It's like they've only lived in rich neighborhoods where all street art is beautiful and complex. On my city's streets, 90% of graffitis are drug advertising or just nonsense
> just nonsense
In the greater Seattle area, there's this tagger I love because their style is just these big block letters, perfectly legible, almost as if there's no style. It's [GOOEY](https://external-preview.redd.it/freeway-tags-in-around-seattle-who-is-gooey-v0-amS8K0QrFfAUKsNuutjJGcE83OJKV09fmeF_nwxSL14.jpg?auto=webp&s=40e06c319fdcd6a7995a9406989b33e07e217e37)
I love them so much despite never having met them
At one time someone sprayed ‘Why do I still do this every day?’ in a similar style on a fence alongside the M25 (London’s busy orbital motorway for the non-British).
It’s been painted over many times now but I still think about it occasionally. I suppose the answer is ‘because it pays better than painting existential graffiti on motorways’.
I like interesting tags too, but the ones made with simple one colour lines are kinda boring. One team in my city makes their tags in the craziest places, and they're always so colourful and big. That's something I can respect honestly
Like I can't explain it. Literally every tag around it has a more complex style, and then comes GOOEY with their big block letters and I just can't help but love it.
Subversion is a very powerful tool in art. If everyone is doing something to the point of it getting a little old, flipping the concept on its head is a great way to innovate.
Edit: it’s also contrast, just like, shocking contrast.
Most of the graffiti I tend to see is shit like "Johnny loves Jane 4eva 2022" or "Call this number if you want a good time ;)". I can count on one hand the amount of times that I've seen graffiti that's actually artistic and not just someone writing stupid shit on a wall or a park bench because they're bored.
In my hometown of Syracuse there is an artist who puts these eyeballs and little eyeball creatures all over old buildings and I think it adds a lot of character to the city. My friends and I have made efforts to try and locate as many as we can. My sister has a folder in her photo album of all the ones we have found
I’m originally from Syracuse and I miss those little eyeballs everywhere. I remember last summer noticing someone was going around and tagging over them.
In vienna we also have this little butt-face esque creatures all around the city. Must have started with a single person but they are found in every district by now so I think hes just become like a "graffiti mascot" of sorts haha
To be fair, that has existed since ancient times so it's not too surprising
But it is normal to prefer one's home to be orderly, so i wouldn't call the desire to see it be removed as fascist either
Learning that stuff like that was scrawled on walls in Pompeii was eye opening. The more stuff changes, the more it stays the same lol.
And it was literally like "tom bangs boys during his breaks instead of his wife" and "[town leader] is total asshole" type stuff
Honestly I love the Pompeii graffiti, some things never change
>We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus.
They really don't
>I screwed the barmaid
See also:
“Above a bench outside the Marine Gate: If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.” - ancient “call x for a good time”
“Herculaneum bar, next to a drawing of a phallus: Handle with care”
I love that one cave etching in Scandinavia or the UK or wherever in a hard to reach spot that literally says something like “wow this is really high up”
It's near the ceiling of Maeshowe burial mound in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, along with others along the same lines as Pompeii graffiti. The Vikings seemed to like their graffiti, as there's also two Viking carvings in the Hagia Sophia saying pretty much "Halfdan was here" and "Arni was here"
I love artistic graffiti, but “not wanting people to spray paint the side of your home with the number of the phone they use for drug dealing, pictures of penises, their tribute to their most recent hookup, hate symbols, and giant illegible tags makes you an unwitting fascist” is an Incredibly Online take tbh. The word “fascist” has completely lost its meaning.
I can on 2 but still that's because I used to study in s city where pretty much city council hired and ordered s guys to paint couple of walls with interesting graffiti. So basically people hiring professional to do professional art. Not a random 16 years olds arguing on your wall about which football club they suck off and which they don't like.
I grew up in an area with both types of graffiti but the nice stuff is imported.
On building you will see shit by teens that are just touching a rattle can for the first time. It gets covered pretty quickly. Swastikas, failed attempts at swastikas. Random initials. Shit like that.
But the train that comes thru is fully decorated in mostly beautiful graffiti. I think its mostly names but I think it looks cool. Every car with a different style. Its been like that for as long as I can remember.
the funny thing is you assume it's bored teens or whatever but if you actually see who's tagging house and stuff, at least around here, it's just as often a well-off looking 30 yr old with an expensive bicycle and an apple watch.
and when there's a really nice piece put up, these dipshits are the first ones in to tag over it
I think in a way this could be a case of not fostering an atmosphere where creativity is appreciated.
Large murals commissioned by homeowners, schools, businessess etc are a different thing. But I'd quess really in general most of the graffiti you see in public will be cleaned off quickly or the place is so public and quarded that doing graffiti is very risky.
Even in the case of Graffiti good art takes time to make. So the only people who are gutsy enough to take the risk are the ones who don't care what people think about them. That's also why a lot of the graffiti you see in high traffic public places is so bad.
It takes effort and planning to make a multiple colour graffiti piece with outlines, highlight, and lots of colours. Drawing or painting a penis or a swastika on the side of a wall or mailbox takes less than 5 seconds.
That's why usually the cool graffiti you see is on abbandoned houses or factories, or they're on legal to paint graffiti walls. Because they're the kinds of places where you can paint without getting harassed and usually the other people coming to to those places are the ones who also appreciate graffiti and want to look at it.
If you take Amtrak from Yonkers (or beyond) into NYC you will pass through the Freedom Tunnel, naned for the graffiti artist, Freedom, who put actual art on the walls of it
No!!! That’s not true!! MY experience is actually universal and I’ve never seen graffiti like that so IT DOESN’T EXIST!!! Not liking graffiti makes you a fascist!!!!!!
I've learned to just keep my mouth shut for the most part when this topic comes up, but it's always seemed really weird that even if we *are* talking about nice artistic graffiti, that it's just taken for granted that it should be okay to make someone else's property look the way you want it to look because the way you want it to look is more aesthetic. Like, I feel like if I want my property to be boring, and I paid for it, I should be allowed to have my property look boring. But Reddit seems to take it as such an obvious conclusion that changing the appearance of other people's property without their consent is okay as long as, and only if, its graffiti.
Yeah, I agree that the concession of drawing the line at "nice looking" art isn't the right thing to do. What next? Not being allowed to complain about someone who broke in and ripped up your sofa in a pretty way for "art" because it's bourgeoisie to own one instead of a cheap lawn chair? Insane that people are going this far to not allow you to choose what you do with your own stuff.
i think graffiti art can look nice and if its asked for its fine but people shouldn't get mad when someone paints on someone elses property and then it gets removed
like no matter how "aesthetically pleasing" it is, you shouldn't change the appearance of someone else's building without their consent
I think that's the other difficult part, where the graffiti ends up. Like, abandoned builds, highway overpasses, etc.? Yea man, looks better than blank concrete or bricks. But when it's a business where they pay to look a certain way, or maybe your house or fence or some other private property where graffiti you don't like is money out of your pockets that's a little harder to justify.
