If we can all agree to the central idea that graffiti kicks ass, I think there are some interesting conflicts that were had in class the other day. Now to kick it off, I'd like to address the misconception Morgan had about graf (as we will herein call it) being vandalism, or a crime. Now, she was saying that she wouldn't like it if someone graffitied on, or "tagged" her car, and tried to wrongly persecute the art form with this example. The fact is, no right-minded tagger would WANT to bomb her automobile. It would simply defeat the purpose of tagging in the first place. 

As stated by the NY Mag article, the reason for graffitiing on buildings and train cars (less now than the 90s, but more on that later) is that the tagger is gaining public exposure. To bomb a white girl's car in our wealthy caucasian neighborhood would only be a waste of paint. There is just not enough appreciation in our "'hood" for graf. This segues us into our next re-interpretive misinterpretation, Katie's comment about the meaning behind the tag determining whether it was a work of art. Graffiti artists determine the meaning behind the tag, not some snoody ass critic wearing a beret sipping his espresso. If a graffiti artist paints a mural on the side of a building, then it is art. If he writes "Fuck", with a pictorial depiction of stick figures performing the act next to it, then he is making a statement against the building he has tagged. The sincerity of the message must be heartfelt,  or else the tagger is parodying an art form and means of communication. And when you parody something sincere you look like an idiot.

As for graffiti's acceptance into pop culture, there is a cruel irony surrounding the paradox of consumerism versus self proclamation and profit. For example, there is a game for the Nintendo coming out soon entitled "WiiSpray", a collaboration involving Nintendo and Montana Cans, a spray can company. The game features a tagger protagonist (lol), and is all about bombing buildings and making your own tag. Also, the well-known artist from New Jersey "Kaws" is now a multimillionaire because of his graffiti. He owns a clothing and vinyl-producing company known as Original Fake, and has worked together with influential people in the fashion industry such as Nigo, Pharrell, and the Prada house. This is a good idea of graffiti going mainstream, but staying underground in the big picture.  On the other hand, the authoritarian hate for graf is all around you every time you're in a major city. Up until the very late 90s, subway cars were painted a dark red, and made of a more environmentally-friendly material than the ugly silver ones we ride today. Being narrow-minded and hardheaded as people in positions of power usually are, the MTA and New York Mayor's office decided put the artistic energy and creativity of graf artists everywhere in a chokehold. They got rid of the nostalgic red cars only because they were an easier surface to tag on than the new silver behemoths.

Graffiti artists are wrongly persecuted for an amazing art form that they built from the ground up. It is shocking to see such censorship in our modern America, and one can only hope that it ends soon.