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12[[quoteright:350:[[Music/BeggarsBanquet https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/beggars_banquet_1057.jpg]]]]
13[[caption-width-right:350:No penis drawings, so it's already cleaner than most real-life bathrooms.]]
14%%
15->''"I read the graffiti in the bathroom stall\
16Like the holy scriptures of the shopping mall."''
17-->-- '''Music/GreenDay''', [[Music/AmericanIdiot "Jesus of Suburbia"]]
18
19For whatever reason, some people seem compelled to scrawl or carve all manner of interesting things onto the walls of public restrooms (whether they do this with the bathroom in their ''own home'' is anyone's guess). Usually, it's phone numbers or crude insinuations about characters (often the very character who's reading it). Occasionally you'll find poetry, pithy sayings (which, appropriately, can be filled with {{Vulgar|Humor}} and ToiletHumor), colorful drawings, or ArcWords. Often includes some variation on "For a good time call [phone number]." [[ValuesDissonance Hate speech and frowned-upon iconography]] are also possibilities if you're unlucky enough.
20
21Occasionally, the trope turns up in PoliceProcedural shows, as when victims of a campus date rapist have been afraid to report the crime, so they write warnings to other potential victims all over the ladies' room stalls.
22
23Let's just say this is TruthInTelevision for more than half of us and leave it at that. Commonly found in a DisgustingPublicToilet.
24
25Archaeology has proven this trope to be OlderThanFeudalism: see the RealLife examples. For the general "X was Here" type of graffiti, see KilroyWasHere.
26
27----
28!!Examples:
29
30[[foldercontrol]]
31
32[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
33* Eda from ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' explains the handy escape instructions she left for Greenback Jane with an analogy of a bathroom stall scribble that makes the person reading look around the booth.
34* In the ''Manga/CaseClosed'' manga there is a bathroom scene in volume 32 where the wall says "welcome to HELL".
35* This was parodied in the ''Anime/ExcelSaga'' episode "The Interesting Giant Tower", where Excel kept finding mysterious messages on the bathroom wall that help her along until she finds the last message that claims even the message leaver is now stuck.
36* In the ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' manga, someone writes false rumors about Kaname on the boys' bathroom walls. Sousuke decides to immediately interrogate the first suspect. With a toilet.
37* {{Exaggerated|Trope}} in ''Manga/{{Tekkonkinkreet}}''. Of course, it's an entire film caked in graffiti, but the bathrooms were every ounce as crazy as the rest of it.
38[[/folder]]
39
40[[folder:Comic Books]]
41* ''ComicBook/BePrepared'': The [[GoToTheEuphemism "Hollywood"]] (outdoor non-flush toilet) is covered in carvings and writing from previous campers. Many of them are in Russian.
42* In the ''Church and State'' arc of ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark'', during Cerebus' interrogation of Astoria, she reveals that she originated the "One less mouth to feed is one less mouth to feed" line Cerebus used in one of his sermons.
43-->'''Astoria:''' It's a direct quote from my ''Kevellist Manifesto''. Where did you...?\
44'''Cerebus:''' Cerebus read it on the wall of a latrine once.\
45'''Astoria:''' Immortality is mine.
46* In ''ComicBook/JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac'', there is a bathroom with "Somebody put shit in my pants!!" written on one of the stalls.
47* ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': Every time Tim visits the bathroom at high school the stalls within are written on, and usually the mirrors too.
48* ''ComicBook/SuburbanGlamour'': Seen on a stall when Dave overhears one of his classmates complaining about failing to drug and seduce Astrid.
49--> [[Creator/KieronGillen Gillen's]] [[SelfDeprecation a knob]]
50--> You're Mum
51--> [[GrammarCorrectionGag It's spelled "your", you idiot]].
52* During the investigation of the murder of [[Myth/NorseMythology Baldur]] at the "Godz" bar, the ''ComicBook/TopTen'' team came across some mythology gags in the men's room:
53--> Hephaestus is totally lame
54--> I suck. Call Charybdis 555-1212
55--> Theatre/{{Oedipus|TheKing}} is a [[ParentalIncest mother]] [[CurseCutShort f<smudge>er]]
56* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'': The ladies restroom at the theme park Diana and Tom's first mission together is located at is quite a mess, and includes a lipstick heart with the words 'Batman + me forever' in one of the stalls along with other tidbits.