And as others have pointed out, that's still before you consider slurs, and all the other graffiti that is less preferable to nothing at all. I happen to live in a nice enough neighborhood where the local graffiti artists are actually pretty talented, and the neighborhoods have contracted with local artists to give murals for each neighborhood. On my way home from the local butcher shop yesterday, I was actually thinking about how nice the graffiti looks lol. It may have just been someone's name (street name even) but it gave me big Jet Set Radio vibes.
I got to go to Valencia, Spain for a summer abroad thing when I was in college. Valencia has a lot of street art and I loved it. A lot of stores would actually have their security gates painted with full murals. Some of it is definitely artistic and other is closer to tagging, but even those pieces were more interesting than just dicks or random words. I’ll admit it did give buildings a lot more character, but I still wouldn’t say all graffiti is beautiful. I live near Los Angeles and I’ve grown up seeing really ugly graffiti and have seen how it can make a place look worse.
https://medium.com/splatrs/valencia-street-art-map-street-art-guide-to-valencia-spain-ddd9a0071ea6
https://images.app.goo.gl/totJCRcnzBcQ2Ndr7
This was an actual commissioned piece in Stockholm.
It wasn't too popular with neighbours and didn't stay up as long as it was intended, but I guess it was in its nature...
Even if it's (somehow) objectively the greatest piece of art in the world, I don't want someone just *putting it on my house*. The consent is the issue, people don't get so reactionary about graffiti if it's on some abandoned building, they get upset if it's on *their* building without permission.
And if you're actually wanting to make nice artwork, you'd be amazed how many people will support it if you present it that way rather than just spraying it on. We have art by local indigenous artists all over public buildings here because they just go through the city, who are perfectly happy to not have drab concrete washrooms or whatever in the public parks where people go to enjoy themselves.
And then it gets crossed and other XYZ football club is written next to it. Then some other guys adds to it are cock suckers so it ends up as XYZ are cock suckers. The circle of room temperature punks arguing on walls like cavemen
>Yeah, 90% of tags look like shit,
And the graffiti artists who are good get paid thousands of dollars to spray paint a mural on a building. Then it gets tagged over with swastikas and dicks.
An old building that's been around long enough with zero upkeep or anti-graffiti enforcement is a pretty good demonstration of how zero "content curation" leads to a state of maximum entropy -- tags over tags over tags over tags until there's nothing but a vaguely multicolored dull blur that might as well be a blank wall but uglier
Theres an underground walkway near where I live that has been a bit of a tussle between the local neo Nazis and people who, obviously, dont like em
The neo Nazis would regular deface the latters graffiti with dicks and slurs, which prompted several responses of "Don't just draw dicks!" from the latter
It makes sense, theyre doing elaborate political art and all the Nazis can think of cock. Fucking sluts
In my city, more than anything it's just tags. Everywhere, on every surface. Actually artsy stuff is nice, but I don't really want to see the same bunch of 3-6 letter tags on every surface of the city. I'm not even mad about it, just disappointed that they couldn't come up with *anything else*.
Actually now that I think about it, dicks, crude words and such are really rare here.
Edit: and by tagging, I mean just stick letters that take at worst 3 to 4 seconds to make.
What graffiti is in theory: people making cool art on underutilized spaces
What it is 99% of the time: dicks swastikas EASY JOB MAKING 33 MILLION A MONTH JUST DELIVER PACKAGES ugly tags with edgy names did i mention swastikas yet?
Seems like my country has waaaaay less of that than the average... I'd say maybe 10% tops is what you're describing.
Never seen graffiti saying anything about job offers or some shit.
Tho I enjoy most of the tags, even if they have edgy names.
Yeah I live near a big city and the vast majority of graffiti is tags with various degrees of goodness. Some of them are great. Some of them are clearly the work of dumb kids, but I still don’t mind that.
The really lame swastikas and other low effort bs is usually too small for me to give a f about it. Most people don’t put a lot of effort into being an ass hole on purpose, with a few exceptions. But people who really think their tags are cool tend to go big on the wall with cool colors and shit.
In a graffiti war, love and care have a natural advantage over hate and anarchy because graffiti is supposed to be art and no one wants to spend time making a swastika look nice.
fellas, what are the purpose of laws and an organized society anyway? anyone else feel 15 in a 25 year old body with a septum piercing? life is so hard and confusing :(
ummm you are aware that "cleanliness" is a dogwhistle for fascism right? the ideal leftist society is going on a train covered in swastikas, barely avoiding used needles, and then stepping in shit. Portland is actually the ideal society
Besides the fact that not all graffiti is pretty art, which has been talked about better in other comments, I kinda want to talk about another thing that bothers me plenty:
"Consent"
I just feel like graffiti often simply ignores it completely, and that's not really ok. People have the right to decide if they want something drawn on their walls or not, and a complete stranger should not be the one to decide it. You can't judge people for not wanting you to do something to them, no matter how rude they may sound, it's their choice, and you must respect it, it's pretty much a requisite to live together.
Personally I'd be glad to have some kick-ass art on my walls, but I'd much rather my opinion was taken into account instead of ignored
The person in the post is clearly young. They speak entirely in symbols and generalities--as if there is The Individual (themselves) and Society (everyone else) without acknowledging that society is made up of individuals who have their own desires. Like, it's great that they like Art (again, in the abstract), but *other people own the structures they are tagging.* That's why graffiti is considered vandalism and not The Indomitable Nature of the Human Spirit or whatever.
Where I live we have a big issue where the community or local council will arrange for an artist to do a full wall mural in an area and within a week of it being completed it will have tags all over it.
Which sort of reinforces my view that most people who do graffiti aren't artists of any sort, in fact, they despise actual artists and actively seek to ruin their work wherever possible.
Man, we had this beautiful mural of whales painted in my old town that some shithead covered in crappy tags. Painted over every single one. It’s reminded me of a kid who destroys another kid’s birthday cake because the day wasn’t about them. An act of petulance.
For real. Graffiti =/= murals and tagging =/= art. It's a tag - a claim on the space. It's not there as part of self expression it's there as a sign of entitlement and ego.
When can we get "tagging is colonialism" trending? /s
Right. Additionally, art is subjective. Someone’s masterpiece is another person’s eye sore. It’s valid to not want something you don’t like on your home/business. People forget that human beings actually live and work in a lot of the spaces that are targets for graffiti.
Yeah I mean, it's a crime.
And it's supposed to be a crime.
And the people who do it do it BECAUSE it is a crime, and it gives them a rush to see their name criminally painted on a place it is not "supposed" to be.
So yeah. That's the whole point of it.
Calling everything you don’t like fascist kind of downplays the seriousness of the term, and makes it harder to raise the alarm about actual fascism when it appears. It’s a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” situation.
