Katy Perry will remember her halftime performance at the Super Bowl forever. In case she forgets, she got the roman numerals tattooed onto her finger. Matty Clark, a 36-year-old bar owner from Denver, Colorado, will also remember Perry’s Super Bowl performance forever. In case he forgets, he got a tattoo of Perry’s dancing shark on his ankle.
Why? Excellent fucking question and one that about a million people have wondered since his ankle tat blew up on social media earlier in the week. Esquire caught up with Matty to ask him that very question. His answer isn’t really that crazy.
ESQ: How long did it take you to decide to go get the tat? And whose idea was it in the first place?
MC: Well, I earned the nickname Matty Shark a few years ago at a music festival when I had had a few too many and started biting my friends and yelling, “I’m Matty Shark, bitch!” I don’t really remember that happening but the nickname stuck. So when the sharks came out during the halftime show, almost immediately after people were texting me and Facebooking me the initial memes. One person who put up a meme on my Facebook is Rene Cordero, a tattoo artist here in town that has tattooed me before, and I just commented, “Tattoo it on me.” The next morning (Monday) he sent me the sketch and I came in later that afternoon. Honestly, not much thought there. I already have a few shark tattoos, so it was just another to add to the collection.
ESQ: Did you fall for “left shark” like the rest of the country? Or was he just another shark to you? Really hard-hitting questions, I know.
MC: Hahaha. Well when I first saw it, I had the opposite reaction. I was like, Yo, the one on the right is nailing it! In 20 years he’ll probably be just another shark, and that’s fine. People are like, “Why get a tattoo of this stupid meme?” And I just think, at the end of the day, it’s still pretty sweet. I have a tattoo of Tim Tebow Tebow-ing on my other ankle, so left shark is completely in my wheelhouse. I do have nice artwork on me, but a couple of party tattoos never hurt anyone.
[Record scratches. Whole party stops.]
The shark tattoo seems completely sane after Clark admitted to the Tebow tat.
[H/T: Esquire]