57[[/folder]]
58
59[[folder:Comic Strips]]
60* Jason of ''ComicStrip/{{Foxtrot}}'' has done this at least twice, giving out Paige's phone number and e-mail address on the men's room wall of the local truckstop.
61* One issue of ''Franchise/ElSantos'' has the police chief asking Santos to find out who is writing graffiti in the police station bathroom stalls. Santos sees graffiti insulting him and he changes it to praise him, then decides to write "La Tetona is a whore". Not knowing that she's in the stall next to him. She proceeds to give him a really violent swirly.
62--> '''Santos''': Wait! I was talking about another Tetona [[NotHelpingYourCase who is also a whore!]]
63[[/folder]]
64
65[[folder:Fan Works]]
66* In chapter 3 of ''[[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/165839/berry-punch-takes-manehattan Berry Punch Takes Manehattan]]'', Bon Bon reads some scribbles on the walls of the stall, ranging from squicky to philosophical.
67* ''Fanfic/{{Eye of the Storm|KenyaStarflight}}'': In the sequel ''Crystal Blizzard'', Darth Vader and his Earth friends head to Salt Lake City for Christmas. During a stop at a public rest area, he reads and is amused by the stall graffiti.
68* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1994482/1/Lily-Was-Here Lily Was Here]]'' Hermione drags Harry into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to look at a heart with his parents' initials in it. After a search for additional graffiti from his mother, he finds "Lily was here" and writes underneath "So was Harry".
69* ''Matters of Faith'' has graffiti all over the bathrooms in the [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Geofront]]. The most amusing of these are the "Gendo Ikari Facts" which pose him as a MemeticBadass on par with Chuck Norris. The kicker is, he wrote most of these (including the ones in the women's bathrooms) himself to keep his subordinates in line.
70* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1971991/1/We-All-Die-Anyway We All Die Anyway]]'' Harry and Draco carry out a dialogue by writing angsty poetry on the wall of the prefects' bathroom, with neither of them aware of the identity of their correspondent.
71[[/folder]]
72
73[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
74* The Fairy Godmother's song in ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'':
75-->''They'll write your name on the bathroom wall''\
76''"For happily ever after give Fiona a call"''
77* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', the stalls in a bathroom in Mei's school have some graffiti on them. One instance is a ShoutOut to the [[WesternAnimation/PixarShorts Pixar short]] ''WesternAnimation/{{Kitbull}}''.
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
81* In ''Film/BlueIguana2018'', the men's room at the Bradshaw pub has a drawing on the wall of [[GroinAttack a shark giving a man a blowjob]].
82* Bathroom graffiti tells Tucker [=McElroy=] where ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'' are performing.
83* The cowboy/mummy from ''Film/BubbaHoTep'' etches some hieroglyphic graffiti onto a bathroom stall of the rest home (which JFK translates).
84* In ''Film/{{Busting}}'', To keep Keneely and Farrel off the crime lord Rizzo's case, the corrupt police department assigns them to look for perverts in a graffiti-covered bathroom. Keneely adds Rizzo's name to the inside of one stall.
85-->'''Keneely''': [[KilroyWasHere Kilroy]], how you doing?
86* In the high school girls' bathroom in ''Film/DazedAndConfused'', the graffiti over Jodi's shoulder reads, "Jodi Kramer is stuck up!!"
87* In ''Film/DumbAndDumber'', Lloyd uses the gas station bathroom only to find out that the graffiti message for scheduled "manly love" is at the exact day and time he's in the stall, and the person who enters the stall was the trucker from the diner before.
88* ''Film/TheIceHarvest'' shows John Cusack reading such graffiti at a urinal, saying aloud: "As Wichita falls, so falls Wichita Falls."