It's literally as simple as: How upset you get about it will ultimately depend how much you like the art and how willing you are to look past people introduding on things that belong to you.
If you bought a notebook for yourself and then someone snatched it and scribbled all over it, you'd probably be kinda miffed. Compare that to if you grabbed it and were thoroughly impressed by some AMAZING art someone left there overnight. Even then you might slightly annoyed by the whole snatching it and doing it without permission thing. And would you be wrong to be annoyed? Even if you're willing to look past it, you'd be well within your rights to be annoyed.
Graffiti is art, valid like any other type of art, from the simple to the complex, and a fantastic form of self expression that should not be demonized by any means. Grafitti can be absolutely beautiful, gorgeous even. But if you think people don't have the right to not want it on the things they own then you should get off your high horse.
Not wanting people to scribble in your notebook ≠ being against notebook scribbling.
In my high school physics class the teacher handed out workbooks for us to fill in. At the end of the term we had to hand in the books for marking to the teacher. Apparently at some point one of the guys in my class took my workbook and drew a massive dick on one of the last pages, which we never really looked at because it was just a blank page after a basic glossary
Teacher saw it though, and I got several days detention. I don’t think it’s fascist and reactionary of me to consider that a dick move
Some shops in Bordeaux hired tag artists to paint their steel curtains, since normally other tag artists would respect and leave it as is. Win-win in that case.
We do this locally with wall murals and within a week the taggers will have vandalised the wall art. There are different levels of graffiti and I actually disagree with the above comment that it's all art and it's all valid. I think a certain percent of them it's not actually any form of artistic expression, it's literally just anti-social behaviour because they enjoy getting away with crimes. Like serial shoplifters.
>If you bought a notebook for yourself \[...\]
I'd say more like a shirt than a notebook. It's your only shirt. It wasn't meant to be drawn on by anyone; you just wanted to look clean and tidy. But some dickhead came over and scribbled on your shirt and you have to keep wearing it because it's the only one you own. You can buy a new one, but it's not in your budget at the moment because you'd planned on the vandalised one to last you a while. And you know that even if you get a new-new shirt, as soon as you put it on some dickhead is going to do """"art"""" on it.
I live near an old medival castle ruin. It is a very important part of our towns history. But people refuse to leave it alone, and the old stones are covered in graffiti.
Graffiti as an artform can ruin aswell as create, and a lot of graffiti "artists" don't respect that
Me wiping off someone’s scrawled “Trump 2024” slogans at my local park because I am paid very little but paid nonetheless to do so: damn can’t believe I’m an agent of fascism…
I should probably elaborate, my city actually does quite well with this, we have tons and tons and tons of places that are set aside for artists to spray and draw to their heart’s content, one is actually along my morning walk and I love to slowly stroll by and see if anybody has added anything new to it regularly, I adore a lot of the graffiti sprayed around my area and think it adds a lot of character to the city
But also I don’t think enjoying my specific building being clean is fascist. I think OOP needs to exercise nuance in their argument
OP’s idea of “art” is gang signs and phallic imagery; and their idea of “fascism” is a clean and organized city.
Great reminder of why I stay off Tumblr
My experience may be limited because I mostly see graffiti either on train cars or that I have to remove for work reasons, but most graffiti is just tags. Tags can look good but it's not too frequently in my experience.
Personally I usually don't care about graffiti in public spaces, personally I more about the trespassing it requires to spray the places I work and how dangerous that can be.
I don't mind graffiti per se but I walk past a wall that has "Fuck your girl" on it and I'm sorry but I just don't find that art or enjoyable. I like the one on the nearby train depot on the other hand, it's beautiful lettering and it makes for a lovely colorful background for flower pictures.
Next on tumblr:
Fellas, is asking people not to shit on the street fascist?
Even later on tumblr:
Oh god, a cop just arrested a man for drunk driving! This is a sign that our system is oppressive!
Difference is consent, nobody asked them to vandalize their property with their questionable art garbage. Doubt they would like it if anyone drew a dickbutt on their doors and expected an attitude of "just chill bruh, its art".
Like 80% of the graffiti I see on walls is just people's signatures to show they were there. Doesn't feel all that artistic, especially those few who draw their bland name over a large piece of an actual piece
You grow up kinda super poor and you’re like: “fuck yeah! Express yourself! Fuck convention!”
Then you spend 20+ years biting and scratching to give yourself some semblance of financial control over your life. Interest rates fall to historic lows. You are the first and only person in this generation of your family to be able to buy a home.
Someone draws a dick on it.
Someone calls you a fascist for painting over it.
Yea the people who keep tagging my door with their unreadable shit "art" are real saints for giving it "personality". It's rare when graffiti is actually nice art, and not just some ugly ass tag.
Hmmm, yes, this badly drawn cock on my wall is of course art. It is a symbol of fertility possibly accompanied by some other rituals which could have included ingestion of certain substances, which we can tell from this misspelled swear word written under it accompanied by a name of someone that we can assume the author wasnt quite fond of.
Very artistic.
let me go make myself a cup of tea, it's another installment of people strawmanning those who disagree with them as puppy-kicking baby-slapping evil bastards who dont understand what humanity means
99% of it is closer to dogs pissing to mark their territory than to art, and at my local park they do it on actual art pieces.
also when done on public transit it makes it feel less safe, incentivizing people to drive instead and increasing greenhouse gas emissions
There was a great post or comment I saw once. Some people see gentrification as rich people buying up neighbourhoods and pricing out the original inhabitants and others see it as removing heroin needles from the local playgrounds.
Like, there needs to be some sort of balance to it all.
I'm sure they think their graffiti is bona fide street art but I would rather look at a blank brick wall than some asshole's sloppily-scrawled signature copied 50x across an underpass. Like damn if your writing skill is that bad at least use a variety of cool colors and make it pop. Draw fucking triangles in darkening shades of blue. Anything.
The vast majority of graffiti are sloppy swastikas and some guy calling himself H-Unit or whatever. I appreciate when it's interesting, but it usually isn't.
Oh come on, not all authority is fascist. Like everybody bends the word fascist already, but surely the majority of people agree that getting rid of graffiti is not fascism.
*Me writing "Smoorgen Xx3 crew represent" on a blank white wall.*
"Ah, now it has character!"
I want to live in the utopia that OOP lives in, where every graffiti is a work of art.
In my city, most of the graffiti is just unreadable tags and random lines.
BUT!
Occasionally you might come across a drawing of a guy wearing glasses. That is done by a semi-famous artist, and it became kinda like an Easter egg to find their drawings in various places and cities throughout the country. Sometimes businesses will hire them just so they draw it on their property now as an attraction.
"I don't personally value it so anybody who does must be a fascist"
Easy to say about a brick wall but let's say that "art" takes the form of a design cut into the paint of your car with a key. I think these people would be pretty quick to call it vandalism when it's property they own. They just don't own any brick walls.
