The Scary Guy, a former tattoo artist, performs 90-minute shows confronting hate and bullying. A newspaper ad targeting tattooed men pushed him to change his name and challenge stereotyping. He gets 6,000 to 10,000 letters monthly, including one from a teenage girl who said his show saved her life.
My name is The Scary Guy. It's my legal name. I changed my name in a court of law 13 years ago because somebody I don't know in the tattoo business— yeah, I'm an ex-tattoo artist, huh, kind of figures— ran a full-page ad in the newspaper and said, "Are you tired of dealing with scary guys with war paint facial tattoos?" I read the ad in the paper that day. I slammed it down on the counter. And I thought, what am I gonna do to get this guy back? I know, I'll jump in my hot rod Lincoln, I'll find out where that guy lives, I'll go over to his house, and I'll run over his dog. You know, revenge. I thought, no, no, no, no, I'm a good guy, he's a bad guy, look what he said about me. Well, that's where my life changed. I realized I was a name-caller, a hater, I could stereotype and categorize people at will. I masked my whole life in sarcasm and humor. So I went on the road to tell my story. And now I do live shows all over the world. Wake people up to the truth of what's really going on around them. Let them know they no longer have to react to everything they see and hear. Why is it so important for me to do what I do? You know, wake people up to the idea that They no longer have to react to another human being. Because at one point in my life, I got sick and tired of seeing news reports around the world of children and teenagers and adults killing each other over their differences, committing suicide, self-harming. I got real tired of the same old news. And that was 13 years ago. Today I've dedicated my life to helping people understand that they no longer have to live as a victim of another human being for the rest of their lives. No matter who they are, what they say. That each of us have that amount of power. I show them how to use their power. I travel around the world and experience a lot of different kinds of discrimination and hate myself. I could walk down the sidewalks in Germany, could be any city, Cologne, Darmstadt, Mittelstadt, Wiesbaden. I haven't been to Berlin yet, maybe I'll come to Berlin soon. I walk down any sidewalk and I can see people, they stare at me, they look at me. They go, "Ugh," and they roll their eyes like, "Whoa, who is he and what's he all about? Why would anybody do that to themselves?" Sometimes they even switch sides. They go over to the other side of the sidewalk just to get away. That's okay. I know what it's all about today. In the old days, I might have given some of that back to them. Not anymore now. Today I know who that's about. And none of their behavior is about me. Everything they produce is exactly about them. It came from them. And today I know the difference. I was doing a show in England about 4 years ago or so. And there was this, uh, audience there, you know, high school kids. There's probably 600 or 700 kids in the audience, and I did the opening of my show. It's fairly intense. It's an in-your-face program. And I did my 90-minute show, and I walked out of there, and, you know, I figured maybe I opened up the minds of maybe 500, 600 people that day. And I never know really how it all goes until I get back and I turn on my computer. Today I receive about 6,000 to 10,000 letters a month, which I personally respond to every single one of them. And I got a letter from a young lady that said, "You know, Scary Guy, thanks for coming that day, because that day I was— I had a razor blade. I had the razor blade in my purse, and that day I was going to commit suicide in the girls' bathroom." The girls' toilet. And because of you and your show today, you woke me up to the idea that I don't have to kill myself to live on this planet now. You have the power every day of your life to create who you're gonna be. I don't care who is speaking to you. Use your power every day. Understand the truth of who you are.