89* In ''Film/{{Mabul}}'', the bathroom walls at Yoni's school are absolutely covered in graffiti.
90* In ''Film/NickAndNorahsInfinitePlaylist'', Norah finds a clue about where the band where's Fluffy is playing while in the bathroom stall.
91* ''Film/{{Reststop}}'' features a trashed women's restroom with graffiti all over the stalls, each a cryptic (or not so cryptic) message about the homicidal, truck driving maniac who hunts down those who go to the rest stop. Later the heroine of the movie leaves her own message on a stall door.
92* In ''Film/RoadHouse1989'', the owner of the Double Deuce finds some offensive graffiti on the wall and simply edits it (Technically in the hallway outside the bathrooms, but close enough)
93* At the beginning of ''Film/SlaughterHigh'', Marty finds "Marty Rantzen Sucks!" scrawled on the wall of the girl's locker room. He changes the S to an F.
94* In ''Film/TakeDown,'' wrestler Macgrudder is sitting in a stall attempting to pass a [[UnusualEuphemism "cleansing bubble"]] so he can make weight for his match. He reads the following poem on the wall: "If you're too good for other folks—all mighty, high, and haughty—remember you're just one of us while you're here on this potty."
95* On ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', Eddie ducks into a Toontown bathroom which has a written message on the wall. In its theatrical release, it was replaced with Michael Eisner's phone number in a frame. This was removed for the VHS/DVD release.
96--> ''"For a good time call Allyson "Wonderland". The best is yet to be!"''
97* In ''Film/WithnailAndI'', the protagonist sees some graffiti in a bathroom stall which reads, "I fuck arses", This, combined with his encounter with a man who [[MistakenForGay called him a ponce]], causes him to be so scared that, as his voiceover tells us, he can't even pee straight.
98* A graffiti in men's lavatory in ''Film/WithoutWarning1980'' that reads "No chance, no help, no escape" is seen by the ShellShockedVeteran Sarge, and he says it twice later as his SanitySlippage takes a hold on him.
99[[/folder]]
100
101[[folder:Gamebooks]]
102* ''Literature/FightingFantasy'': The fourth ''Literature/{{Sorcery}}'' book, ''The Crown of Kings'', has a scene in the Mampang Fortress's public latrine which is filled with ridiculous graffiti. The crowner is probably this line scribbled above a hanging piece of ratskin: "Please wash your hands after using this towel."
103[[/folder]]
104
105[[folder:Literature]]
106* In ''The Growing Pains of Literature/AdrianMole'', Adrian writes a poem on the toilet wall at school. Foolishly, he signs it, and is suspended from school for a week, which marks the start of a slide into delinquency and depression.
107* In the Creator/StephenKing story "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" (in ''Literature/EverythingsEventual''), a salesman contemplating suicide reconsiders because he has collected so much toilet graffiti over his years of traveling that he could write a good book on the subject and better his meaningless existence; he's also afraid that if he does kill himself, he'll be judged insane based on his having a notebook in his briefcase inexplicably filled with phrases like ''Save Russian Jews, Collect Valuable Prizes''. [[spoiler: The story ends with him deciding that he won't kill himself ''if'' he can't dispose of the notebook.]]
108* ''Literature/AudreyWait'': Audrey and Victoria find stick figures labelled with her name and another famous singer doing oral in a bathroom stall, along with the phrase "Audry sucks dik".
109* ''Literature/TheBedAndBreakfastStar'': Elsa writes insulting jokes about her stepfather Mac in the hotel women's bathroom.
110* This becomes the only contact with reality The Dictator has on ''Literature/TheAutumnOfThePatriarch''.
111* ''Radio/TheBurkissWay'' cast member Nigel Rees compiled and edited a best-selling series of books which brought together the best and funniest graffiti - 80% of it from toilets - to be found in the UK. The ''graffiti'' series ran eventually into four books and several million sales.
112* In ''Literature/TheCryingOfLot49'', the mysterious muted-trumpet symbol which functions as non-verbal ArcWords (symbolizing an alleged AncientConspiracy) is seen as bathroom graffiti.