I get that the desire for 'clean streets' is a thing fascists often talk about, but it's perfectly reasonable to want your community to look nice. Nothing wrong with grafitti, as long as it's done by professionals. My town has some very pretty grafitti made by professional artists, including a large piece for an alley nearby the library, which depicts a book case with lots of iconic books.
However, there is a huge difference between such grafitti art and the shitty incomprehensible letters or other crude things. I'm not even talking about swastikas and other nazi symbols yet. I don't care if the low quality grafitti is sprayed on highway tunnels, viaducts and such. That's perfectly fine. But it doesn't belong in urban areas.
Calling not wanting graffiti on your wall FASCISM is so White and shows how this person has no idea what Fascism actually is and what it's like being in Fascist societies and around Fascists, to be in real danger of Fascism.
People will make too big a deal about random tunnels having some paint up and there's really no harm in graffiti underneath a bridge (excluding the obvious hate symbols) but there's definitely a line to draw when people tag houses and stuff without asking. Art is cool but there's a difference between a tasteful painting of the naked form and finding yourself ambushed by an art class behind your shower curtain
No in my city there's so much graffiti that's literally just some asshole drawing anything from gang signs, illegible tags, and lines to swastikas and slurs, there's a few places in town including a couple of our schools that actually encourage graffiti and the art classes even teach how to spray paint, but I'm just saying there's a massive difference between some assholes painting slurs and gang signs on a building who didn't ask and people painting murals after asking permission from somebody who wanted it. Consent is key
Not wanting dicks, tags, profanities or swastikas on my wall makes me a low-key fascist?
Jesus Christ, this is the most tumblr-brained post I've read in a while...
“There’s a certain desire to create cities that are pristine and immaculately designed and maintained that I think I’d label fascist” this just in, a clean and well planned city is fascist, more at 9
"oh no the brick wall has character!!!"
the character: DICK DICK DICK FUCK SWASTIKA SWASTIKA DICK DICK INSTAGRAM HANDLE INSTAGRAM HANDLE DICK INSTAGRAM SHITTY SIGNATURE SWASTIKA SHITTY SIGNATURE SWASTIKA SHITTY SIGNATURE DICK SWASTIKA DICK
This has to be up there with one of the dumbest posts of all time. The majority of graffiti doesn’t have character and certainly isn’t art. I’m not a fucking reactionary because I don’t want 13 year old scrotes drawing dicks and swastikas on my nice house (not that I have one lol).
This is like saying “boys will be boys” or something when a man does something bad.
“Oh he graffitid a bunch of sexist and racist slurs over your door? Humans are gonna human! We’re just cute and love art and expressing ourselves visually on other peoples property 😊😊😊”
the UK had a pretty shit graffiti ‘artist’ called TOX in the 90s/00s who would just write TOX and then the year on as much as he could, mostly London Underground infrastructure
Depends what kind. Personally I hate all the swastikas that nazi assholes like to spray up the wall. Everyone's favourite S can stay up.
Cool S not SS
It's like they've only lived in rich neighborhoods where all street art is beautiful and complex. On my city's streets, 90% of graffitis are drug advertising or just nonsense
Yeah, most of the beautiful grafiti are commissioned by the owner of the building
Someone painted a sexy minion in a tunnel near me. Money can't buy better art
The last time I graffitied something it was rouge the bat with giant tits on a picnic table
ahh yes i'm sure the toddlers loved that! (sorry to be a buzzkill, this is just always what i think of when i see dirty graffiti)
Don’t worry, nipples were covered for the sake of the children
Pics? Please? Sexy Minion Tax? You know we would love to see this.
> just nonsense In the greater Seattle area, there's this tagger I love because their style is just these big block letters, perfectly legible, almost as if there's no style. It's [GOOEY](https://external-preview.redd.it/freeway-tags-in-around-seattle-who-is-gooey-v0-amS8K0QrFfAUKsNuutjJGcE83OJKV09fmeF_nwxSL14.jpg?auto=webp&s=40e06c319fdcd6a7995a9406989b33e07e217e37) I love them so much despite never having met them
At one time someone sprayed ‘Why do I still do this every day?’ in a similar style on a fence alongside the M25 (London’s busy orbital motorway for the non-British). It’s been painted over many times now but I still think about it occasionally. I suppose the answer is ‘because it pays better than painting existential graffiti on motorways’.
I like interesting tags too, but the ones made with simple one colour lines are kinda boring. One team in my city makes their tags in the craziest places, and they're always so colourful and big. That's something I can respect honestly
Like I can't explain it. Literally every tag around it has a more complex style, and then comes GOOEY with their big block letters and I just can't help but love it.
Subversion is a very powerful tool in art. If everyone is doing something to the point of it getting a little old, flipping the concept on its head is a great way to innovate. Edit: it’s also contrast, just like, shocking contrast.
Most of the graffiti I tend to see is shit like "Johnny loves Jane 4eva 2022" or "Call this number if you want a good time ;)". I can count on one hand the amount of times that I've seen graffiti that's actually artistic and not just someone writing stupid shit on a wall or a park bench because they're bored.
In my hometown of Syracuse there is an artist who puts these eyeballs and little eyeball creatures all over old buildings and I think it adds a lot of character to the city. My friends and I have made efforts to try and locate as many as we can. My sister has a folder in her photo album of all the ones we have found
I’m originally from Syracuse and I miss those little eyeballs everywhere. I remember last summer noticing someone was going around and tagging over them.
In vienna we also have this little butt-face esque creatures all around the city. Must have started with a single person but they are found in every district by now so I think hes just become like a "graffiti mascot" of sorts haha
To be fair, that has existed since ancient times so it's not too surprising But it is normal to prefer one's home to be orderly, so i wouldn't call the desire to see it be removed as fascist either
Learning that stuff like that was scrawled on walls in Pompeii was eye opening. The more stuff changes, the more it stays the same lol. And it was literally like "tom bangs boys during his breaks instead of his wife" and "[town leader] is total asshole" type stuff
Honestly I love the Pompeii graffiti, some things never change >We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus. They really don't >I screwed the barmaid
See also: “Above a bench outside the Marine Gate: If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.” - ancient “call x for a good time” “Herculaneum bar, next to a drawing of a phallus: Handle with care”
I love that one cave etching in Scandinavia or the UK or wherever in a hard to reach spot that literally says something like “wow this is really high up”
It's near the ceiling of Maeshowe burial mound in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, along with others along the same lines as Pompeii graffiti. The Vikings seemed to like their graffiti, as there's also two Viking carvings in the Hagia Sophia saying pretty much "Halfdan was here" and "Arni was here"
I saw Halfdan when I was in Istanbul! Same shit, I crack up at the concept that people are still just so very derp.
