Although i am not ever going to try and claim that i am even close to one of the best graffiti
artists, i have been able to be involved with graffiti and the graffiti scene now for over
a decade. So i've gotten to meet quite a few different types of graffiti writers and i'd like
to organize those graffiti writers into different types that most graffiti writers fit into. And
before i say anything else, i'm going to emphasize right off the bat that this is entirely just an
opinion piece of mine and it's more just how, in my brain, i organize different types of graffiti
writers and artists. I'd like to describe to you guys five different types of graffiti artists and
what each of those types brings to the table for graffiti culture, and their shortfalls,
not to fit anyone in a particular graffiti group, but to help sort of start a conversation about
what actually is important in graffiti. In fact as a graffiti artist, you will probably find that
you don't fit in just one of these categories, but it's more of a blend. Some of which you'll
find you're highly correlated with and others you'll find you're fairly distant with. After all,
everyone is unique. And let me emphasize quickly but prominently that i will sound quite negative
throughout a lot of this video, but i promise you you will be able to see what i'm saying in
a positive light if you actually watch the video the whole way through rather than just catching
some of the segments where i sound a little bit pessimistic. So please do that! So the first type
of graffiti artist is what i like to sort of refer to as the moral alternate. Or i like to ironically
sort of call them the 'bad boys' of graffiti to sort of emphasize how childish this group can
be in some situations and how sort of gangster they think they are. I think of this group
as graffiti artists who believe that graffiti encompasses more than just writing on other
people's property. In some cases these graffiti artists will be more prone to racking paint and
could be characterized as be a little bit quicker to be violent with other graffiti artists or even
police. In some cases i think for a lot of people, in this particular type of graffiti artist,
gravitate towards this type of graffiti because of the environments that they have grown up in. Your
environment of course plays a huge role in what kind of person in general you turn out to be and
what values you carry throughout life. This type of graffiti artist could also be characterized as
being far more willing to go over others' tags throws and graffiti pieces, often citing the
reason for them doing so as that the other artist was too 'toy' or didn't deserve the respect,
or something like that. And they'll often go over pieces of other artists who aren't in the graffiti
genre as well. Although i'm not describing this group in a very happy-go-lucky sort of light,
there is some good that comes from this group and most of the other groups which i will get to later
in the video. But the second and third groups share a lot of the same characteristics. But i've
still broken them up. They are what i refer to as the know-it-alls and the controllers. Firstly,
the know-it-alls: Again i'm gonna start off with a lot of their negative sort of characteristics. So
this know-it-all group has been almost entirely enabled by the growth of graffiti hubs on the
internet. This group often claims to be old school graffiti writers and is in a lot of cases more
than willing to give out their 'valuable' advice about what other graffiti artists need to work on,
in their opinion, or what they think of other graffiti writers in particular. It's funny
because you see a lot of this personality type in comment sections of videos of very basic graffiti
topics such as like, 'how to tag graffiti,' 'how to make a graffiti piece,' things like that,
which is funny because why would any old school writer who actually knows their stuff have any
reason to be searching those graffiti topics, let alone clicking on them and watching the videos of
those basic topics. It doesn't really make sense! So that being the case, that tells me two things:
they're either not as experienced as they say they are, or they could just be watching those videos
solely to criticize other artists. And who really finds these people credible
if they're so experienced yet they still have time in a day in their illustrious career to watch
beginner tutorials and comment their unsolicited advice on these videos! Come on. Nobody wants
that. And almost all the time this group in particular turns to online forums to spread their
advice simply because the wild claims that they are making in most cases about their credibility
would be clearly untrue if it were to be a conversation face to face, in real life. And also,
in most circumstances they turn to online because usually these people wouldn't have the courage
to say a lot of the things they're saying face to face, again in a real life environment. And
it is unfortunate that this group seems to be so prominent sometimes in the online graffiti forums
and culture because they usually end up spreading falsehoods or exaggerating the importance of their
advice to people by hiding behind their inflated falsely proclaimed achievements and careers. And
without mentioning any names in particular, i will say that there are some very large graffiti
channels run by people in this category, on youtube, who have very inflated egos and shouldn't
be convincing anyone really that their advice is particularly professional or valuable. And i think
in a lot of ways it's really a great shame that they have as much influence as they do because
it just further inflates their egos when they get attention and, more importantly, also dirties the
information available on the internet about what graffiti really is. And it damages the culture.
And you'll find some of those characteristics in the next group, which i already mentioned,
the controllers as well. There's a bit of overlap between these two groups. Controllers are those
graffiti artists who believe that graffiti should be one thing only or a small handful of things.
