Depending on when you were born is going to determine what you think the Teen Wolf Tattoo is. As a kid from the ’80s, the only Teen Wolf I acknowledge is the one involving Michael J. Fox. However, I am aware of the MTV series, Teen Wolf, which dropped in 2011. Most of the people with a Teen Wolf tattoo are most likely fans of one of the two versions.
In this post, we will review the different versions of Teen Wolf and some of the symbols that might be tattooed by someone looking for a Teen Wolf Tattoo. You can imagine this show would have a lot of options to be tattooed because of its popularity.
MTV’s Teen Wolf
Teen Wolf premiered on June 5, 2011. It is somewhat based on the 1985 version of Teen Wolf. Tyler Posey is the star of the show and plays a teen named Scott McCall. The plot involves Scott being bitten by a werewolf the night before his sophomore year. Now he is learning how to deal with the effects of it. All the while, Scott is trying to live a normal life of being a teenager in high school.
In the first season of the show, Scott and his best human friend Stiles, start meeting kids with connections to strange, supernatural things going on in their city of Beacon Hills. Scott initially has a crush on a girl named Allison Argent who is a classmate of his and comes from a family of werewolf hunters. Her best friend is named Lydia Martin. Lydia finds out in later episodes that she is, in fact, a banshee. Her boyfriend, and aggressive jock, is named Jackson Whittemore. Scott and Stiles have many clashes with Jackson along the way in trying to navigate this new life.
As the show goes on, Scott meets other creatures like him including Malia Tate (were-coyote), Liam Dunbar (werewolf) and Kira Yukimura (a Japanese fox spirit).
Symbols from Teen Wolf
There are multiple symbols in the Teen Wolf series that are used in Teen Wolf tattoos. We want to discuss some of the more popular ones.
Ouroboros Tattoo
In the show, the ouroboros is the symbol used above entrances for the Dread Doctors. The ouroboros looks like a serpent eating his tail. This symbol originated in Egypt. In these times, the symbol stood for the sun rotating around the Earth. When talking about Gnosticism, the symbol represents eternity. This happens to coincide with the Dread Doctors as they discovered a form of immortality.
The Spiral Tattoo
This symbol is first seen in the show when the alpha werewolf, Peter Hale, made this shape in the fog of Scott’s car window. This was a clue of why Scott had gone on a killing spree. In life, this is a very ancient symbol signifying a warning for those who have wronged another. Vengeance will be coming.
Bank Symbol
In the show, Stiles informed Scott that this symbol was a Celtic Druid symbol, but this was just for the show. No symbol as such has been found in real life. However, it was the Beacon Hills First National Bank logo. The symbol does represent something of a Celtic cross which has been used for almost 7,000 years.
Five-Fold Knot Tattoo
This symbol is used in the show as a marker for the Beacon Hills Druids. It was first seen on the Nemeton’s roots when Chris Argent and Gerard were searching for werewolves in the root cellar. It was seen again later in the show when it was carved into the desk of Chris’s desk. In the show each know represented three humans that were sacrificed to give the Darach, Jennifer Blake her supernatural powers.
These happen to be some of the more popular symbols of the show that we have seen tattooed onto the bodies of fans. Now that we know about the newer series, let’s go back and discuss that original, 1985 movie called Teen Wolf.
In this movie, Michael J. Fox plays a seventeen-year-old student named Scott Howard. It’s a story of a kid who is tired of being average. His only claim to fame is being pretty good at basketball. However, his crush, Pamela Wells doesn’t notice him, and she dates a basketball player named Mick from the rival school. To add insult to injury, Mick is a bit of a bully on the basketball court.
Little does Scott know but being a werewolf runs in the family. This comes as quite a surprise when he first transitions to a werewolf. However, Scott decided to take advantage of the athletic advantages that being a werewolf offered and became the most popular kid in school and at the same time, became the best player on the basketball court. He also wins over his long-time crush Pamela.
The struggle is when Scott’s popularity grows, he wonders if people are liking him for who he is or because of his strange affliction.
The main Teen Wolf tattoos you will see in the movie all revolve around portraits of Scott in his werewolf form. You might see a tattoo of him dunking the basketball while being a werewolf. You might also see a tattoo of Scott with his shades on while he wears his letter jacket for high school.
Similarities and Differences
There are a few similarities between the two shows. Most notably, both Scotts are learning to navigate this new form while going through high school. However, the series on MTV has a much darker theme than the comedy from 1985.
No matter which Teen Wolf happens to be your favorite, we can tell you that both shows provide some nice material for a Teen Wolf tattoo. We hope that by reading this post, you have a better idea of what these shows were about and what some of the symbols in the shows represent.
Take a look at some of the pictures below. We hope you gather some good ideas for your next tattoo and if you need help finding an artist to work with, let us know. We would love to help.