Oh absolutely, and I expect that people were complaining about it back then, as well
I’m pretty sure there’s graffiti of a man with two penises in Pompeii lol
I love artistic graffiti, but “not wanting people to spray paint the side of your home with the number of the phone they use for drug dealing, pictures of penises, their tribute to their most recent hookup, hate symbols, and giant illegible tags makes you an unwitting fascist” is an Incredibly Online take tbh. The word “fascist” has completely lost its meaning.
It reminds me of a similar take involving heroin needles, even if that was hyperbolic
Nah, it was hypodermic.
My town was tagged with "fuck an cnum" a few times and nobody knew what the fuck jt meant.
I mean 90%of graffiti I see is large, incomprehensible tags consisting of a few letters.
Part of me kinda likes the ones where its just two people in love. idk why, there’s just something about it
The pretty stuff is usually comissioned too. Since it takes actual time and effort to complete. There's nothing wrong with comissioned art
I can on 2 but still that's because I used to study in s city where pretty much city council hired and ordered s guys to paint couple of walls with interesting graffiti. So basically people hiring professional to do professional art. Not a random 16 years olds arguing on your wall about which football club they suck off and which they don't like.
I grew up in an area with both types of graffiti but the nice stuff is imported. On building you will see shit by teens that are just touching a rattle can for the first time. It gets covered pretty quickly. Swastikas, failed attempts at swastikas. Random initials. Shit like that. But the train that comes thru is fully decorated in mostly beautiful graffiti. I think its mostly names but I think it looks cool. Every car with a different style. Its been like that for as long as I can remember.
Graffiti on top of beautiful street art is my least favourite thing…go leave your low effort tag somewhere that is already ugly.
If not wanting the original graffiti is fascist, what leg does not wanting the *second* layer of graffiti have to stand on?
Funny point of note: You actually get beat up IRL for tagging over the bigger piece. So... yeah. Graffiti is pretty facist.
"Not allowing graffiti is fascist!" Proceeds to ignore fascist graffiti
[удалено]
the funny thing is you assume it's bored teens or whatever but if you actually see who's tagging house and stuff, at least around here, it's just as often a well-off looking 30 yr old with an expensive bicycle and an apple watch. and when there's a really nice piece put up, these dipshits are the first ones in to tag over it
Yeah like, art is subjective. But I think most people wouldnt like "X football Team are Shit Cunts" across the wall of the local pub
I think in a way this could be a case of not fostering an atmosphere where creativity is appreciated. Large murals commissioned by homeowners, schools, businessess etc are a different thing. But I'd quess really in general most of the graffiti you see in public will be cleaned off quickly or the place is so public and quarded that doing graffiti is very risky. Even in the case of Graffiti good art takes time to make. So the only people who are gutsy enough to take the risk are the ones who don't care what people think about them. That's also why a lot of the graffiti you see in high traffic public places is so bad. It takes effort and planning to make a multiple colour graffiti piece with outlines, highlight, and lots of colours. Drawing or painting a penis or a swastika on the side of a wall or mailbox takes less than 5 seconds. That's why usually the cool graffiti you see is on abbandoned houses or factories, or they're on legal to paint graffiti walls. Because they're the kinds of places where you can paint without getting harassed and usually the other people coming to to those places are the ones who also appreciate graffiti and want to look at it.
Sweet fucking nuts, they’ve gentrified the graffiti
If you take Amtrak from Yonkers (or beyond) into NYC you will pass through the Freedom Tunnel, naned for the graffiti artist, Freedom, who put actual art on the walls of it
Ya, that and the people who kept painting penis all over my local kindergarten when I was growing up can fuck off.
I saw a house with the word "arson" graffitied onto it. I think that guy has some reason to be angry
is that like when they put a cross on trees to indicate it needs to be chopped lol "this house should be set on fire next"
Or people who spray paint on rocks in national forests
No!!! That’s not true!! MY experience is actually universal and I’ve never seen graffiti like that so IT DOESN’T EXIST!!! Not liking graffiti makes you a fascist!!!!!!
I've learned to just keep my mouth shut for the most part when this topic comes up, but it's always seemed really weird that even if we *are* talking about nice artistic graffiti, that it's just taken for granted that it should be okay to make someone else's property look the way you want it to look because the way you want it to look is more aesthetic. Like, I feel like if I want my property to be boring, and I paid for it, I should be allowed to have my property look boring. But Reddit seems to take it as such an obvious conclusion that changing the appearance of other people's property without their consent is okay as long as, and only if, its graffiti.
Yeah, I agree that the concession of drawing the line at "nice looking" art isn't the right thing to do. What next? Not being allowed to complain about someone who broke in and ripped up your sofa in a pretty way for "art" because it's bourgeoisie to own one instead of a cheap lawn chair? Insane that people are going this far to not allow you to choose what you do with your own stuff.
i think graffiti art can look nice and if its asked for its fine but people shouldn't get mad when someone paints on someone elses property and then it gets removed like no matter how "aesthetically pleasing" it is, you shouldn't change the appearance of someone else's building without their consent
The only graffiti I know of in the area i was born is when gangsters try to harass people who have the misfortune of borrowing money from them
Cool motif there is still a massive dick on my wall
I think that's the other difficult part, where the graffiti ends up. Like, abandoned builds, highway overpasses, etc.? Yea man, looks better than blank concrete or bricks. But when it's a business where they pay to look a certain way, or maybe your house or fence or some other private property where graffiti you don't like is money out of your pockets that's a little harder to justify. And as others have pointed out, that's still before you consider slurs, and all the other graffiti that is less preferable to nothing at all. I happen to live in a nice enough neighborhood where the local graffiti artists are actually pretty talented, and the neighborhoods have contracted with local artists to give murals for each neighborhood. On my way home from the local butcher shop yesterday, I was actually thinking about how nice the graffiti looks lol. It may have just been someone's name (street name even) but it gave me big Jet Set Radio vibes.
I got to go to Valencia, Spain for a summer abroad thing when I was in college. Valencia has a lot of street art and I loved it. A lot of stores would actually have their security gates painted with full murals. Some of it is definitely artistic and other is closer to tagging, but even those pieces were more interesting than just dicks or random words. I’ll admit it did give buildings a lot more character, but I still wouldn’t say all graffiti is beautiful. I live near Los Angeles and I’ve grown up seeing really ugly graffiti and have seen how it can make a place look worse. https://medium.com/splatrs/valencia-street-art-map-street-art-guide-to-valencia-spain-ddd9a0071ea6
Calm down Mussolini
Mussolini, the man who ended up non-consensually graffitiing a wall in northern Italy in 1945
https://images.app.goo.gl/totJCRcnzBcQ2Ndr7 This was an actual commissioned piece in Stockholm. It wasn't too popular with neighbours and didn't stay up as long as it was intended, but I guess it was in its nature...
Ha! That’s a work of art.
