A barcode is a system of inventory control and price checking that operates by using an optical scanner to read a series of vertical lines on a product. The system was invented and first used in the 1950's and was designed as a way to increase industrial efficiency and worker productivity. Within a very short period of time the use of barcodes became nearly ubiquitous - they were everywhere and on nearly everything. Every time you through the line up in a grocery store or go shopping in the mall, chances are your purchases were rung up by reading the bar codes on the product or the price-tag.
The use of the barcode as a tattoo design is meant to be ironical, a warning that if we are not careful as a culture, we are all in danger of becoming products ourselves. A barcode tattoo is also a protest against a culture where it seems that everyone wears the same clothes, listens to the same music and uses the same products. A barcode tattoo is a statement against a culture of commodities and a celebration of diversity and the uniqueness of the individual.
Lots of punk music enthusiasts embraced the barcode tattoo, as well as the symbol for anarchy.
