was fun it was it was like uh you know cathartic at that moment in time now it’s just a body piece that i’m trying to finish you.
Know as i get older it’s like the last thing i want to do is sit in the tattoo chair and get drilled but um you know it’s what it is when i first started getting tattooed i was just entering into like the entertainment space you know i was doing engineering you know mixing other.
People’s records and things like that mostly local bands not really making a lot of money um and then i started doing assistant editing in tv so i was working the night shift so nobody even saw me at night so it was just like you know i was the you know the freakazoid coming in at night you know loading the media for the day.
Shift and then i would just be out the door when they come in so it didn’t matter at that time in entertainment culture they’re more you know embracing this sort of you know art form as opposed to like traditional like you know finance or any other sort of you know sector or business so so it wasn’t.
You know generally speaking it was okay for me because i just put my head down and busted my ass so as long as i worked and i added value to the person i was working with nine times out of ten it never really worked negatively against me i’m into finance you know i do a lot of like angel investing and stuff like that.
Too and when i go into like these group meetings with a bunch of bankers it’s exciting to me because i am i stand out and it’s important to stand out in a room when you’re networking right because i’m kind of an introvert and people will come up to me and talk to me and then once they talk to me they realize okay maybe.
This person’s in you know the business so let’s talk to them about maybe doing a deal together so once i started doing that it actually it just it just gave me more fire to learn more and to be more intelligent in the way i speak to people and not you know carry on the preconceived.
Notion that people that are face tattooed are from prison or whatever it was just like you know for me it was just like okay i can show people a little bit of a different path so it kind of motivated me to do that so i was definitely um it that that all worked to my advantage uh for sure so.
So i just got the guinness book of world records for the most insect tattoos on a person’s body we counted 889 bugs but some of them didn’t qualify for insects so there’s 864 insects because some of them are arachnids so my whole body’s only covered in insect bug tattoos that’s it there’s nothing else i i look at what.
I’ve done to my body like getting on an airplane it’s like i’m in the air it’s like my hands are with god at that point so for me it’s like thinking too deep about what i’ve done would just only take my mind into the wrong direction i think that the one thing that nobody could ever say about me is i’m not.
Myself and i’m not unique and that’s to me that’s important you know i mean i think everybody on this earth is unique in their own way and why not express that in the way that they want to express it without pushing it in people’s face and that’s kind of like what i do so no i don’t think i have.
Generally speaking i don’t look back and regret it no well i can never really see the beauty of it i kind of if i go deep i kind of see the horror of it because it kind of takes me back to a story but but it’s funny because that stories actually became my.
You know sole motivation so yeah if there’s like uh any sort of insect in this room crawling around man i’m not gonna be psyched so yeah was there ever like a moment in your life when you feel that you went from being someone who’s just tattooed.
To being a quote-unquote tattooed person i don’t know to me i just feel like i don’t have enough you know it’s like i just feel like i need more and it’s like i don’t feel like i’m you know heavily tattooed or so i don’t know i don’t know i mean it’s just it’s just a canvas to.
Me you know it’s a canvas of like a work in progress that i just continue to work on i don’t do it for you know some people get them for different reasons you know whether it’s a message from from a loved one they want to get a portrait or they just want to express themselves and act tough or whatever their reasons is.
Surfaced or deep but for me it’s just you know part of my makeup so i don’t know i don’t really think about it like that there’s a lot of things i would change about you know instances that happen but uh my overall journey is my journey you know i it’s just a story it’s a building block.
You know anytime i do anything in life and in business i’m not you know part of my past life was fear you know now i’m like fearless you know so for me it’s like when you go do something just go do it and don’t worry about failing so i look it back in my past and i say even if it’s something i said i could have did it better but look where i’m at.
Now you know that’s how i look at myself so i’m always breaking myself down and always looking at you know i’m trying to stay in that zone you know i do focus a lot on uh the negative aspects of my life and what i can improve and that’s what’s gotten me here so i try not to stay too deep into that all the time because it’s.
Kind of you know self-deprecating and it’s not really healthy it gets dark yeah it gets dark but it gets constructive um that’s the thing too i mean a lot of people uh generally i hate to say a lot of people there are some people that don’t look at themselves at all you know and that’s not healthy either you know you have to.
Be very self-aware so but not to the point where you don’t have any more confidence so i try to balance that out um a little bit but no my life story is my life story and i appreciate it and i have a lot of layers to it i mean i can talk for hours about stuff and that’s what’s given me like i said.
That’s the definition for me for privilege which people don’t understand it’s like my privilege is what my struggles is what’s giving me fire and i think for youth culture if you can let them know like you know all these things that people are going through it’s like use that to your advantage that it becomes more powerful.
So i just always try to turn a negative into a positive and just to take it full circle back to your question yeah so that’s my story and i’m sticking with it and i’m moving forward from here no rear view mirror you
As a child, Mike Amoia would have visions of bugs eating his body. The idea terrified him, but instead of letting that fear rule his life, Mike found a way to own it. His very first tattoo was of a queen ant and a bunch of worker ants around her, and thus began his unique tattoo journey. 800+ insect tattoo later Mike has one of the most unusual tattoo collections we’ve ever seen. We spoke with him about all those insect tattoos, what it feels like to walk into a boardroom with every eye up on you and much more.
Welcome to Heavily Inked. In our newest series, we’re going to speak one-on-one with tattoo collectors and artists about what it means to be a heavily inked person. We’ll get deep as we go through the motivations behind their tattoo choices, the way they’ve been treated in society and much more.
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