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No accounting for taste, but, graffiti is important whether it's aesthetically pleasing or not. https://ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/ https://ancientgraffiti.o

• akomtu 9mo ago
  I suspect it's not the population's expression of ownership, but simply gangs marking their territory.
  • direwolf20 9mo ago
    Why do you suspect that?
  • komali2 9mo ago
    Sometimes tagging is that, sure, or just some person indicating that they exist there. For some taggers, it's an addiction. I knew one that would tag at people's houses when invited to parties. I was outside smoking a cigarette with him after the owner had threw him out on his ass, asking why he did shit like that, and he said "I just feel like if I can tag someone's house, it's like I've won." I can kinda empathize since I'll have an addiction to getting the perfect photograph during a protest or whatever and will go to extreme lengths and burn through SD cards to get it. In my experience the majority of graffiti is artists just putting up art. Privileged folk pass down the propaganda that graffiti is dirty and gangster and so any street art is viewed as dirty, but in the end it's just a matter of taste.
    • akomtu 9mo ago
      Art? There are some exceptions, indeed, where graffiti can be called art, but most of it is tasteless disgusting mess. It's borderline demonic in some cases. This especially applies to the list of pictures in the post. My theory is why ugliness is often considered beautiful is because ugliness invokes stronger and darker emotions.
      • fwip 9mo ago
        > "Borderline demonic" > look inside > it's Calvin and hobbes
      • komali2 9mo ago
        > It's borderline demonic Demons aren't real so I don't understand what this means. > tasteless disgusting mess Do you disagree that taste is subjective, then? It seems what's happening here is that you're very, very confident that you are an authority on what's beautiful, despite several people telling you they find beauty in what you abhor.
        • akomtu 9mo ago
          The type of art you like or dislike is a reflection of your mental state. In this sense, taste is subjective. However some of those mental states are good and some are evil, which is objective. If I suddenly find myself liking aggressive chaotic art, I'll be worried that something's changed in me in a bad way. But you're right that I'm very confident in my measure of what's beautiful and what's not, and a few people aren't going to sway me. Even if every last human on the earth fell for this demonic art, I wouldn't budge.
          • komali2 9mo ago
            Your unshaking confidence in your subjective experience as being representative of something factual about the universe made me peek at your history to see just how far it went. I found this comment: > It's the Christian version of the Dao. So far as I can tell, this isn't a thing that actually exists, but you refer to it as "the," meaning that to you, it's an objectively existing thing that we should all recognize. Alongside that: > The type of art you like or dislike is a reflection of your mental state No, this is not objectively true in the way you seem to be implying. > some of those mental states are good and some are evil, which is objective No, practically by definition, "good" and "evil" are subjective. > Even if every last human on the earth fell for this demonic art, I wouldn't budge. Yes, this is clear. Out of good faith and frank honesty I tell you this: There is no purpose in conversing with you, as apparently you're only capable of lecturing people of the Verified-by-Jehovah Revealed Truth of your personal ideology.
  • at-fates-hands 9mo ago
    The most well known writers (this is their term, few if any graffiti writers I know refer to themselves as artists) are actually the ones who paint trains, not in metro areas. Yes, writers do paint all over metro areas, but that gets buffed out so quickly that the real holy grail is to get up on trains that go all over the country. Train graffiti allows your art to roam and writers from other cities see it and recognize it. Your creativity proceeds you when you go to other cities to write and expand where you're known. I live in a large metro and see very little if any gang graffiti. Also, most of the really good stuff? You never know its there because its under bridges, in aqua ducts and other areas few, if any people know about or venture to.
    • u8080 9mo ago
      "art"
• ZpJuUuNaQ5 9mo ago
  >It's a very common form of countercultural resistance and therefore an important relief valve. It's a way for anyone to express themselves on their environment. So, what are these random scribblers resisting, exactly? It's like saying that defecating on the street is a form of self-expression and "leaving their mark". Even if it is, do we really need to tolerate it? >Not to mention, it's lovely to be connected to a common thread of humanity over literal millenia. There is nothing lovely about seeing all this garbage littering the walls of public buildings and historical finds do not justify this behaviour.
  • direwolf20 9mo ago
    Resisting the ideology that only people with money can alter the city environment. When you see an impressive sculpture or skyscraper you know a lot of resources were spent, you know the rich people here are rich. When you see an area with lots of graffiti, there may be many good or bad things about it, but you know the citizens are free. I would hope graffitiers have respect to only draw on the mundane parts of the city, not on cool sculptures. And in my experience, that is true. Also they should not obscure windows or information signs.
    • ZpJuUuNaQ5 9mo ago
      I think the cultural barrier preventing me from understanding this way of thinking is impenetrable to me. What a strange world, huh?
      • direwolf20 9mo ago
        Are you American? Freedom means the ability to do what you want. It doesn't mean owning guns.
        • ZpJuUuNaQ5 9mo ago
          >Are you American? Freedom means the ability to do what you want. It doesn't mean owning guns. No, I am not, and I haven't mentioned guns or even hinted at the topic. Do whatever you want, but trying to purposefully destroy and smear the environment around you and claim it's an expression of freedom is ridiculous. It's just malicious, disgusting behavior that helps no one, serves no cause and has nothing to do with freedom.
