I have wanted to get a tattoo since I turned 16. But permanence requires decision, and I didn’t have one.
Not because I lacked ideas (I had a designated Pinterest board I could scroll through for hours), but because I lacked something worth keeping. Tattoos aren’t just about liking something; they’re about recognizing it as part of you. And sometimes, that recognition comes from unexpected places at unexpected times.
In January, I finally figured it out.
“What’s with the empty square?”
While I haven’t been a dedicated fan for very long, I have liked the sound of the alternative pop band The 1975 for years. It took me until recently to actually sit down and listen — to hear what they were saying, not just what I thought they meant. (This required a concerning amount of lyric-reading, courtesy of Matty Healy’s very committed British accent.)
It’s widely believed within the fanbase that the band finds you when you need them most — and I couldn’t agree more. There’s something about their lyricism, the sense that they just get it, that feels almost uncannily well-timed; even when they’re writing about somebody else. That feeling of being understood and belonging to something larger than myself is what led me to the tattoo — and what has led so many others to it, too.
Like many fans before me, I wanted to honor a band that has felt like medicine to me, with the symbolic tribute of a tattoo. The questions it invites (while very repetitive) aren’t frustrating; they’re part of what makes it special. If anything, they add to the experience, turning the tattoo into a kind of inside joke shared between those who understand it and those willing to ask.
At their core, symbolic tattoos like mine come down to a very fangirl instinct: the urge to take something intangible and make it permanent; almost as proof, in a way, that it matters.
The symbol itself — a simple, hollow rectangle — was inspired by the iconic Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle. Matty Healy, the frontman of The 1975, describes the mark as the “sleek, classic element of Chanel Number 5,” paired with the “conversational and situational” manner of their lyrics, acting as a literal frame for their music. This balance between minimalism and meaning shaped the band’s early visual identity in the 2010s. Echoing the perfume’s clean, timeless aesthetic, the box appeared on the covers of their early EPs, their self-titled 2014 debut, The 1975, and their 2016 sophomore album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It. Over time, it moved off the album covers and into their stage design on tour, visuals in music videos, and entire aesthetic language.
“She was a kid who had the box tattooed on her arm.”
As the band rose to fame, fans quickly latched onto the symbol as a sort of emblem. In 2018, the band honored this attachment and wrote its significance into a lyric on “Give Yourself A Try,” the lead single from their third studio album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships, turning the shape into something narrative. In doing so, the band blurred the line between artist and audience; the symbol no longer just represented them, but the people who loved them. Fans weren’t just consuming the music, they were a part of it. Healy has excessively expressed the fans’ importance in the past, describing them as “the air in the lungs of the band” and the “only thing I care about.”
While it’s not technically their official logo (largely because it looks… suspiciously like National Geographic’s), the box has become something bigger than branding; it’s identity. Something fans not only consume but wear on their sleeve with their hearts out. Permanently. Like anything related to The 1975 and their controversial frontman, the meaning behind the symbol is a little pretentious. But that’s kind of the point.
“I Couldn’t Be More In Love”
Fangirl culture has never really been about being a fan in the casual sense. It’s about attachment — to music, to meaning, to the feeling of being understood when you didn’t expect to be. What often gets dismissed as “too much” or “obsessive” is something more intentional and beautiful: a way of making sense of yourself through the things you love.
There’s a reason why “fangirling” is so strong during periods of transition, like college. Many fans connect with artists, such as The 1975, at a young age and continue listening as they navigate life and its many changes of heart. Music is a comfort, and artists can be idolized for their magic and consistency in their work. With questions of where you are, who you’re becoming, and what comes next, a song or a symbol can feel like a rock in the middle of uncertainty. The things that resonate begin to take on a sense of permanence.
And while that kind of intensity is often minimized, especially when it comes from young women, it’s doing real work. It creates community out of strangers, turning shared interests into shared understanding; people who might not know each other, but somehow know about you. It gives people a way to articulate emotions they don’t yet have the words for, offering a way of being funny in a foreign language. It allows for a kind of self-definition that doesn’t rely on having everything figured out, only on knowing that, with a community around you, it’s alright (so far).