A person in a costume poses during the 2024 New York Comic Con, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, on October 18, 2024. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
Participants run through the streets of the Back Bay during the 16th annual Santa Speedo Run in Boston, Massachusetts, December 12, 2015. (Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Triston surfs a wave as his father, Todd, watches in Morro Bay. “Hes the most coordinated 3-year-old I've ever seen”, says the 35-year-old captain/paramedic with the Morro Bay Fire Department. (Photo by Joe Johnston/The Tribune of San Luis Obispo)
A Thai traffic security guard wears a Santa Claus costume as he directs the traffic on a street during Christmas celebrations outside a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, 22 December 2015. The campaign of a shopping mall is held to celebrate the upcoming Christmas season and to attract shoppers. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA)
A girl carries a bag of recyclable items she collected from a landfill on the outskirts of Sanaa, Yemen November 16, 2016. (Photo by Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)
Tattoos are commonly used among criminals to show gang membership and record the wearer's personal history—such as his or her skills, specialties, accomplishments and convictions. They are also used as a means of personal expression. Certain designs have developed recognized coded meanings. The code systems can be quite complex and because of the nature of what they encode, the tattoo designs are not widely recognized.