A variety of stickers, posters and flyers decorate otherwise blank spots on campus and serve as a temporary spectacle for students on their way to class. On lampposts and bulletin boards, decals are noticed, taken down and replaced, transforming the Forty Acres into a living canvas. For Brandon Zupan, however, the wide-spread Bebo design decorates his body permanently. 

Zupan, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student, designed a Longhorn character in December of 2019 named “Bebo” and the design spread across campus in the form of stickers. Zupan said the drawing portrays a confused UT student, as Bebo’s eyes glaze in a dissociated daze and his muzzle stretches into a smile. A few months ago, he decided to get the drawing tattooed on his torso.  

“The tattoo and stickers are an important part to my connection at this University because it really is the mark that I’ve left on it,” Zupan said. “All the stickers everywhere and all the people that recognize Bebo — it makes me feel good knowing that I created something that got so popular, so innocent, so funny.”

The stickers started appearing on students’ water bottles, campus lamp posts, newspaper boxes, West Campus cafes and even in Oklahoma University since Zupan ordered around 350 in total and sold them as an undergraduate astronomy student, he said. 

“It’s funny to see a Bebo sticker on someone who I don’t know,” Zupan said. “It spread more than I could imagine.”

Four years after drawing Bebo on an iPad on his drive home, the design now represents Zupan’s involvement in student life. Zupan said he owns the UT Austin Discord server, which boasts over 8,000 members, plays the tower bells and joined Longhorn Furries. 

“A lot of my closest friends that I got at UT have been from the discord server,” Zupan said. “During COVID when everything shut down… the Discord was a hub of our friendship activity.”

Besides being a network for making friends, the UT Discord also hosted a Bebo sticker scavenger hunt several years ago before Zupan stopped selling them. 

“The sticker scavenger hunt helped people get more interested and feel more at home at UT,” Zupan said. “It was a good way to explore the campus and find places that people don’t normally go to.”

Zupan said he expects to graduate with a masters degree next year and become a digital verification engineer. In his words, the Bebo tattoo reminds him of his accomplishments. 

“I feel a lot of pride in my tattoo,” Zupan said. “It is a way to celebrate my time at UT, especially getting it around the end of my time here.”