BLURRY STACHES

Where did all the hipsters go? There was a time when you couldn’t walk into a coffee shop without encountering a guy wearing skinny jeans, a vintage shirt that cost more than a new one, and a mustache groomed like it was a prize-winning bonsai tree. These fuckers started tattooing mustaches on the sides of their index fingers.

Remember that shit?! You’d hold your finger underneath your nose, take a picture, and then you were the funniest fucker on MySpace.

They called it the fingerstache, and the tattoo is traced back to a Columbus, Ohio, tattoo artist named Giovani Faenza around 2003. By the late 2000s, these little staches were showing up all over the internet. People were getting everything from tiny pencil-thin versions to elaborate handlebars that looked like they belonged on a nineteenth-century railroad conductor.

Everybody laughs the first time, and you might get another laugh the following week. But, ten years later, you’re explaining to your new significant other why you’ve got what appears to be a blurry caterpillar permanently attached to your finger.

And the blurry part isn’t entirely a joke. Finger tattoos can be unpredictable. All that washing, rubbing, bending, and everyday abuse can leave delicate lines faded, patchy, or difficult to recognize. A beautifully groomed handlebar mustache can end up looking like a little stain.

I even came across a tattoo artist in Fullerton, California, who got a fingerstache back when the idea was fashionable. Years later, he had another artist add an inscription acknowledging that the joke had expired. LOL! Imagine getting a second tattoo to explain why your first tattoo was a questionable decision.

Do you think these former hipsters still pull out their fingerstaches at parties, or if the tattoos have been retired from public performances. I wouldn’t mind interviewing a few. I’d especially like to see how those little staches aged.

If you’re contemplating a finger tattoo of your own, Inker gives you a place to discover tattoo artists and examine their portfolios. Ask to see healed finger tattoos, too. That fresh little design might look solid today, but your fingers have an entire life of washing dishes, gripping steering wheels, and getting abused ahead of them.

As for the fingerstache crowd, I hope they’re doing well, I really do. I’m sure their tastes have changed over the years, and those skinny jeans they sported may have been donated to Good Will or repurposed into a post Hipster craft.

If you have one of these staches, please reach out to us. I’d like to speak with you and send you an Inker mystery box.

J Gekko
Staff Writer, Inker