Tag

There was a time when I was young and foolish. I was as mixed up and confused as the next but I wasn’t a vandal. I saw it happening first hand, done by guys in the group I was hanging with, but, I could not wilfully damage an others property. This post is about vandalism. It is in response to my regular readers outrage at the stupid practice of tagging. I agree that vandalism in this form seems rife at the moment but I don’t think it is any worse than the vandalism of old, just more visible.

Back in my day spray paint was a luxury item and the only time it was used/misused was when some one managed to pinch a can or two. Back then spray graffiti was more often done by an older person pushing some political agenda. Now it seems that every available surface in suburbia is fair game for a meaningless spray on scribble.

I don’t mind graffiti to much if it is artistic, humorous, has some message or is just clever. I hate it when it is just destruction; like the act, of some pitiful soul, placing a huge number of identical unidentifiable marks over every surface. I hate mindless damaging of property, the environment or creating danger for others. Tagging is mindless vandalism.

Graffiti has always been around. From early cave paintings to the tags left in the support chambers of the great pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Giza or in the toilet cubical I just visited (Would the person with the V8 arse please select a lower gear or use the brush after they have finished). There are examples of it from every culture. Some people are subversive and shy at the same time.

Meaningless vandalism has also always been around. Our hapless tag artist is basically a brick thrower. I suspect that a lot of it stems from an individual trying to look tough in front of his group – sort of an extension to the tough guy carving up a table with his blade in front of the gang. Defiance to gain acceptance. It is a different type of person who throws a brick through a window at the local school and the person who wrote ‘Eternity’ all over Sydney Australia.

Maybe that is the difference. Vandalism says only one thing; I don’t give a toss about you: graffiti conveys deeper messages.

Then there are the mentally disturbed vandals, the sociopaths. Arsonists would be the most recognisable but also the sort that set trip wires or spikes on walk ways or other despicable acts. These are sick people. I hate what they do but I understand they have a disorder so this moderates my anger (but not by much).

Finally there is the professional vandal. People like a criminal who covers their tracks by destroying the scene of the crime or maybe the person creating a timely insurance claim.

So it is my view that these meaningless tags are little more than the antics of your typical antisocial gang. The entry price to the club is to scrawl your mark. I even suspect that some of them wouldn’t even know the other members of the club. I guess at that extreme it would be the sociopathic mental disorder mentioned above. In my mind I can’t separate this from the letter box smashing or denting cars that went on when I was young.

Arseholes are a constant of society.