Person revealing a Shitty Charmander tattoo on their lower abdomen

Shitty Charmander

2015viral imageclassic

Published September 27, 2026

Shitty Charmander is a poorly inked homemade tattoo of the Pokemon Charmander that went viral in April 2015 after a photo of it hit Reddit. Done by a drunk 27-year-old on Xanax with no artistic training, the crude image spawned days of fan art, mock merchandise, and a lasting nickname for any so-bad-it's-good drawing.

pokemon so bad its good memes fan art memes subreddit origin memes mid 2010s memes

Overview

The image shows the Fire-type starter Charmander with a solid black face, jagged outlines, no color fill, and a shrunken tail flame that fans agreed was the only redeeming detail of the piece1. Reddit commenters compared it to a Tim Burton-styled Charmander fan drawing by Tumblr artist Hatboy, joking that the tattoo looked less like a mistake and more like an intentional goth redesign4.

The format that grew around Shitty Charmander treated the crude drawing as if it were legitimate character art. Users digitized the tattoo, dropped it into official-looking Pokemon merch mockups, and produced hoodies, water bottles, T-shirts, car decals, and framed prints of the image3. The tattoo also picked up the alternate names Shitmander, Shartmander, and Sharmander, with jokes usually treating the messy drawing with the reverence normally reserved for polished fan work2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit / Imgur (viral spread)
Key People
Unknown
Date
2015

On April 14th, 2015, Reddit user Yllwsnow2 posted a photo of the tattoo to r/funny with the caption saying his friend was "drunk and on Xanax when he decided to tattoo a black face Charmander with no experience or artistic ability" and adding that "the flame saves it"1. The image climbed past 2.4 million views on Imgur inside 48 hours, and the Reddit post reached the front page with more than 5,108 points and 1,200 comments4. The tattooer, a 27-year-old friend of the poster, later admitted he woke up regretting it and asked why nobody stopped him, to which Yllwsnow2 replied that they had tried multiple times2.

How It Spread

Within a day of the original post, Redditors were digitizing the tattoo and running an "I don't know why, but..." remix format, pretending to earnestly love the crude drawing enough to put it on hoodies, water bottles, and car decals3. Yllwsnow2 himself sculpted a small necklace based on the tattoo and listed it on eBay, where bids reportedly climbed past $753.

On April 15th, 2015, Imgur featured the trend on its official blog in a post titled "That Escalated Quickly"4. The next day, a dedicated subreddit at r/shartmander and a Twitter account with the matching handle appeared, giving the joke a home base4. Mainstream outlets including Metro, The Independent, and Complex covered the tattoo as "so bad it's good," with The Independent framing it as the successor to the Left Shark meme2.

Timeline

2015-04-14

Redditor Yllwsnow2 posts the tattoo photo to r/funny with the now-quoted "the flame saves it" caption.

2015-04-15

Imgur highlights the trend on its official blog in a roundup titled "That Escalated Quickly."

2015-04-16

The r/shartmander subreddit and @Shartmander Twitter account launch; Metro, The Independent, and Complex publish articles on the tattoo.

2015-04-16

Yllwsnow2 reveals the face of the 27-year-old tattooer with a timestamped follow-up post to r/funny.

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