| I did a good bit of graffiti when I was younger. 10 years later, I'm still in the creative industry and I still love graffiti. But I'm mostly very ashamed, now that I'm old enough to have property of my own and skin in the game. Just a preface in case your gut response is that I'm an old prude and don't "get it". I definitely get it. I'll mimic the parent you're responding to: street art is great. By "street art" I mean things that err more towards murals than tagging, and that are ideally consensual/legal, but if not are at least harm-reducing (side of an abandoned warehouse is not on the same moral plane as the side of a church or dwelling unit). 1) If I took the bumpers off a car because I thought it looked slicker that way, would the owner care that I felt I enhanced it? I would guess not. 2) Pollsters would have a very hard time finding any cohort of people that are pro-graffiti enough to be described as "everyone else". You can test this on some random passersby. "I did this to a guy's house without him asking. I made it better, right?". What type of responses do you imagine? 3) That people get upset by graffiti on their property is common knowledge. I don't believe that you don't think anyone cares. Nobody thinks that. You might think they shouldn't care, which is closer to the excuses I subsisted on when I was doing that kind of thing, but it's a very different argument. 4) There are very few forms of graffiti that are "no-harm-no-foul". A building that is scheduled for demolition and is out of view of passersby, utility tunnels/infrastructure that are out of view, do not have markings that would be obscured, and where paint doesn't impact their functionality are the only ones that come to mind. And the second one's out if some guy has to come down there and clean it because the city makes him. I like my outside wall blank. That's why it's blank. If I wanted it a different way, I'd make it so. But nevermind that graffers are violating the autonomy over my own space that I work hard to preserve. Even if I don't oppose what's on the wall there is a cost being incurred. For me to change what's on that wall costs money. If you're wrong, and everyone doesn't love graffiti, then my property is now less desirable. It's harder for me to sell my home. My economic mobility is decreased. Maybe that 2k in property value makes a real difference to my family. The city might get mad at me and fine me, which costs me money, unless I have the wall cleaned or painted, which costs me money. Graffers are having fun, selfishly, and sticking future-me with the bill. To break the law to violate my property and cost me money, and claim they did me a favor? Nah. 5) Why would people be up in arms on my behalf? Empathy! I know I don't like getting punched in the face, so I know how it feels when I see that happen to my neighbor. I don't want to see him harmed any more than I want that harm for myself, and because he and I are part of a community, his pain is my pain. Neighbors are there for each other. ---- But don't take my word for it.... If you really think everybody likes your work, ask the people whose building it is how they feel about it. |
Lots of graffiti sucks? I'm not advocating vandalizing the Sistine Chapel like your sibling suggested? I'm just trying to explain to grandparent why street art would be "ok with so much of Western culture", because society is just not that absolutist about private property, because things tend to be socially acceptable roughly in proportion to how harmful/harmless they are.
I didn't know the city fines property owners for not cleaning up graffiti on their property, which they obviously didn't want in the first place, that sucks. Of course I empathize. That's not the kind of graffiti I would describe as "ok with so much of Western culture" though?