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.
> the majority of graffiti is artists just putting up art.
Art? Where I live the overwhelming majority of graffiti is just a few letters forming meaningless words... Like even if it was art, no one could appreciate it because no one could understand it.
Eh, that kinda sucks. If you learn to read it, it can be a bit cool to see who's where. But I would say the majority of graffiti in my city is at minimum a little doodle, and often full blown murals. If that's not the case where you live that is indeed a bit ofa bummer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
