Windows 98 Blue Screen of Death tattoo

Oh, the angst!

(Credit: Sam Rulz, Two Hands Tattoo)

Back in the day, it was skulls, snakes and Iron Maiden's undead mascot, Eddie. In the post-heavy-metal Internet era, to express your anguish, malaise, or traumatic childhood, you have to get a tattoo of the Blue Screen of Death on your arm. What better to display your frustration with software and your sense of irony than the text that lets you know you've lost an afternoon's work?

The artist, 23-year-old Sam Rulz of Auckland, New Zealand, has this to say: "Paul's tattoo is based on the Windows 98 error code, which is what you see when your pc is f**ed. ... The contrast of something so rigid as pixelated text on a computer screen being translated into something so organic as living human skin invokes a characteristic I so love in art: irony. The tattoo asks you to press any key to continue--an impossible task."

She continues: "Its 1x1mm black pixels mark such words as 'fatal,' 'terminate,' and 'you will lose.' Tough words and statements, much like what many would expect a tattoo to have--fulfilling the assumption that that's what tattoos are for; to look tough, and hopefully get chicks."

Thanks to Boingboing for the heads-up.