They generally have very narrow views about what graffiti is, how the graffiti culture should be,
how you should obtain your graffiti supplies, and much much more of course. Usually you hear people
in this group citing that they are experienced and knowledgeable to back their claims, just
like the know-it-alls. And although both groups, i'd like to emphasize, MAY be knowledgeable in
some circumstances, that doesn't mean that their opinions all of a sudden become correct, as they
are still opinions. Often you'll hear people in both of these groups talk about how things
have been in the past or cite some knowledge about particular aspects of graffiti history,
trying to use that as reasoning to say their way is the correct way. And although graffiti
history and the roots of graffiti will forever have an impact on the evolution and
values and workings of graffiti culture, it doesn't mean that graffiti will not continue
to evolve and change. After all, graffiti is a very young art form compared to other art forms,
and growth and change is always going to be happening! The next group is what i like to call
the techies. This group for me is characterized by their love for artistic elements within
graffiti and their fixation on, a lot of times, improvement. This is not necessarily good or bad,
but it most definitely is entirely different than some of the other types of graffiti artists. About
the only thing that the techies have in common with say the moral alternate group is that they
both claim to do graffiti, but what they actually do on a day-to-day basis is entirely different
from one another. For me this breed of graffiti artists could be known for spending agonizing
amounts of time on little details that most other graffiti artists would just find to be a
waste of time. And although this mentality can be responsible for producing some of the best, most
high quality work, it often also at times lacks an important regard for elements of traditional
graffiti and graffiti history. And another group that i just wanted to mention quickly
is the fifth group that i call the aspiring graffiti writers or casuals. To me these are
young or new graffiti writers who are discovering the great things about graffiti that we all love.
And i want to give those people their own sort of category even though they can be entirely
different from one another, within that category, because growth, experiences, and your environment
changes your opinions and a lot of times when you're discovering graffiti as an art form,
you have a lot of experience to gain which will change your perspective about certain things.
I would say that most graffiti artists don't fall just within one of these categories of types of
graffiti artists, but these types of graffiti artists are more like meters. For example,
i would say that, in general, i'm highly correlated with the group that i'm calling
the techies because i am a very technical writer and i am always striving for improvement. But i
may also fall a bit within the category of the historian / controllers because i do believe
that graffiti history is very important to know and understand and be aware of, and in
some particular cases make sure you're carrying on. Furthermore, my love for the proliferation of
my graffiti would suggest a bit of the moral alternate in me. And i do like to think that
everybody is young enough to still fit within the aspiring graffiti writer category. After all,
it's never too late to learn new things, go through new experiences, and change your
opinions on things. This is the best reasoning i can give for my advice that everyone should always
listen and learn while at the same time being wary of people's credibilities. And i know
i've really gone in depth and created a lot of information on each type of graffiti artist.
So what i'd like to do is organize these five types of graffiti artists onto some helpful
scales to show you what each type is usually best at, which also might help you figure out which
types of graffiti artists you are most correlated with specifically! These scales may not be true
for every individual who is highly correlated with a specific type of graffiti artist, but
this is what i have observed, statistically, over my time interacting within graffiti communities.
I'm gonna look over to my computer over here because i created some nice graphics
to hopefully show you guys as well. So the scale: most prolific. Usually the moral alternates and
the controllers or historians seem to be best at this type of graffiti. I think this often
goes along with how principled they are in terms of why they believe graffiti should be a certain
way. Somewhere in the middle is usually the know-it-alls and the aspiring groups. Those are
sort of toss-ups. Techies are usually falling a little bit behind on this scale in terms of
proliferation, but the determination that a techie uses to improve and pay attention to detail can
be the same thing that drives them to proliferate in some cases. The most technical, of course, the
techies - you all saw that coming. The historians, the know-it-alls, and the aspiring graffiti
writers are all sort of toss-ups whereas in a lot of cases the moral alternates usually can't spend
too much time on this. On the scale of quality, you will find that the techies are unrivalled
here. The rest are all sort of toss-ups. There's nothing saying that quality can't be associated
with the other types of graffiti artists, but it's most prominent within the techie segment. And the
types of graffiti artists that have the most longevity and the longest careers: Now this is
gonna seem a little weird because of how opposite these two groups are, but i would suggest that the
moral alternates and the techies both, in a lot of cases, end up having very long careers. A lot
of times you'll find that graffiti artists that i fit into the techie category are often motivated
to go on and pursue a legal muraling type careers whereas the moral alternates seem very focused
in a lot of cases to continue their illegal work and make as big an impact as possible. Just below
them are usually the controllers / historians and the know-it-alls. And the aspiring is not on this
scale just because they're completely a toss-up, and in reality most aspiring graffiti writers and
casuals end up dropping out of graffiti at some point. Ultimately i would like to emphasize that
each type of graffiti artist has probably evolved from a particular passion surrounding a few
aspects of what they found good about graffiti. And i don't want anyone to necessarily identify
as a specific group. I just want these groups to help you sort of organize your thoughts and figure
out what aspects of graffiti are most important to you, because at the end of the day that really IS
what it's all about, in my opinion. Although we are all inadvertently playing a part in
shaping and altering graffiti culture, as a whole, i believe that all graffiti writers should find
their passion and use their understanding of different mentalities within graffiti
to not just co-exist with other types of graffiti writers and artists, but also to
thrive within a sea of many personality types involved with such a worthwhile art form.