Why Is Graffiti Illegal?
- Thread starter Typical Cats
- Start date
Because it's not your wall! How would you feel if somebody came to your house and drew whatever on it without asking you? Graffiti itself is not illegal, but the act of putting it on any surface that is not your own or without permission from the owner is damage to others' property.
I don't think there's any specific law in most countries saying you can't graffiti the side of your own house, the problem is it's always done on someone else's property. How would you like it if I spray painted a bunch of weird crap on your living room wall?
I believe those things that "nobody" owns is considered public property, in other words, the government's, and as such, the taxpayers', i.e. yours! You should give a damn about how these things are maintained, because it belongs to the entire community, and you are one of that community.
Have you heard of the Bubble Project? http://www.thebubbleproject.com/manic_depressive13 said:
I like graffiti. I always appreciate having something interesting to look at, although I think anything gang related is both unoriginal and stupid. I think it should be legal in public places. It would save time for police and save council funds that could go towards feeding the homeless or cleaning up real rubbish.
Of course, some problems could open up. Everyone painting over other people's paintings, people getting upset, people destroying other's paintings because they don't like them (although that would be a good thing if it was generic tags)... Maybe that's too cynical of a view, maybe the vast majority of people would respect things people put a decent amount of work into?
And of course, businesses might make use of free advertising space and spread even more advertising around.
I'm not quite sure though, because it doesn't look very professional. But at least you could talk back by defacing it or writing something witty on it. It would give grassroots movements more power, so it's not just those with sponsors and lots of money that get the metaphorical megaphone in public places.
There would also be the question of "what is acceptable graffiti?" Would it just be man-made structures, or could people paint rocks and trees? What about installation art? Should the community be expected to regulate the content of the graffiti themselves? Anyway, it would be interesting.
Because if the owner of whatever you're spraying a picture of a dick, gang symbol, or something stupid like "person who has no respect for other wuz here" didn't give you permission to do it, and now they have to spend their time and/or money to clean your nonsense off their things.
Even if they're one of the few people not doing random, pointless garbage that nobody wants to look at, if they didn't get permission, they're nothing more than a vandal because again, if the property owner doesn't want it there, they now have to waste their own resources to clean it up. Get permission to make something nice, cool. Do it without permission because you think you're some awesome artist and the rules don't apply to you because you're giving a gift to the world or some nonsense like that, you're really no better than any other vandal. You're just a bit more pious than the gang member writing "OG 4 life" or whatever crap they'd write.Typical Cats said:
And who's life is at risk if structures are clean instead of being covered in garbage drawings? Who's going to die from a clean wall? Nobody? Oh, okay then.manic_depressive13 said:
Pretty much this. All the technical stuff and whether or not it looks good aside, you're defacing either private property that isn't yours, or public property that isn't yours. It may be public to use, but not to deface. Regardless, you don't own said property and it's illegal to damage it. It's really simple.gamerguy473 said:
Read "The Game" by Neil Strauss, it sorta explains what it is. Basically, whenever you seelp (which is like like 20 minutes every 4 hours) you immediately go into REM sleep. So, in like a 24 hour day, you only need 2 hours of sleep to function properly.Baneat said:
I quite like graffiti as in my opinion it can make what would be a plain wall more interesting, but I can also appreciate that businesses may not want it on their walls as they have an image to maintain. Personly I think that if it was made legal on certain walls in a city that the standards would increase as people would have more time to focus on painting rather than rushing pieces in order to not get caught.
Another method was described to me by a friend that in his grandmas town in germany had quite a large problem with graffiti, so the council then basically set up a graffiti aproval section where local arists could submit their work and the location where they would like to paint it and the coucil would then decide if it was good enough or a suitable location.
Obviously you would still get douchebags tagging stuff but at least it allowed for higher quality pieces to be made.
Another method was described to me by a friend that in his grandmas town in germany had quite a large problem with graffiti, so the council then basically set up a graffiti aproval section where local arists could submit their work and the location where they would like to paint it and the coucil would then decide if it was good enough or a suitable location.
Obviously you would still get douchebags tagging stuff but at least it allowed for higher quality pieces to be made.
well Jizzo from melbourne said that its only illegal cause you're advertising your name for free(not sure if anyone will get this reference).
But mostly cause it's just a bunch of wannabe gangsters scribbling their name. Just so you know I am a fan of the good stuff though and wouldn't really care if someone did a decent job in my area, but it never happens.
But mostly cause it's just a bunch of wannabe gangsters scribbling their name. Just so you know I am a fan of the good stuff though and wouldn't really care if someone did a decent job in my area, but it never happens.
Pretty much this. The O.P. and several others may be referring to that 0.01% of graffiti that isn't a guy's/girl's nickname or a guy's/girl's gang affiliation but legalizing graffiti would mostly benefit guys/girls marking gang territory or a guy/girl saying the equivalent of "I was here".Ladette said:Because 99.9% of it looks like this:
And I rather like my house things un-spray painted.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if about a half of that supposedly "nice looking graffiti" that people are referring to was permitted by the owner of the building/structure it is on.
I'm in the agreement with what seems to be the majority - if you're drawing on something that doesn't belong to you and you don't have permission to draw on, you shouldn't do it.
I think a couple of the towns I live near have had official places that they've got people to do decent graffiti-style art on. I have no issues with the art-style, but yer, tagging is not good.
Official graffiti walls give graffiti artists somewhere to do their thing so it won't upset people.
I think a couple of the towns I live near have had official places that they've got people to do decent graffiti-style art on. I have no issues with the art-style, but yer, tagging is not good.
Official graffiti walls give graffiti artists somewhere to do their thing so it won't upset people.
Thing is it is vandalism of private property if you didn't have any approval by the building owner to do it. It doesn't matter how beautiful it might be, it was still not approved.Typical Cats said:
Would you be happy if I came to your hose one day and painted your wall a different color and made your house prettier to look at? You probably would not.
but Graffiti as an art isn't illegal, and I know of a few places where people allow you to go crazy with it
I agree that graffiti is good sometimes--when it's by actual graffiti artists who do good works of art and are paid to do so. But there's that "tagging" graffiti, which is usually obscene or just unappealing to the eye. I don't have a problem with it if it's permitted by the city or wherever, just don't do it because gangs or the like.
I know a graffiti artist's house, and the person lives a few blocks away. He has this amazing mural of an Aztec and an Aztec calendar painted on his garage door. He has something on the side of his house, but I don't remember it so much.
I know a graffiti artist's house, and the person lives a few blocks away. He has this amazing mural of an Aztec and an Aztec calendar painted on his garage door. He has something on the side of his house, but I don't remember it so much.
I'd be perfectly happy if you did that to my house, actually.Aurgelmir said:Thing is it is vandalism of private property if you didn't have any approval by the building owner to do it. It doesn't matter how beautiful it might be, it was still not approved.Typical Cats said:
Would you be happy if I came to your hose one day and painted your wall a different color and made your house prettier to look at? You probably would not.
but Graffiti as an art isn't illegal, and I know of a few places where people allow you to go crazy with it
Because painting someone ELSE'S property without their consent is vandalism. Just like borrowing someone elses car without asking is called STEALING.
If you paid for the property, paint it any color you want. If you didn't, bugger off. Simple.
If you paid for the property, paint it any color you want. If you didn't, bugger off. Simple.