113* A marginal example in ''Literature/DeathStar'' has Doctor Uli Divini, who'd been serving ever since the Clone Wars because of an order that meant [[ResignationsNotAccepted he could never quit]], grousing about it. The Imperial Military Stop Loss Order is keeping him and many others there for as long as they want him, or until he's killed.
114-->''An alternative translation, scrawled no doubt on a 'fresher wall somewhere by a clever graffitist, had caught on over the last few years: "I'm [[UnusualEuphemism Milking Scragged]]; Life's Over."''
115* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
116** When Rinso visits the dunny outside Crocodile's tavern in ''Literature/TheLastContinent'', he notices "the usual minutiae from people who needed people, and drawings done from overheated hope, rather than memory", but also the [[ArcWords Arc Images]] of figures in pointy hats.
117** ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' has Polly, an innkeeper's daughter, mention graffiti a few times, and correcting the anatomy.
118* In ''[[Literature/{{Rebus}} Fleshmarket Close]]'', checking out the graffiti in the women's bathroom of Banehall's town pub tells Siobhan that local women are united in their hatred for convicted rapist [[spoiler: and later murder victim]] Donny.
119* ''Literature/FracturedStars'': Martin Niemöller's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came First they came for the Socialists]] poem is popular with members of [[LaResistance the Alliance]], who write the last line on stall doors in public lavatories.
120* A science-fiction short story "Graffiti" by Gary Alexander had a 'graffiti time war' where opposing sides in the future were writing insults in a propaganda war in a bathroom stall declared the only neutral place in history for them to wage war at. The janitor who discovers it (having been frustrated by the high-tech indelible marker ink of the future) eventually ends up involved and uses his experience with graffiti to blast both sides and they want to elect him emperor of the future, but being stupidly determined to remain[[note]]he's got his reasons; he's a bit of a slacker who actually likes the mindless rote aspects of his job, and really doesn't want the work and responsibility of being Emperor[[/note]] he restarts the war and returns to his bathroom stall cleaning duties.
121* ''Literature/TheGreatGreeneHeist'': It's once noted that "[c]ontrary to the words scrawled across the walls of the boys' bathroom, [[DeanBitterman Dr. Kelsey]] was indeed a smart man."
122* In ''[[Literature/AdrianMole The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole]],'' the title character gets sent to the headmaster's office for writing a poem in the boys' toilet. When Adrian asks the headmaster how he knows he's the culprit, he replies, "You signed it, idiot boy."
123* In the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries'' Michael admits that he learned to brew a drug that was once common for nobles to know while at university. When this shocks Fisk he quickly amends that no professor would teach the recipe to a now illegal drug, but you could always find variations written on the bathroom stalls.
124* In ''Literature/LessThanZero'', graffiti written on the bathroom wall at Pages reads, 'Julian gives great head. And is dead' followed by 'Fuck you, Mom and Dad. You suck cunt. You suck cock. You both can die because that's what you did to me. You left me to die. You both can rot in fucking shitting asshole hell. Burn, you fucking dumbshits. Burn, fuckers. Burn.' Lovely.
125* Not a bathroom, but Literature/MercyThompson keeps a graffiti-covered wrecked car on her lawn to annoy her neighbor, Adam. One of the scrawled messages (applied at the suggestion of Adam's teenage daughter) is a "For a good time, call Adam" note that includes his phone number.
126* In ''Literature/TheRobberBride'', history professor Tony Fremont notes the graffiti on the wall of the washroom in the Faculty of History building: ''Herstory Not History'', ''Herstorectomy Not Hystorectomy'', above which is ''FEMINIST DECONSTRUCTION SUCKS''.
127* A more sober example in Laurie Halse Anderson's ''{{Literature/Speak}}''. Melinda discovers some bathroom graffiti at her high school that mostly functions as a message board for gossip. She adds her own thread to it, mentioning that people should avoid Andy Evans, the senior who [[spoiler: raped her]]. When she comes back to the graffiti a few days later, dozens of people have added messages agreeing with her.
