There’s nothing like tattooed seniors to convince the world that getting older doesn’t have to be boring. That might be why a gallery of images featuring inked older bodies has just made its Internet comeback, going viral again not even 12 months after it first trended on social media in 2014.

The images, Metro UK trumpeted last week, “prove that older people with tattoos can look just as bad-ass as any twenty-something covered in ink. Maybe even more so.”

The images were first posted to the community site Reddit (via Reddit image hub Imgur) by Redditor clevknife under the header “What about when you get old? Tattooed Seniors answer.”

The pictures offer the answer: Those warnings – “What will happen to those tats when your body gets old and wrinkly?” – are just plain wrong. Vibrant colors and meaningful imagery are good for life. (And a stupid tat will always be a stupid tat.)

“This gallery of amazing tattooed seniors shows that your work is going to look even better with age, just like a fine wine,” Inked magazine wrote. And when Buzzfeed jumped in a couple of days ago with its own story, it pointed out that no matter what symbols you chose when you got your tat, “their meaning is always evolving.”

One senior who got her first tattoo in her 70s and hasn’t stopped since told us in an interview that having tattoos offers another, unexpected benefit: Helen Lambin said that her ink connects her with younger people in a real way.

Body art is ageless.

Now, maybe the world can agree that we don’t need tats to look bad-ass?

See the whole Imgur collection here.

Top photo: Daily Mail