Tattooed nerds

Saturday 7 January 2006 — This is nearly 19 years old. Be careful.

Revenge of the Tattooed Nerds starts innocently enough, with Apple logos tattooed discreetly on a wrist or the small of a back. The transistor symbols are kind of cool, and the eight-bit video game sprites are a great example of one lo-fi art form mimicking another. But when I got to the guy with the circuit board tattooed on his forehead, I thought, “that’s just not right”. And don’t even get me started on The Lizardman at the end!

Comments

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Jim 10:35 AM on 7 Jan 2006
A buddy of mine has the formula for Shannon entropy tattooed on his forearm. Now that's nerdy.
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David Boudreau 12:11 AM on 10 Jan 2006
For descrating the flesh, what better selections than video game characters? Also, you describe the reproduction of the video game sprites as a lo-fi artform (I presume this includes not only tatoos, but the quilts, window displays in college buildings, and other forms of representing the sprites). Technically, it's not lo-fi- isn't it very, very hi-fi? In fact, the resulting expressions of art represent the sprites in higher fidelity than the original mediums that introduced the sprites to us in the first place. (Or, at least as much fidelity as the originals.)
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Ned Batchelder 9:08 AM on 10 Jan 2006
David, what I meant was that tattoos and eight-bit sprites are both lo-fi art forms, and so are perfect for each other. So you are right: the tattoo is a very accurate representation of the original.

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