Lévi Tang will never lose his clubcard. It’s tattooed on his arm.
The 24-year-old student, based in Amsterdam, had the barcode from his Albert Heijn loyalty card permanently inked onto his skin in March.
He holds his arm against the scanner at the checkout. The discounts apply. The staff stare.
“I simply hold my arm against the scanner and it applies the weekly discounts of certain items onto my purchase,” Tang told Creatorzine.
“For as long as it remains scannable, I’ll be enjoying the shocked and amused faces of the supermarket staff members and my fellow shoppers.”
The video of the tattoo in action has been viewed 3.1 million times and liked more than 57,000 times.
The barcode is from a carton of chocolate milk
The tattoo isn’t a generic barcode. It features the code from a carton of Tang’s favourite chocolate milk, linked to his clubcard at Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands.
He got it done at God of Ink in Amsterdam.
Tang says he’d been looking for a tattoo that was “funny, practical and meaningful.”
Most people pick two of those at best. He claims all three.
“My time as a student and young professional in Amsterdam has been such a formative experience, and I’ve grown a lot because of it,” he said.
“The tattoo captures that. It’s a little piece of this chapter I’ve checked out and get to keep with me. Plus, it reminds me to keep a sense of humour and to not take things too seriously.”
The pun was deliberate. Checked out. Like a supermarket. He’s committed to this.
The internet did the maths
The comments section split between people who admired the audacity and people who reached for a calculator.
“Paid £100 for a tattoo to get a 13p discount?” one viewer asked, raising a fair question about return on investment.
Others were less concerned with the economics. “This is fire,” wrote one.
“Insane,” added another.
A third took a broader philosophical view: “Late stage capitalism.”
The most practical concern came from a viewer who’d been through something similar without the permanent ink.
“Have fun with having to renew it,” they wrote. “My physical card didn’t give me proper bonus anymore.”
Whether Albert Heijn’s system will keep recognising the tattoo indefinitely is a question Tang will have to live with. Literally.
Why it matters
Loyalty card content is a surprisingly active corner of social media, and Tang’s tattoo sits at the extreme end of a format that already performs well: people finding creative or absurd ways to game everyday systems.
The 3.1 million views came not from the discount itself, which is negligible, but from the commitment.
A tattoo is permanent. A supermarket loyalty scheme is not.
That gap between the two is where the comedy lives.
For creators, the clip is a reminder that the most shareable ideas are often the simplest.
Tang didn’t need a production budget or a content strategy.
He needed a tattoo artist, a supermarket and the willingness to do something most people would talk themselves out of in about four seconds.
Albert Heijn hasn’t commented publicly. Whether they consider this brand loyalty or a warranty issue remains to be seen.
Tang says he’ll keep scanning it for as long as it works.
After that, he’ll have a permanent reminder of the time he got a chocolate milk barcode tattooed on his body for student discounts.
Worse souvenirs exist.
