Fabien Tietjen: “When you think of tattoos, you should think of me”

There is a video on Instagram of Fabien Tietjen that has been viewed 9.8 million times: he takes off his T-shirt and shows his torso, which is completely tattooed. One of the many comments below reads in Italian: “A work of art, your tattoos!” Someone else writes in English: “This body belongs in a museum.”

Tietjen has a chief with feather headdress tattooed on his stomach and chest and a rosette on his neck – to name just a few of the motifs that cover almost his entire body. “I enjoy attracting attention,” says the 28-year-old from the Osterholz district near Bremen. “I always wanted to be different and swim against the tide.”

Fabien Tietjen had a British tattoo model as his role model

Five years ago, Fabien Tietjen decided to become a tattoo influencer. At the time, he was working for the factory fire department of a Bremen steel company, had just two tattoos on one arm and a few hundred followers on Instagram. “I still lived with my parents, never did a photo shoot and was stronger because my focus was on weight training in the gym,” says Tietjen. “I was still a long way from having distinctive facial features.” But he had a role model: the British tattoo model Stephen James. And he was very ambitious.

Countless tattoo sessions later, Tietjen’s body is now covered in motifs. The tattoos not only cost him a five-figure sum, they also required a lot of time. “Sometimes I had four sessions a week.” He still needed “around 25 sessions” before he had finished creating his desired “look.” He himself calls it a work of art.

3.5 million followers on Tiktok

He now has around 3.5 million followers on Tiktok and 635,000 on Instagram – and the number is constantly growing. More than 31 million have watched a Tiktok video in which he attracts attention on the street dressed in 1930s British style. 75 percent of his followers are women, says Tietjen. He received a lot of attention, especially for his poses in firefighter uniforms.

In his videos and photos, his fans often see a type of man that, according to him, doesn’t exist outside of social media: an aloof macho with a big motorcycle or expensive sports car. “In private, I’m a super relaxed guy,” Tietjen emphasizes. In the videos, however, he likes to play the role of the “bad boy.”

Two years ago, he quit his job at the factory fire department. He was able to achieve his dream and earn a living as an influencer and tattoo model. He receives orders from fashion labels and produces content for his accounts while traveling all over Europe. His goal: “I want to be at the top: when people think of tattoos, they should think of me.”

The man from Lower Saxony will soon even be seen as an actor: in the ARD two-part series “Feuerwehrfrauen”. The first film will be available in the ARD media library from September 11th. In it, he plays the firefighter Olli Meyer. He was able to empathize with the role well due to his own professional past. The character of his character is also similar to his own, he says: “Very tough on the outside, very emotional, empathetic and down-to-earth on the inside.”

Acting follows previous profession

Director Martin Busker had become aware of the influencer, who was still working for the company fire department at the time. “He followed what I was doing on social media for half a year,” says Tietjen. Finally, the filmmaker invited him to a casting. “It went very well.” He had already learned to work with facial expressions and gestures for his videos. Speaking in front of the camera, however, was not quite so easy for him: “I sometimes speak quickly and not clearly, which is very important in a film. I wasn’t aware of that before.” Busker helped him to emphasize words correctly and to speak from the gut.

For him, filming was “super relaxed”. “It was like a vacation,” says Tietjen. After all, as a trained industrial mechanic and later as a member of the company fire brigade, he is used to working physically hard and under difficult conditions. If at some point it no longer works out to earn money as a model, influencer or actor, Fabien Tietjen can imagine returning to his professional past: “I would apply to the professional fire brigade.”