Chris Colfer Doesn't Want You To Get A Klaine Tat

The series finale of Glee airs on Friday, 6 long years after we first met the newly-minted New Directions. For actor Chris Colfer, who has played Kurt on the series since the very first episode, moving on from Glee is particularly hard — after all, it's the show that launched his career and the one that made his character a pop culture icon. As fans know, Chris Colfer's Kurt is one half of "Klaine," the couple name for the relationship (and now marriage!) between Kurt and Blaine — one of (sadly) few young gay couples depicted on network television. The saga of Klaine became a bit of a cultural phenomenon in its own right during Glee's run, mainly because it let the world know that two guys dating is actually, well, not really that big of a deal.

But while Klaine marks an important moment in pop culture, Colfer warns against commemorating the couple in a specific way. Colfer told Entertainment Weekly :

The tattoos are endless...for the show a lot of people have tattooed the word “Courage” or “Klaine,” which I try to tell everyone, “You’re going to regret that when you’re 40. You’re not going to care about us and you’re going to hate yourself.” I try, I try telling them.

I can only imagine how Kurt himself would react.

It's pretty amazing that people think that this couple is important enough to get inked on their bodies, and I think it's fair to say that Klaine has definitely helped break down some preconceived notions and stereotypes about gay couples.

But, Colfer has a point about people caring less about Klaine in the future. In fact I hope we don't care in 5 years, simply because I hope that there will be so many LGBT couples to look up to that they become just another part of our media landscape.

It's great that Klaine paved the way, but my hope is that Glee will prove to other shows that they can incorporate LGBT couples and issues as just a normal part of TV. Maybe in the future we won't have to idolize couples like Klaine — we'll see them as just another couple, because that's what they are. So while I'm all for tatting yourself with a symbol for LGBT rights, maybe we should all leave Klaine off our bodies, and focus on a bigger picture: Normalizing gay couples on television.