As someone who lives in Portland 90% of the graffiti here is garbage and looks terrible. There are a few pieces here and there that are actually art but most of it is just scribbles and looks dumb af.
I was thinking this recently. Almost all the graffiti in town is extremely amateurish and would probably make people who are into graffiti cringe. Really bad fills, really generic style.
There are two taggers I enjoy seeing, “Penis Girl” and the person who draws animals with Xs for buttholes brighten my day because they’re both playful and funny. Everything else is just garbage.
I mean, they make this pretty plain in the vid: COVID caused a massive explosion of new writers, i.e. most of stuff you see is by people with next to no experience. And it kinda speaks to the kind of people who write in Portland, too - this isn't your high-school-skipping, no-hope-in-life brown teenager stereotype from the '80s, these are whiter-than-white, well off college kids with a misplaced sense of rebellion. I mean ffs that Monk6 dude described what he's doing as "anti-capitalist"... He's so Portland he's a walking cliche.
Love seeing penis girl. There were a couple others that were pretty prolific that I became fond of as well but I can't remember their tag. In general I'm not terribly angry about the graffiti, but that's largely because there are much more prominent issues impacting my qol.
I don’t want to disagree with you on this, because you’re right about this guy obsessively painting over the graffiti, but let me add another dimension. This dude is 80+ years old. He grew up in the 1940s, when graffiti wasn’t even really around back then. Maybe he grew up in a small town, and the small town was super clean and the yards were immaculate. Imagine growing up in what was essentially a visually perfect place. When a window broke, it was fixed immediately. People took care of their lawns. A faded wall was a blight on a neighborhood. Now, transport yourself to Portland in 2024. This guy might feel so out of place in a world that doesn’t respond to graffiti. So he’s doing what he can himself.
It sounds like he’s retired, so he doesn’t have a job to go to. Maybe his spouse died and he’s a widower. The grandkids all moved away. He can still drive and take care of himself, so he doesn’t live with one of his kids or in an old-folks home. He’s largely independent. And yeah, maybe he’s bored. So he goes out to, in his eyes, fix the community he lives in.
It might seem like a fool’s errand, but I have huge respect for this guy. It is so hard to fix stuff. Like epically hard to fix shit at a city level. This is why the graffiti isn’t fixed. And it’s why he feels like he has to do it. He’s doing it on such a small level that it’s not making a difference, but he doesn’t see it that way. And neither do I.
(I’m not saying graffiti is good or bad here. Just that this “buffer” guy is alright by me.)
> Imagine growing up in what was essentially a visually perfect place
Imagine thinking that the suburbs in the 50s were a visually perfect place.
> This guy might feel so out of place in a world that doesn’t respond to graffiti
Sounds like it's a him problem.
> Like epically hard to fix shit at a city level. This is why the graffiti isn’t fixed
Or maybe paint on the side of a freeway isn't a problem to be fixed at all and there are much better uses of a person's time, if he were looking to spend time improving the world.
Not that bored when your city is spending millions of dollars on ineffective programs to try to eradicate it and you realize that none of their efforts are going to matter when people are willing to fucking rappel down the side of an interstate bridge 150+ft off the ground to throw up their tag.
(Footage of this is the main feature of interest in the video, worth skipping the rest and going to maybe the 28 minute mark.)
> Not that bored when your city is spending millions of dollars on ineffective programs to try to eradicate it
that right there is the problem. don't bother to do that.
It does harm the city. It makes some people not want to go to certain areas and support the local businesses, hurts tourism, hurts properly values and affects how people feel about their own city. I'm not saying that people have to feel that way but a large portion of people do
oh no! there's spray paint on that abandoned building, totally ruins the neighborhood! would have been much better if it remained looking like a concrete piece of shit!
As someone who lives in Portland 90% of the graffiti here is garbage and looks terrible. There are a few pieces here and there that are actually art but most of it is just scribbles and looks dumb af.
I was thinking this recently. Almost all the graffiti in town is extremely amateurish and would probably make people who are into graffiti cringe. Really bad fills, really generic style. There are two taggers I enjoy seeing, “Penis Girl” and the person who draws animals with Xs for buttholes brighten my day because they’re both playful and funny. Everything else is just garbage.
