As of the time of this writing, I have two tattoos. My first tattoo, a pentagram-pattern surrounded by a sun on my chest — was taken from the show Supernatural, and is the same one Sam and Dean Winchester have on their chests originally seen in the season three episode, “Jus In Bello.” Now, why did I get this particular tattoo? Well, at the time I was wanting a tattoo to show I’d conquered a lot of fear in my life, and thought at tattoo would signify that. Once I saw the tattoo on the show, I knew I had the pattern I wanted.

Here are some pics for comparison…

Original:

Mine:

However, I’m by far not the only one who’s decided to permanently ink their bodies with geek-inspired tattoos, as this article and its images will illustrate…

The idea for this article came in researching my next (third) tattoo. It’ll be partially inspired by Serenity, the ship in my second favorite show, Firefly. The tattoo will be the Kanji symbol for Serenity surrounded/orbited by symbols for peace, love and clarity. So in a way, it’s a geeky tattoo, but with my own spin on it.

For centuries, people in virtually every culture have taken to tattoos for a variety of reasons, whether they be of tribal significance or just to look cool. In our modern society, we don’t really need tattoos to signify anything in terms of power or status (though I’ve never been in prison so I could be wrong there), but many of us get them for a variety of reasons. These could be to prove that we can handle the pain, because they look cool, because they become addicted…because we’re drunk…or whatever else.

As geek culture has become more and more mainstream, so have the tattoos that signify various parts of that culture, whether they be from video games, movies, tv shows, or books. These things are full of symbols, quotes, creatures and events that just beg for tattoos. Whether it by a house symbol from the Harry Potter series, a picture of Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a symbol from the video game Gears of War or whatever else, geeky tattoos have been increasing in popularity as not only the culture expands, but the books, movies and other art forms that make up that culture increases exponentially.

Now why, one might wonder, would one choose to permanently mark themselves with something from a book, or a video game or a movie? Surely there are more significant things in people’s lives in which to tattoo themselves with? This is the thing I notice a lot of non-geeks don’t get. The mere definition of geek, according to Wikipedia, is “one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things”.

Therefore, given that us geeks are obsessed with things — which in my opinion is a totally fair definition — it makes sense that, if we’re inclined to get a tattoo, that we get something that we’re passionate about, that we love, or that has a lot of meaning to us. If a book or a movie give us comfort, give us joy, or help us connect with other people, why not show your passion with a tattoo?

Overall, the appeal of geeky ink will just grow along with the mainstreaming of geek culture, which honestly can only be seen as a good thing. Where once we were poked at and made fun of, now we become more and more accepted.

Now, here are some great examples of geeky tattoos to give you a taste of what people are passionate enough about to pay lots of money in order to permanently put upon their skin. You can click on the picture to be taken to the original source. You can also head over to Geeky Tattoos for even more examples.