Things that INTRIGUE me - A Brief Look at Bathroom Graffitti (PART I)

When a man talks dirty to a woman, it’s sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it’s $3.95 a minute. Bathroom graffiti has been a source of reading material for people for many years and it’s free. However, some people find bathroom graffiti to be a problem. Establishment owners view it as vandalism and moral patrons view it as vulgar. Is it really a problem?

Bathroom graffiti has entertained us through a vast array of emotions. It intrigues us, confuses us, and informs us. We can say whatever we want, about anyone we want and no one can see. Bathroom wall scribbling are the true reflections of what people are really thinking.

Bathroom graffiti is a form of news that reflects our lives without bias. It is represented from a cross section of a population. We can learn a great deal about the world around us by reading the bathroom walls.

This topic is something everyone can relate to in one way or another. Someone has either read or written some type of bathroom graffiti. I have been a connoisseur of this art form for many years now and I have accumulated the “best of the best” bathroom sayings. I have delved into what they must have been thinking and have interviewed many actual bathroom scribblers.

Graffiti has been around as long as buildings have been erected, as long as there has been controversy, and as long as there has been social discontentment. Why has it existed for so long? Because one can express their innermost self and no one can see. Emotions bottled up in the most respectable looking patron, comes out in the can.

A man in an Armani suit, in his late 40’s and a stone cold face, enters the bathroom. He heads for the first stall and closes the door. He breaks out his new Cross Morph pen and begins contemplating life. As an impulse he cannot control enters his body he scribbles, “God made pot. Man made beer. Who do you trust?” His time is up and he needs to exit the stall. He composes himself and leaves without a care in the world.

As he is leaving the bathroom, he sees a blue-collar looking man walk in after him. He has on a t-shirt, jeans and a ball cap. He enters the same bathroom stall. Does he scribble on the wall? We will never know but the businessman thinks to himself, “If this scribbling was revealed to the owner, who would get them blame?” He chuckles and thinks, “Life isn’t fair.”

Maybe his crudeness was a sign of the times and that our actions are viewed as wrong only if we get caught. People who scribble on walls are not vandalizers until they get caught.

Is it anti-social behavior to people who have been denied a creative outlet? Maybe that businessman had to conform to society too early, as do many of us, and this is the only place he feels he can express himself freely. Or is it a clue into the minds of others, into what our culture is about or is about to become. Within the graffiti riddled walls lies the sweet history of mankind. Roughly quoting a deep thought by Jack Handy, “maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: MANKIND. Basically, it is made up of two words – mank and ind. What do these two words mean? It’s a mystery and so is mankind.” (Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy)

With all this in mind, I set out to find more scribblers and see what’ really going on.

To Be Continued.