I mean, they make this pretty plain in the vid: COVID caused a massive explosion of new writers, i.e. most of stuff you see is by people with next to no experience. And it kinda speaks to the kind of people who write in Portland, too - this isn't your high-school-skipping, no-hope-in-life brown teenager stereotype from the '80s, these are whiter-than-white, well off college kids with a misplaced sense of rebellion. I mean ffs that Monk6 dude described what he's doing as "anti-capitalist"... He's so Portland he's a walking cliche.
Love seeing penis girl. There were a couple others that were pretty prolific that I became fond of as well but I can't remember their tag. In general I'm not terribly angry about the graffiti, but that's largely because there are much more prominent issues impacting my qol.
Penis Girl for mayor!
Cool watch. Thx!
how bored do you have to be as a person to think that graffiti is harming a city?
Let them tag a bunch of scribbles on your car, wall, fence, or business and see if you still don't care.
I am not so frightened of the world as you are. Sorry dude
I don’t want to disagree with you on this, because you’re right about this guy obsessively painting over the graffiti, but let me add another dimension. This dude is 80+ years old. He grew up in the 1940s, when graffiti wasn’t even really around back then. Maybe he grew up in a small town, and the small town was super clean and the yards were immaculate. Imagine growing up in what was essentially a visually perfect place. When a window broke, it was fixed immediately. People took care of their lawns. A faded wall was a blight on a neighborhood. Now, transport yourself to Portland in 2024. This guy might feel so out of place in a world that doesn’t respond to graffiti. So he’s doing what he can himself. It sounds like he’s retired, so he doesn’t have a job to go to. Maybe his spouse died and he’s a widower. The grandkids all moved away. He can still drive and take care of himself, so he doesn’t live with one of his kids or in an old-folks home. He’s largely independent. And yeah, maybe he’s bored. So he goes out to, in his eyes, fix the community he lives in. It might seem like a fool’s errand, but I have huge respect for this guy. It is so hard to fix stuff. Like epically hard to fix shit at a city level. This is why the graffiti isn’t fixed. And it’s why he feels like he has to do it. He’s doing it on such a small level that it’s not making a difference, but he doesn’t see it that way. And neither do I. (I’m not saying graffiti is good or bad here. Just that this “buffer” guy is alright by me.)
> Imagine growing up in what was essentially a visually perfect place Imagine thinking that the suburbs in the 50s were a visually perfect place. > This guy might feel so out of place in a world that doesn’t respond to graffiti Sounds like it's a him problem. > Like epically hard to fix shit at a city level. This is why the graffiti isn’t fixed Or maybe paint on the side of a freeway isn't a problem to be fixed at all and there are much better uses of a person's time, if he were looking to spend time improving the world.
Not that bored when your city is spending millions of dollars on ineffective programs to try to eradicate it and you realize that none of their efforts are going to matter when people are willing to fucking rappel down the side of an interstate bridge 150+ft off the ground to throw up their tag. (Footage of this is the main feature of interest in the video, worth skipping the rest and going to maybe the 28 minute mark.)
> Not that bored when your city is spending millions of dollars on ineffective programs to try to eradicate it that right there is the problem. don't bother to do that.
Yeah, that’s the point.
Because it makes our city look like trash you 🤡.
You are so right! The run down, abandoned buildings look so much better as concrete piles of shit!
Here's a thought, don't vandalize things that aren't yours? What a novel concept!!!! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Here's a though, I don't give a shit what you think!!! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
It does harm the city. It makes some people not want to go to certain areas and support the local businesses, hurts tourism, hurts properly values and affects how people feel about their own city. I'm not saying that people have to feel that way but a large portion of people do
oh no! there's spray paint on that abandoned building, totally ruins the neighborhood! would have been much better if it remained looking like a concrete piece of shit!
It's not a question of aesthetics it's a question of optics. But you already showed you have no interest in debating anything so, later.
sorry you lost dude. good luck next time