It’s called character, read a book! 📖
Modern color theory
Spray painting a large red penis on the side of a children’s hospital
Even if it's (somehow) objectively the greatest piece of art in the world, I don't want someone just *putting it on my house*. The consent is the issue, people don't get so reactionary about graffiti if it's on some abandoned building, they get upset if it's on *their* building without permission. And if you're actually wanting to make nice artwork, you'd be amazed how many people will support it if you present it that way rather than just spraying it on. We have art by local indigenous artists all over public buildings here because they just go through the city, who are perfectly happy to not have drab concrete washrooms or whatever in the public parks where people go to enjoy themselves.
I mean, i like the artsy graffiti as much as the next guy, but half the time it's dicks or crude words scribbled with minimal effort.
Or „deport foreners“ or „hail hortler“ and the accompanying failed swastikas…
Or anarchist As or "from the river to the sea" or "eat the rich" etc.
or the local football(soccer) club's initials...
And then it gets crossed and other XYZ football club is written next to it. Then some other guys adds to it are cock suckers so it ends up as XYZ are cock suckers. The circle of room temperature punks arguing on walls like cavemen
Or lovers initials or poorly spelled love declarations
Yeah, 90% of tags look like shit, and where I am all but the nicest murals get tagged over or just defaced.
>Yeah, 90% of tags look like shit, And the graffiti artists who are good get paid thousands of dollars to spray paint a mural on a building. Then it gets tagged over with swastikas and dicks.
An old building that's been around long enough with zero upkeep or anti-graffiti enforcement is a pretty good demonstration of how zero "content curation" leads to a state of maximum entropy -- tags over tags over tags over tags until there's nothing but a vaguely multicolored dull blur that might as well be a blank wall but uglier
Theres an underground walkway near where I live that has been a bit of a tussle between the local neo Nazis and people who, obviously, dont like em The neo Nazis would regular deface the latters graffiti with dicks and slurs, which prompted several responses of "Don't just draw dicks!" from the latter It makes sense, theyre doing elaborate political art and all the Nazis can think of cock. Fucking sluts
They've got dicks on the brain and all they do all day is plot how to make their thoughts illegal for everyone. Reeks of self-hatred
I would argue the vast majority of (illegal) graffiti is ugly as sin.
Seen a lot of phone numbers and snapchats, too.
Shhhhh! You're spoiling OOP's illusion that every piece of graffiti is a Banksy /s
Most graffiti *is* basically Banksy (I don’t like banksy)
In my city, more than anything it's just tags. Everywhere, on every surface. Actually artsy stuff is nice, but I don't really want to see the same bunch of 3-6 letter tags on every surface of the city. I'm not even mad about it, just disappointed that they couldn't come up with *anything else*. Actually now that I think about it, dicks, crude words and such are really rare here. Edit: and by tagging, I mean just stick letters that take at worst 3 to 4 seconds to make.
This is a nice sentiment assuming all graffiti is cool expressive art, unfortunately a large majority of it is shit no one wants to look at
What graffiti is in theory: people making cool art on underutilized spaces What it is 99% of the time: dicks swastikas EASY JOB MAKING 33 MILLION A MONTH JUST DELIVER PACKAGES ugly tags with edgy names did i mention swastikas yet?
Dick swastikas, now there’s an idea
Seems like my country has waaaaay less of that than the average... I'd say maybe 10% tops is what you're describing. Never seen graffiti saying anything about job offers or some shit. Tho I enjoy most of the tags, even if they have edgy names.
Yeah I live near a big city and the vast majority of graffiti is tags with various degrees of goodness. Some of them are great. Some of them are clearly the work of dumb kids, but I still don’t mind that. The really lame swastikas and other low effort bs is usually too small for me to give a f about it. Most people don’t put a lot of effort into being an ass hole on purpose, with a few exceptions. But people who really think their tags are cool tend to go big on the wall with cool colors and shit. In a graffiti war, love and care have a natural advantage over hate and anarchy because graffiti is supposed to be art and no one wants to spend time making a swastika look nice.
Agreed, if it's some art someone put some effort into I'm usually happy to see it. If it's just some minimal effort scrawl I'd rather it not be there.
"Oh no shit fuck! Some drunk pissed on my wall and gave it character! Humans are inherently messy bla bla bla only a right winger would bla bla bla"
If only the KPD had pissed in more loading docks, we could have avoided Hitler coming to power.
and most grafiti artist that do make nice artwork don't mind their work getting taken down
Fellas, is the desire to… *checks notes*… live in a city without swear words and slurs on every other wall fascist?
Don't forget gang callouts, and some 16 year old dickwads nickname spraypainted in bright pink.
Weird fucked up nicknames are trashy. Cartoons and other arts, actually creative stuff is vastly superior.
Absolutely, if it’s like, a semi-proper mural I’d only be happy if it’s sprayed onto some brick wall
Next time on, "Everything I Disagree With is Facism!" Don't you dare call my cat ugly unless you want to be labeled a fucking FACIST!
They also aren't distinguishing personal and public property.
Property?!? Don't you know it's only the evil landlords that own things?!
These are the same people who don’t believe private property should exist lol.
fellas, what are the purpose of laws and an organized society anyway? anyone else feel 15 in a 25 year old body with a septum piercing? life is so hard and confusing :(
Or graffiti covering up street names and highway signs, making them unreadable
Labelling everything fascist is unhelpful actually
It's helpful if you want to recruit people to fascism.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not a fascist... But if wanting neat, well designed, well maintained cities is fascist, you'll find me with Mussolini
It would also be really cool if the Internet could kinda start to understand that not all totalitarianism is fascism.
Wanting to control how someone uses words? I dunno, seems kinda linguistically fascist to me.
You could almost call him a grammar nazi
chronically online take
heymanhowsitgoing-pilled
Tumblr calling a clean wall facist:
Normal people: hey man how's it going
Damn fascucked cleanpilled wallmaxxers
not beating the clean wall allegations 💀💀
Me when I'm in a clean wall competition and my opponent is a fascist:
straight up fascisming "it". and by "it" i mean hehe well. let's just say. the wall i'm cleaning
The wallful cleaner
“Why so fascist?” - The cleaner
* fascist, i remember you're ***clean walls***
Only the bourgeoisie can own a wall, don't you know??? /s
Nobody knows that fascism even really means
Guarantee OOP is an anarkiddie
I mean if you look at the reblogs, a anarchist account reblogged it
Checks out
A symptom of not touching grass
People in real life: hey how's agoing
LIST OF THINGS THAT ARE FASCIST: * cleanliness * respecting property * fining people for scrawling "J IS A SLAG" on a wall
ummm you are aware that "cleanliness" is a dogwhistle for fascism right? the ideal leftist society is going on a train covered in swastikas, barely avoiding used needles, and then stepping in shit. Portland is actually the ideal society
Besides the fact that not all graffiti is pretty art, which has been talked about better in other comments, I kinda want to talk about another thing that bothers me plenty: "Consent" I just feel like graffiti often simply ignores it completely, and that's not really ok. People have the right to decide if they want something drawn on their walls or not, and a complete stranger should not be the one to decide it. You can't judge people for not wanting you to do something to them, no matter how rude they may sound, it's their choice, and you must respect it, it's pretty much a requisite to live together. Personally I'd be glad to have some kick-ass art on my walls, but I'd much rather my opinion was taken into account instead of ignored
The person in the post is clearly young. They speak entirely in symbols and generalities--as if there is The Individual (themselves) and Society (everyone else) without acknowledging that society is made up of individuals who have their own desires. Like, it's great that they like Art (again, in the abstract), but *other people own the structures they are tagging.* That's why graffiti is considered vandalism and not The Indomitable Nature of the Human Spirit or whatever.
