The Graffiti Rebel

Make no doubt about it, there exists real life Soap Box Sadies.

However, this thread isn't about that type of person, but rather it is about a somewhat related concept.

I'm not sure if there is already a term used to describe this type of person, but personally I use the term "Graffiti Rebel".

I use this term because the weapons of the graffiti rebel aren't bullets and machetes, but rather spray paint (or in the digital age, photo, audio, and video editing software).

Culture jamming is their way of sticking it to the man. Which is to say that the graffiti rebels take the iconography, slogans, and mottos of whatever they are rebelling against and twisting it in such a way that it goes against the agenda and intentions of the institutions that originally created those things.

Now for the part in which I express my dislike for this type of person.

Somehow, for some reason, I don't think they should be considered "rebels". At least when it comes to the First World countries.

In a more authoritarian country, like China, Russia, or Iran, producing dissident works of art or defacing government propaganda signs and billboards are most certainly considered hardcore acts of rebellion. But in a country like the US, one has the protected right to do the former and in the latter one has the protection of an decent legal system instead being subjected to some kangaroo court.

It just doesn't feel right to give even a tenth amount of the respect or attention for someone who risks being locked up in a gulag for the rest of his or her life for a political cartoon to some poser on the West Coast who needs a subscription to Adobe CC to do the same thing.

So, tell me what you think. Am I just tilting at windmills here?

edited 9th Jun '15 10:36:53 AM by Worlder

We'll allow this as long as it stays about the topic and not about bashing on any specific people, governments, or what have you.

Not being part of that culture, I cant speak from experience, but I would assume that the major response to your objection is there are disenfrachised minorities here who have little or no effective voice in the popular culture. The mainstream media are driven by the profit motive, and there is little profit in reporting the gripes of the very poor. They arent any better represented in government. So the only outlet they may feel they have left, the only way they have of getting the attention of people outside of their community, is to put up their own art in public spaces. It's against the law, and it sucks to be the person who owns the property being defaced, but what alternative do they have?

Then I feel pity, but I don't feel compelled to pay much respect beyond that of the amount I would give to a stranger.

Now what if someone were toot their own horn about how he or she is such a hardcore counter cultural "rebel"?

edited 9th Jun '15 6:32:02 PM by Worlder

I just find it ironically hilarious that people resort to crime to speak against crime.