About

The Lo Stve Tattoo or Lost Steve Tattoo, also known as the "Love Lost" Tattoo, is a photo of a tattoo fail resembling a broken heart that appears to read "lo stve" but is meant to read "lost love," depicting a red heart broken in half, the left half reading, "lo," and the right half reading, "ve," revealing a grey heart underneath reading, "st." The tattoo was posted to the /r/shittytattoos subreddit in June 2023 and went viral over the following years through reposts, becoming a piece of engagement bait for its confusing nature. One of the most common misunderstandings of the tattoo is "lost Steve."

Origin

On June 29th, 2023, Redditor u/hiphopTIMato posted a photo to the /r/shittytattoos^[1] subreddit of a woman with a broken heart tattoo on her chest, garnering over 1,300 upvotes in two years. The tattoo shows a red heart broken open, revealing a grey heart underneath. The red heart, when whole, would read, "love." The left half of the grey heart reads "st." When combined with the fallen red heart it reads "lost," making the correct reading "love lost" or "lost love." However, the placement of the text, when read left-to-right, appears to read, "lo stve."

Spread

The tattoo spread over the following years, inspiring reactions.

On August 5th, 2024, the tattoo was reposted to the /r/ExplainTheJoke^[2] subreddit, followed by the /r/badtattoos^[3] subreddit on August 6th, garnering over 17,000 upvotes on the former and 900 on the latter in a year. On August 30th, The Sun^[4] published an article about the tattoo and the confusion surrounding it.

On June 27th, 2025, X^[5] user @ysmammri responded to a now-private post sharing the tattoo, writing, "my slow ass like who steve," garnering over 436,000 likes in five months. A screenshot of the post was posted to the /r/BlackPeopleTwitter^[6] subreddit on June 29th to over 5,300 upvotes in the same span of time.

On November 6th, TikToker^[7] @silk.sucks posted a video reacting to the tattoo, garnering over 530,000 views in three weeks. On November 22nd, X^[8] user @lifeinchaos_ posted a response to the tattoo, stealing @ysmammri's comment of, "my slow ass like who steve," garnering over 12,000 likes in four days.

On November 25th, X^[9] user @HavocFreestyle posted a similar comment to the tattoo, writing, "My slow ahh thought it’s Steve," garnering over 56,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References