The only things thugs should be allowed to defile are water towers and overpasses. Those carry some real risks at least. Other than that, one year in jail for every letter. If I caught somebody spray painting my very antique house, I would probably shoot the fuckers and let the justice system decide the rest but I am psycho like that.
We agree. More power to you! 
I’m not sure what the regs are around here, I just don’t see the point in all the outrage. My neighborhod doesn’t see much in the way of tagging. What I have seen has been covered up rather quickly. I haven’t seen tagging followed by the sudden presence of a “gangs” which seems to be what the OP seems to be mplying. In fact after looking at the pic the OP provided it reminds me of the guys who were tagging freeway overpass signs last year, also not done by traditional “gang” members.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t Mayor Giuliani’s major strategies to stamp out petty crimes like this to make New York a much better place overall? It seems to have worked and the strategy probably even saved many lives indirectly. Crime begets crime. Bleeding hearts may think that each little piece considered individually is forgivable but the cumulative effect can be much worse than the sum of the pieces.
Film major.
No. I’d be a bit baffled. And a bit flattered that somebody cared enough. But most of all I’d be interested in what people wanted to do with my movie- and why. And what this could teach me when making future movies. When you create art, it is like creating a little butterfly, and when you release it in the world, it will go wherever it feels like. And it may well end up stuck with pins and hung on someone’s wall. And that’s beautiful because art doesn’t exist independently of the humans interacting with it. There is something to learn in everything.
Definitely not. In fact, a film school is a great place to learn how to make really pretentious boring films with dumb symbolism (see…the knife cutting the banana is about castration!) and bad “experiemental” editing.
My dream is to teach digital filmmaking and editing in developing countries. Film is one of the most powerful mediums out there, and for so long it was only accessable to people witha few thousand bucks to spend on filmstock and developing. I think it could be very powerful to empower people who typically havn’t had a chance make their voices heard via mass media. It would sure beat the condenscending documentries and ethnic-fantasy movies we see about the developing world nowdays.
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Do you think it is okay to color old black and white movies?
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Doesn’t bug me. It’d be interesting to write a paper on the social forces behind this trend.
I hate tagging. Even when I was a teenager and my own boyfriend was into tagging, I thought it was lame. Tagging is and always has been obnoxious and destructive.
Huh. I’m pretty okay with tagging. I can understand how people in antique houses get upset, but I live in the East Villiage, and most of the buildings are ugly, basic brick boxes. Tagging gives me something interesting to look at and think about - Who is “Neckface”? Is “Shoo” surrounded by a heart pronounced “heart’s you”? Why did “Christian Payyyn” do the whole block, twice, and then dissappear?
I agree with even sven, I think it enlivens the environment and adds both art and interest to a lot of ugly, utilitarian structures (i.e. overpasses, warehouses). And I don’t think it has much to do with crime except in that neighborhoods that can’t afford to remove tags tend to be the same ones that have high crime rates - those being the poor ones. Interviews I’ve read with dedicated taggers have them coming from a broad range of socio-economic groups and having a range of motivations.
I do think that there are places that are inappropriate to tag, and I’m glad that the owners of monuments and beautiful buildings are willing to deter or clean up tags. I’m also annoyed with the twit that put a big tag in the middle of my front window. But the near-ubiquitous tagging of the rest of the building and neighborhood bothers me not one whit. Nor does it increase the local crime rates, which are quite low. Meh.
mischievous
So as long as they’re not tagging YOUR property, it’s okay…
I’m not disgusted by tagging, nor am I outraged. It is illegal, it is unsightly most times, and the best thing to do is to remove it or cover it up as fast as it turns up.
There are gang tags, and tags that are not gang related at all. The police usually can tell which is which, but the public is not exposed enough to the tags to recognize the differences. Some graffiti is beautiful, most is not.
If you want to stop tagging (or at least slow it down), have the tag covered or removed as soon as it is done. Eventually, (you will need to keep up on it for a while) the tagger will give up and tag something else if he/she knows that their tag will be visible for only a few hours.
That sounds more like “as long as they’re not interfering with use, just aesthetics, it’s okay”.
Me, too. Except I’d cut off their index fingers. Call it Art, call it whatever you want, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s vandalism of public or private property, and represents a fundamental breakdown in society. Just because people have always done it (ref. Pompeii) doesn’t make it correct.
sven, check this site out - it’s kinda neat. Chicago graffiti. Legal and illegal. And cool pictures.
Speak for yourself, lady! I will ALWAYS be… Cool.
The mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman suggested, after a really nasty tagging incident , that those caught should have their thumbs cut off . I think catching more would be deterent enough .
So…murdering people in cold blood and chopping off their digits does not represent a fundamental breakdown in society, but a bit of ink on your stuff does? What the fuck is wrong with you?
A bit of ink on my stuff? Are you really that dense? The key term here is “My.” It isn’t yours. It isn’t theirs. It’s mine, and I will defend it as necessary from any sub-human fucktard who tries to spraypaint their hormones on it. Fuck with my car, and I will fuck you up bad. These cretins need a hard and fast lesson in “private property.”
And you know, forget my characterization of it; even if you put tagging in the worst possible sane terms, it still wouldn’t begin to measure up to killing and maiming.
What you two numbskulls are saying is that your property is worth more than the justice system, more than your morality, more than even human life itself. That’s just disgusting. Spraying it with ‘oh, and if we don’t murder, maim and torture these people, society will collapse under the weight of their spray cans’ doesn’t take the stench off it, believe me.
I don’t necessarily agree with the dedigitators and all, but it’s more than just “a bit of ink on your stuff”. Besides showing a fundamental lack fo respect for other people and for society in general, it costs MONEY to clean this stuff up repeatedly, and it also drives down property values. No one has the right to vandalize another person’s property, period. It’s the utter lack of any kind of respect or even consideration for the other person that makes me look at this as something a little worse than “a bit of ink on your stuff”.
Read above, to my disclaimer. But even so, compared to SHOOTING SOMEONE IN COLD BLOOD, yes, it’s a bit of fucking ink, okay? In comparison to murder, money and property are NOTHING. How you can defend the guy who is saying he wants to murder people for a crime this society absolutely does not deem worthy of death is completely beyond me. I’m taking a break from this thread until somebody else fucking sane shows up.
EE - you seem to be quite invested in this particular issue, despite the fact that you coyly proclaim “no interest in discussing [your] politics on this board beyond certain basics …”
Despite your assurance that “there is a coherent mindset behind it,” you have failed to show any evidence of that. Instead, your posts amount to little more than “all of you are wrong,” with and added good-sized dollop of “I’m better than the lot of you property slaves.”
It is a whole heck of a lot easier to criticize others, when you don’t trouble yourself with proposing any workable alternatives.
I am actually just as offended (if not more so) by scribbles on public property as by scribbles on private property. It’s a real shame that no one can go to the park or anywhere without looking at the scribbles of shitheads who have come before. It used to be that you could see a heart with initials in it or someone was here in public places, which was mildly annoying, but now it’s a 10 feet tall scribble of crap that some gangbanger “drew” and another one lined out and another one lined out the line-out. Wow. “Art”. I think part of the problem is that 40 years ago the percent of morons in the population was about the same as now, but now the pop. and the number of morons are both huge (and the number of cops is about the same as 40 years ago) so we’re outnumbered.
That, and the idiots who think that taking a crayon and scribbling all over someone else’s books and all the books in the library is art.