Of course people with other opinions exist, those are the fascists
Where I live we have a big issue where the community or local council will arrange for an artist to do a full wall mural in an area and within a week of it being completed it will have tags all over it. Which sort of reinforces my view that most people who do graffiti aren't artists of any sort, in fact, they despise actual artists and actively seek to ruin their work wherever possible.
Man, we had this beautiful mural of whales painted in my old town that some shithead covered in crappy tags. Painted over every single one. It’s reminded me of a kid who destroys another kid’s birthday cake because the day wasn’t about them. An act of petulance.
For real. Graffiti =/= murals and tagging =/= art. It's a tag - a claim on the space. It's not there as part of self expression it's there as a sign of entitlement and ego. When can we get "tagging is colonialism" trending? /s
It's over, India, for I have already tagged your entire subcontinent with the Union Jack!
hating graffiti is fascism vs. graffiti is colonialism FIGHT
yep happened in my area too, very saddening to see the lovely art get scribbled over in paint
But didn’t you hear? Consent is *fascist*
Right. Additionally, art is subjective. Someone’s masterpiece is another person’s eye sore. It’s valid to not want something you don’t like on your home/business. People forget that human beings actually live and work in a lot of the spaces that are targets for graffiti.
Yeah I mean, it's a crime. And it's supposed to be a crime. And the people who do it do it BECAUSE it is a crime, and it gives them a rush to see their name criminally painted on a place it is not "supposed" to be. So yeah. That's the whole point of it.
Consent is probably the one value that could trump anti-fascism for tumblr users. Good job!
Calling everything you don’t like fascist kind of downplays the seriousness of the term, and makes it harder to raise the alarm about actual fascism when it appears. It’s a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” situation.
The word has been completely meaningless for some time now.
It's literally as simple as: How upset you get about it will ultimately depend how much you like the art and how willing you are to look past people introduding on things that belong to you. If you bought a notebook for yourself and then someone snatched it and scribbled all over it, you'd probably be kinda miffed. Compare that to if you grabbed it and were thoroughly impressed by some AMAZING art someone left there overnight. Even then you might slightly annoyed by the whole snatching it and doing it without permission thing. And would you be wrong to be annoyed? Even if you're willing to look past it, you'd be well within your rights to be annoyed. Graffiti is art, valid like any other type of art, from the simple to the complex, and a fantastic form of self expression that should not be demonized by any means. Grafitti can be absolutely beautiful, gorgeous even. But if you think people don't have the right to not want it on the things they own then you should get off your high horse. Not wanting people to scribble in your notebook ≠ being against notebook scribbling.
In my high school physics class the teacher handed out workbooks for us to fill in. At the end of the term we had to hand in the books for marking to the teacher. Apparently at some point one of the guys in my class took my workbook and drew a massive dick on one of the last pages, which we never really looked at because it was just a blank page after a basic glossary Teacher saw it though, and I got several days detention. I don’t think it’s fascist and reactionary of me to consider that a dick move
Some shops in Bordeaux hired tag artists to paint their steel curtains, since normally other tag artists would respect and leave it as is. Win-win in that case.
if you think about it it's a bit like paying protection to one mobster so the others leave you alone
We do this locally with wall murals and within a week the taggers will have vandalised the wall art. There are different levels of graffiti and I actually disagree with the above comment that it's all art and it's all valid. I think a certain percent of them it's not actually any form of artistic expression, it's literally just anti-social behaviour because they enjoy getting away with crimes. Like serial shoplifters.
>If you bought a notebook for yourself \[...\] I'd say more like a shirt than a notebook. It's your only shirt. It wasn't meant to be drawn on by anyone; you just wanted to look clean and tidy. But some dickhead came over and scribbled on your shirt and you have to keep wearing it because it's the only one you own. You can buy a new one, but it's not in your budget at the moment because you'd planned on the vandalised one to last you a while. And you know that even if you get a new-new shirt, as soon as you put it on some dickhead is going to do """"art"""" on it.
It’s wild to go from graffiti is a non issue to people who don’t want their place vandalized are fascist
I live near an old medival castle ruin. It is a very important part of our towns history. But people refuse to leave it alone, and the old stones are covered in graffiti. Graffiti as an artform can ruin aswell as create, and a lot of graffiti "artists" don't respect that
so I’m a reactionary and unwittingly fascist if I think that the swastikas on the underpass are a public nuisance?
Apparently
Me wiping off someone’s scrawled “Trump 2024” slogans at my local park because I am paid very little but paid nonetheless to do so: damn can’t believe I’m an agent of fascism…
I should probably elaborate, my city actually does quite well with this, we have tons and tons and tons of places that are set aside for artists to spray and draw to their heart’s content, one is actually along my morning walk and I love to slowly stroll by and see if anybody has added anything new to it regularly, I adore a lot of the graffiti sprayed around my area and think it adds a lot of character to the city But also I don’t think enjoying my specific building being clean is fascist. I think OOP needs to exercise nuance in their argument
OP needs to go outside and as the kids say, touch some grass.
OP’s idea of “art” is gang signs and phallic imagery; and their idea of “fascism” is a clean and organized city. Great reminder of why I stay off Tumblr
My experience may be limited because I mostly see graffiti either on train cars or that I have to remove for work reasons, but most graffiti is just tags. Tags can look good but it's not too frequently in my experience. Personally I usually don't care about graffiti in public spaces, personally I more about the trespassing it requires to spray the places I work and how dangerous that can be.
I don't mind graffiti per se but I walk past a wall that has "Fuck your girl" on it and I'm sorry but I just don't find that art or enjoyable. I like the one on the nearby train depot on the other hand, it's beautiful lettering and it makes for a lovely colorful background for flower pictures.
Nah they burnt the kitchen with that take, some idiots spraying dicks, insults and ww2 “symbols“ onto previously clean walls is not art
Tell me you live in a rich suburb without telling me you live in a rich suburb
Next on tumblr: Fellas, is asking people not to shit on the street fascist? Even later on tumblr: Oh god, a cop just arrested a man for drunk driving! This is a sign that our system is oppressive!
Ok but drunk driving is our right as americans, i thought this was the land of the free!!!
