A young man from Vietnam allegedly had his ID card tattooed on his arm, because he always forgot it when going out drinking with his friends and couldn’t prove he was old enough to buy alcohol.

Photos of what looked like an ID card tattooed on someone’s forearm went viral on Vietnamese social media. The person who posted it claimed that a friend of theirs had had it done after becoming exasperated with failing ID checks at nightclubs. He almost always forgot his national identity card at home and couldn’t prove he was old enough to drink. To make sure he never got kicked out of nightclubs again, he decided to have his ID card tattooed on his forearm.

“The story is that my friend, who resides in Ho Chi Minh City likes to go out drinking with friends, but every time they are subject to administrative inspection. He often failed to prove his identity because he didn’t have his ID card on him, so he got kicked out. Exasperated, today he went to a tattoo shop to have it inked on his arm,” the person who posted the photos online wrote, according to Tinmoi.

People started sharing the photos on social media and they quickly went viral. People’s reactions were generally negative, with some claiming that such tattoos were somewhat ridiculous, and others saying that it was the ugliest, most stupid tattoo they had ever seen.

Personally, the first time I saw the photos, I was convinced the tattoo was fake, but then I did a bit more research and found an article quoting the tattoo artist who inked the tattoo. Apparently, he has been doing tattoos for a long time, but this was the first time someone asked him to tattoo their ID card.

The artist, Nguyen Van Thien Dai, added that he was quite surprised by the request, and advised the client against going ahead with his plan, but he insisted so he eventually gave in. The tattoo reportedly took an hour to complete.

A number of social media users bashed Mr Nguyen for the poor quality of the tattoo, and the artist admitted that it wasn’t his best work yet, explaining that he had done it freehand, so the lines aren’t exactly straight and the writing is skewed.

As for the practicality of getting your ID card tattooed on your arm to pass ID checks at bars and nightclubs, I’m not sure it’ll help…