My Body Is My Journal and My Tattoos Are My Story

About

My Body Is My Journal and My Tattoos Are My Story is a quote frequently attributed to actor Johnny Depp. The quote was later used on Twitter as a caption to tattoos, particularly ones that others find bad or cringe.

Origin

While the quote "my body is my journal and my tattoos are my story" is frequently attributed to Johnny Depp, the passage may be a misquote. On April 1st, 2001, Depp told the New York Times, "When I was 17, I decided my body would be a journal of skin. I jot down life experiences that mean something to me -- jot them down permanently."^[1]

Five years later, on February 1st, 2006, Blogspot^[2] user livethroughdepression attributed the quote to an interview Depp gave to Details magazine in 1993. They write:

In a 1993 Details magazine interview Johnny explained his self-injury, "My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist.

On April 1st, 2009, Twitter ^[3] user @so_unbalanced posted the earliest known usage of the quote in its most popular form. They wrote, "My body is my journal and tattoos are my story" (shown below).

Months later, on July 15th, 2009, Twitter^[4] user @NoeticSoul tweeted the quote and attributed it to Depp (shown below, right).

Spread

Over the next few years, media outlets and social media users continued to attribute the quote to Depp. On November 9th, 2012, HuffPo^[5] referenced the quote in the article "Tattoo Psychology: Art or Self Destruction? Modern-Day Social Branding." On October 27th, 2013, Twitter^[6] user @TheDailyTattoos posted an image of Depp with the quote. The post received more than 850 likes and 710 retweets in less than eight years (shown below).

In the mid-2010s, the quote became an ironic caption for images of tattoos. On December 22nd, 2016, Twitter^[7] user @MikeBeaudreault posted the earliest available example, using the quote as the caption for a lower-back tattoo of Law & Order creator Dick Wolf's title-screen credit. The post received more than 2,1000 likes and 1,000 retweets in less than five years (shown below, left).

Weeks later, on January 19th, 2017, Twitter^[8] user @homosexualangel tweeted a tattoo that reads, "Money make me cumm." The tweet received more than 8,700 likes and 4,000 retweets in less than four days (shown below, center).

On April 3rd, 2019, Twitter^[9] user @tristehomo posted an image of a man with the word "stupid" tattooed on his forehead. The post received more than 37,000 likes and 13,000 retweets in less than two years (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References