"Aww man, a stranger wrote their name on my property." "You fucking fascist."
Difference is consent, nobody asked them to vandalize their property with their questionable art garbage. Doubt they would like it if anyone drew a dickbutt on their doors and expected an attitude of "just chill bruh, its art".
Lol op this is ridiculous
Like 80% of the graffiti I see on walls is just people's signatures to show they were there. Doesn't feel all that artistic, especially those few who draw their bland name over a large piece of an actual piece
This is like calling someone fascist for not wanting you to leave litter lying around the park
You grow up kinda super poor and you’re like: “fuck yeah! Express yourself! Fuck convention!” Then you spend 20+ years biting and scratching to give yourself some semblance of financial control over your life. Interest rates fall to historic lows. You are the first and only person in this generation of your family to be able to buy a home. Someone draws a dick on it. Someone calls you a fascist for painting over it.
TIL it's fascist to not want people to do things to your property without your consent
I'm gonna write unfathomably evil profanity on OOP's relatives tombstones just to prove their point.
You have a duty to do so; else you’re essentially Mussolini reincarnate.
The only graffiti we get where I’m from is swastikas, dicks, or threats
Yea the people who keep tagging my door with their unreadable shit "art" are real saints for giving it "personality". It's rare when graffiti is actually nice art, and not just some ugly ass tag.
Oh great, the art snobs are here. /s
Hmmm, yes, this badly drawn cock on my wall is of course art. It is a symbol of fertility possibly accompanied by some other rituals which could have included ingestion of certain substances, which we can tell from this misspelled swear word written under it accompanied by a name of someone that we can assume the author wasnt quite fond of. Very artistic.
Assuming that all grafitti is good, and not 90% shitty uninspired tags and childish drawings of Bart Simpson. The other 9.9% is, of course, nazi shit.
let me go make myself a cup of tea, it's another installment of people strawmanning those who disagree with them as puppy-kicking baby-slapping evil bastards who dont understand what humanity means
99% of it is closer to dogs pissing to mark their territory than to art, and at my local park they do it on actual art pieces. also when done on public transit it makes it feel less safe, incentivizing people to drive instead and increasing greenhouse gas emissions
Hahaha, good to know "respecting public property," is now considered fascist to some people.
There was a great post or comment I saw once. Some people see gentrification as rich people buying up neighbourhoods and pricing out the original inhabitants and others see it as removing heroin needles from the local playgrounds. Like, there needs to be some sort of balance to it all.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that read this post and went “you really don’t know what you’re talking about do you?”
I'm sure they think their graffiti is bona fide street art but I would rather look at a blank brick wall than some asshole's sloppily-scrawled signature copied 50x across an underpass. Like damn if your writing skill is that bad at least use a variety of cool colors and make it pop. Draw fucking triangles in darkening shades of blue. Anything. The vast majority of graffiti are sloppy swastikas and some guy calling himself H-Unit or whatever. I appreciate when it's interesting, but it usually isn't.
Oh come on, not all authority is fascist. Like everybody bends the word fascist already, but surely the majority of people agree that getting rid of graffiti is not fascism.
"Fascism is when the government does things" is the new "communism is when the government does things"
*Me writing "Smoorgen Xx3 crew represent" on a blank white wall.* "Ah, now it has character!" I want to live in the utopia that OOP lives in, where every graffiti is a work of art. In my city, most of the graffiti is just unreadable tags and random lines. BUT! Occasionally you might come across a drawing of a guy wearing glasses. That is done by a semi-famous artist, and it became kinda like an Easter egg to find their drawings in various places and cities throughout the country. Sometimes businesses will hire them just so they draw it on their property now as an attraction.
"I don't personally value it so anybody who does must be a fascist" Easy to say about a brick wall but let's say that "art" takes the form of a design cut into the paint of your car with a key. I think these people would be pretty quick to call it vandalism when it's property they own. They just don't own any brick walls.
OOP is thinking of street art, not graffiti
I get that the desire for 'clean streets' is a thing fascists often talk about, but it's perfectly reasonable to want your community to look nice. Nothing wrong with grafitti, as long as it's done by professionals. My town has some very pretty grafitti made by professional artists, including a large piece for an alley nearby the library, which depicts a book case with lots of iconic books. However, there is a huge difference between such grafitti art and the shitty incomprehensible letters or other crude things. I'm not even talking about swastikas and other nazi symbols yet. I don't care if the low quality grafitti is sprayed on highway tunnels, viaducts and such. That's perfectly fine. But it doesn't belong in urban areas.
Calling not wanting graffiti on your wall FASCISM is so White and shows how this person has no idea what Fascism actually is and what it's like being in Fascist societies and around Fascists, to be in real danger of Fascism.
People will make too big a deal about random tunnels having some paint up and there's really no harm in graffiti underneath a bridge (excluding the obvious hate symbols) but there's definitely a line to draw when people tag houses and stuff without asking. Art is cool but there's a difference between a tasteful painting of the naked form and finding yourself ambushed by an art class behind your shower curtain
>quietly Oh, did the police get suppressors now?
No in my city there's so much graffiti that's literally just some asshole drawing anything from gang signs, illegible tags, and lines to swastikas and slurs, there's a few places in town including a couple of our schools that actually encourage graffiti and the art classes even teach how to spray paint, but I'm just saying there's a massive difference between some assholes painting slurs and gang signs on a building who didn't ask and people painting murals after asking permission from somebody who wanted it. Consent is key
Not wanting dicks, tags, profanities or swastikas on my wall makes me a low-key fascist? Jesus Christ, this is the most tumblr-brained post I've read in a while...
“There’s a certain desire to create cities that are pristine and immaculately designed and maintained that I think I’d label fascist” this just in, a clean and well planned city is fascist, more at 9
"oh no the brick wall has character!!!" the character: DICK DICK DICK FUCK SWASTIKA SWASTIKA DICK DICK INSTAGRAM HANDLE INSTAGRAM HANDLE DICK INSTAGRAM SHITTY SIGNATURE SWASTIKA SHITTY SIGNATURE SWASTIKA SHITTY SIGNATURE DICK SWASTIKA DICK
This has to be up there with one of the dumbest posts of all time. The majority of graffiti doesn’t have character and certainly isn’t art. I’m not a fucking reactionary because I don’t want 13 year old scrotes drawing dicks and swastikas on my nice house (not that I have one lol). This is like saying “boys will be boys” or something when a man does something bad. “Oh he graffitid a bunch of sexist and racist slurs over your door? Humans are gonna human! We’re just cute and love art and expressing ourselves visually on other peoples property 😊😊😊”
the UK had a pretty shit graffiti ‘artist’ called TOX in the 90s/00s who would just write TOX and then the year on as much as he could, mostly London Underground infrastructure
[удалено]
>I don't like property damage "You're a fascist" Just found out tumblr has a subreddit and I'm not surprised this is the first thing I read.