• nurettin 9mo ago
  They should work as plate cleaners and civil park workers 100 hours a month. That will teach those entitled teens to leave their mark while autonomously cleaning those plates and planting flowers.
• ryandrake 9mo ago
  > Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city. I think this is the heart of it, and where cities and suburban towns differ. It's admittedly very hard to articulate in words. The walls of buildings in a city are part of the greater, broader, "face of the city." They are in a sense both part of a general "public space" yet also still privately owned. The walls of single family homes in suburban neighborhoods don't really compare. There's much more of a shared sense of "ours" in a city than there is out in the country, where everything's fenced off in little discrete boxes of land, each with someone's name on it. This greater sense of shared agency over the aesthetic of the broader "city" makes street art more justifiable there than it is in single family home places.
  • jakobnissen 9mo ago
    Oh I disagree completely. Precisely because city spaces are more shared, vandalism, including graffiti, is Mitch more destructive in cities. It really undermines the sense of community when vandals deface public spaces and community centers and apartment blocks.
    • GuinansEyebrows 9mo ago
      consider that it's a symptom of a community fragmented by the result of the profit motive rather than a cause of the fragmentation
    • komali2 9mo ago
      > It really undermines the sense of community The people in these communities feel the opposite of you, especially since a lot of street art is murals capturing some local culture e.g. see Clarion Alley in San Francisco, a lot of very explicit messages of community. https://maps.app.goo.gl/AAWmH3aq51MWN1M88 https://maps.app.goo.gl/AAWmH3aq51MWN1M88
      • zdragnar 9mo ago
        Graffiti is by definition uninvited and unwanted (esp. in SF city ordinance)
• BryantD 9mo ago
  If you're a cinema person, I strongly recommend Agnes Varda's documentary on LA street art at the end of the 1970s, Mur Murs. (That's a pun: murals as an expression of the murmurs of the community.) It takes graffiti as an expression of ownership as the central thesis and I found it really lovely. Thanks for this comment.
• woodpanel 9mo ago
  > Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city. Is of course what art-students, pol-sci and social-sciences majors construct out of it because it fits their narratives. Never mind that the scratching of some roman soldier in a brothel's restroom has nothing to do at all with the NYC-born graffti culture. This top-to-bottom social astro-turfing would be just laughable grandstanding if it didn't result in real consequences for less affluent kids: crime, drugs, and deadly injuries as well as filing for bankrupcy at an age where Mrs. cultural-capital has acquired her prestigous arts degree.
  • guywithahat 9mo ago
    I was thinking that too, it feels remarkably out of touch. People own the builds, homes, and businesses. If you're graffiting someone's business you're a tourist in the city, not an owner. Even from a philosophical perspective this makes no sense, because it claims the tourists hold ownership over someone else's city because they bought a can of spray paint while living in their parents basement
  • komali2 9mo ago
    > This top-to-bottom social astro-turfing would be just laughable grandstanding if it didn't result in real consequences for less affluent kids: crime, drugs, and deadly injuries as well as filing for bankrupcy We were discussing graffiti. You seem to know a lot better than less affluent people what's good for them. When you talk to such people, what do they tell you about crime, drugs, deadly injury, and filing for bankruptcy? When you've talked to graffiti artists, what led you to believe they were doing it so as to cause crime, drugs, deadly injury, and bankruptcy?
• throwaway2037 9mo ago
  > therefore an important relief valve Until it is done to your small business or home, then it is no longer an "important relief valve". The solution to reducing graffiti is multi-part. Here are a few ideas: (1) Pass a state law to restrict the sale of spray paint -- you need a special license to buy it. (2) Pass a local law to reward citizens who provide evidence of taggers (video, photos, etc.). If the city can convict, you are rewarded. Make the reward large enough (1000+ USD?) to be strongly encouraging. (3) Create public spaces where people are allowed to spay paint. This is a little bit like skate parks.
  • komali2 9mo ago
    It's already usually illegal to do graffiti, sometimes that's the whole point.
  • Hackbraten 9mo ago
    (4) Afford young people more options and opportunities to do meaningful things.
• baud147258 9mo ago
  > It's a way for anyone to express themselves on their environment no, just a way for a minority to trash public infrastructure because they're assholes
• specialist 9mo ago
  Agree with all. > Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city. My understanding has been (some fraction of) taggers are disaffected. So I could buy that some are reasserting ownership. Some are just dumb teenagers acting out (shitposting), like my son did. A handful are pretty good artists. Like some of the kids in my kid's extended social group. Worthy of resources and media. eg Commissions for murals.
• big_toast 9mo ago
  I think I used to believe something like this. But I spent two decades living in this context and changed my mind. There can be beautiful and effective expressions of culture and resistance that don’t tear down the commons people are trying to build together. And it’s hard to ask people to take care of the commons when other people aren’t. Instead we cede management of shared space to private enterprise (malls and gyms and retail as entertainment because your parks are torn up).