When it comes to tattoos and body art, there has to be a meaning behind it. Tattoos are popular symbols and represent a person's personality, background, history and even his life. Tattooing a teardrop is one such symbolic art piece that is strategically placed to one side of the eye. It is also called "tear tattoo" and it has several implications behind, depending upon where it is placed. This tattoo also represents the loss of a loved one or a friend. There are no specific designs when it comes to these tattoos, where they're primarily associated with prison and suffering. But the specific meaning behind a teardrop tattoo seen on people today may differ from their region and could be multiple.
Teardrop Tattoo Meanings
This tattoo is mostly associated with prisoners, convicts, gangsters, thugs, suffering or the loss of a loved one. But for every individual, a teardrop tattoo may mean something else depending upon the location of the art piece and as a symbol it will be treated the same way. Sometimes a this may symbolize the membership of a gang. These teardrop artwork interpretations in prison signify the number of killings the wearer has in his criminal record. It is a tattoo that is also inked for every five years of hard suffering time a person has served in prison.
These tattoos may also indicate that a person has murdered someone in his/her life inside or outside the prison. Although these may have multiple meanings, most of the tattoos of this depiction seen in mainstream culture today imply that the wearer has killed someone.
Teardrop Tattoo Meaning in Australia
The first ever tattoo depicting a teardrop, the original one, was found in Australia. Teardrop tattoos were forcibly inked among Australian prisoners on their inmates for serving time in prison for being child molesters and sexual abusers. When an inmate in an Australian prison was about to be incarcerated for his crime, other inmates would forcibly ink a tattoo under the other's right eye, where these prisoners would be on the left side of their prison cell. But this act is very rare in Australian prisons today.
Teardrop Tattoo Meaning in the United States
In the U.S, the meaning of a teardrop tattoo has changed drastically over certain span of time. The Australian prison tradition was carried forward to American prisoners too. Initially, teardrop tattoos were used to show that a person was incarcerated for murdering someone. If the reason behind getting inked was this, the teardrop would represent a feeling of deep regret for that act and the prisoners would get such tattoo after leaving the prison.
But at the same time in the United States, the people in the civil world (outside prison world) got inked with this teardrop artwork and had a wholly different reason for getting one. The tattoo also signifies the loss of a loved one. American men would usually get inked with this to symbolize loss of their wives or a family member. Hence, this tattoo, ever since then, started being a symbol of remembrance and memorial.
As I have mentioned earlier, the meaning of having a teardrop tattoo also depends upon the color and location of the teardrop. If the tattoo is just the outline of the teardrop, it implies that a friend of the wearer was killed. If a teardrop is colored inside the outline it represents that the wearer's friend has been killed and the wearer has taken revenge of his friend's death.
An empty tear thus symbolizes that a loved one has been killed or the wearer has successfully shot someone else. A filled teardrop tattoo represents that a loved one has committed suicide or was killed by some cause other than a murder. It could be an accident or a death penalty. A teardrop art piece with an empty top and a full bottom symbolizes that the wearer has taken a revenge of the murder of a loved one. An empty tattoo on one's face also symbolizes a person's time served in prison, which is usually a year at least.
Teardrop tattoos can also be inked as a remembrance of a loved one who passed away while the wearer was incarcerated. Today, a lot of celebrities in the mainstream like Lil' Wayne and Amy Winehouse have gotten themselves inked with these art pieces and there are many fancy styles in which you can design a tattoo of this for yourself and strategically place it near the corner of the eye or on the cheek bones, and they would seem to be real tears.
Today since tattoos have become a fashion statement amongst the youth all over the world, a teardrop tattoo can be inked purely for fashion and decorative purposes.
