GET @ ME: SOCIAL MEDIA GRAFFITI
From the earliest days when inscriptions were the medium, to a time when shoe shine daubers and sticks dipped in tar, were utensils for making crude placas, and on to the introduction of felt-tipped markers and the popularization of spray-paint in the late 1960s, graffiti writers have constantly adapted available resources to accomplish their goals of attaining fame for their names.
Public name writing for much of its existence was applied in very basic typographic forms, more akin to personal signatures. Penmanship and calligraphy were the height of the skill sets applied. Over the past forty years, contemporary writers have pushed towards ever more dynamic presentations of the name through Graffiti Art, which employs mastery of the spray can, typographic theory, and a tool chest of visual art techniques. These name writers create bold multidimensional images, which starkly contrast the simple letterforms of original name writers.
Despite the obvious visual evolution in the writing form, the information presented, and the intention of the acts, stayed very much the same. By writing their names in public places practitioners hope to gain notoriety among their peers and also the general public by promoting a self-identity of their choosing and creation.
Public name writing needs an audience to work, it requires them to recognize the act, remember the experience, and register that each time it may come in contact with that name written. It is important to acknowledge, that the intended audience for these writings are primarily other name writers. Public name writing has existed as a street-level communication system, one that has continued to grow and advance with the times, offering a unique outlet for the expression of self-identity.
Self-identity is at the core of the public name-writing tradition, as a writer becomes the name they choose. Chosen names are fictitious identities that allow writers to assume a new persona while remaining anonymous. A writer may choose a name for them to be known as, and in turn, project that new identity into the public conscience. An action that has its limitations in the amount of recognition one can receive, as most of the audience will not connect the actual author to the work.
Through the use of associative devices, writers can add additional information to the name such as group affiliations depicted as acronyms, street numbers, or symbols. Multiple identities depicted as A. K. A. - Also Known As and B. K. A. - Better Known As, and the lineage of writers with the same name are depicted with a numeral or number - Ex. Snake I and Snake II. However, even with the use of these associative devices, there is a limit to the amount of information that can be communicated utilizing traditionally used forms.
This name-writing practice, its stylistic nuances, and associative devices are a by-product of generations of disenfranchised youth who viewed renaming and public name-writing as an outlet towards fame and notoriety, in a time before the advent of the internet. Yet the quest to “be known” is a sentiment that remains today, even as youth culture has embraced other tools to create and promote a chosen public self-identity.
Social media platforms play an interesting role in modern expressions of self-identity. Users of Twitter and Instagram, routinely create user names or handles that classify as chosen names and project a public self-identity of the author's choosing. That is a shared characteristic connecting social media platforms and public name writing. Social media and public name writing have merged on the streets in forms that I began documenting during the summer of 2011. These writings differed drastically from the style and arrangement of information communicated by traditional name graffiti. Its presentation communicates a completely different message than any name writing that came before it.
@Graffiti is name writing that is an address for a social media feed. Its authors write their addresses in busy areas in hopes of generating traffic and followers to their pages. This writing employs the use of new associative devices, such as the @ symbol which communicates the fact that it is a social media address, and serves as a call to action, these writings are sometimes accompanied by Follow on Twitter or IG, serving as a media platform identifier and a call to action as well. Other new characters introduced into play are underscores (_), hashtags (#), and the use of the letter X as a replacement for other alphabet letters or spaces in between characters.
This new practice of @Graffiti while being influenced by popular graffiti culture is devoid of most of the stylistic nuances that practitioners of Graffiti Art hold as tenets of the craft. Yet its simplified presentation cannot negate its obvious improvement to the street-level communication system. Its emergence is the benchmark for the progression of the name-writing tradition, as it redefines the way audiences can interact with the writings. Being giving a call to action, viewers can take a further step to follow and connect with the author, should they be compelled to do so. And in turn, name writers can attain a more tangible level of fame as they work to grow their audience.