128* There's a ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' story called "Side Trip" where [[Literature/XWingSeries Corran]] has to explain what he was looking at to an observant bounty hunter [[spoiler: who happens to be a disguised [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn]], the man who can judge a culture by their art]] and claims it was graffiti. Naturally, this leads to a discussion of "real" art.
129* In ''Literature/VeganVirginValentine'', the day after Mara's niece V arrives in town, Mara finds graffiti in the bathrooms saying "V Valentine Is A Slut". Later, after she and V start getting along, she takes a thick marker and crosses it off. (And even later, she mentions it to V, who admits to having done the graffiti herself.)
130* In David Feldman's ''Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?'' a cartoon accompanying the entry on why pay toilets no longer exist in the US depicts several stalls with the outside of the doors covered with graffiti like "Robbery" and "OUT OF CHANGE? CRAWL UNDER!"
131[[/folder]]
132
133[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
134* In a ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' episode, Mrs. Dubcek asked Harry, working in the town bar, if someone put her phone number on the wall of the men's bathroom. He replied no and she asked him to go put it up "before that bearded guy takes a leak".
135* In the ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' episode "Archie is Worried About His Job", Archie expects a phone call late at night, but he gets a guy who misread a number on a toilet wall instead.
136* In ''Series/BeingHumanUK'', one of George's English As A Foreign Language students vandalizes the men's room at the school, writing "Mr. Sands suck cocks". Unfortunately for George, he finds this to be CorrectionBait.
137* The plot of the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Justice" hinges on this.
138* There's apparently some very explicit graffiti about Sally on a toilet door in ''Series/DropTheDeadDonkey''. A RunningGag is "That's not what it says in the Ladies"; and Helen is, at first, nicknamed Stalin, leading Gus to tell Dave to go and clean the graffiti in the toilets: "Some of it is ancient - it even mentions Stalin!"
139* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'':
140** Niles apparently goes into the bathroom stalls of the local coffee bar and corrects the grammar and spelling of the graffiti with a red marker.
141** Frasier reads out a mocking limerick he found about himself, and again Niles' first reaction is to critique its poetic errors.
142* ''Series/TheGoldenGirls''. Dorothy won't let Blanche out of a bathroom stall until she listens to her. Blanche threatens her thusly:
143-->'''Blanche:''' Dorothy, if you don't let me out of here, I'm going to write, "For a good time, call Dorothy Zbornak" on the wall.\
144'''Dorothy:''' ''[laughs]'' Blanche, this is the ladies room.\
145'''Blanche:''' '''''Exactly'''''\
146''[cue HUGE OhCrap look from Dorothy]''
147* Quinn of ''Series/{{Glee}}'' drew a whole pornographic picture of Rachel on a bathroom stall.
148* The men's room at Arnold's in ''Series/HappyDays''.
149** Its sister show ''Series/LaverneAndShirley'' had an entire episode as the girls dressed like guys to erase graffiti written in a Men's Room about them as revenge.
150* ''Series/{{Hawkeye|2021}}'': At the theatre that Clint Barton takes his kids to, someone has doodled "Thanos was right" on one of the urinals in the men's room.
151* In ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Marshall is mad that a drink he invented got named after Robin, so he writes her number on the men's stall at the bar. Robin goes into the stall and crosses it out, then informs Marshall that she wrote something on the women's bathroom. Marshall goes into the ladies' room and finds a long, eloquent apology written across most of the wall. As he gets to the end, he finds that Robin had actually written it so that Marshall would stay long enough for someone to come in and he would hide in the nearest stall to not get caught. Just then, some women come in and Marshall does duck into the next stall, where Robin had written "Gotcha! Love, Robin (creator of the Robin Scherbatsky)" on the door.
152* Councillor Bundy from ''Series/InForAPenny'' frequently scrawled on the lavatory walls, although Dan would never assume it was his due to his position on the council.
153* In an episode of ''Series/JustShootMe'' there is a small saga surrounding the phrase "Sometimes on the way to your dreams, you get lost and find something better". Maya's father is the first one to say it to her, and it is repeated later in the episode by a man who explains that he read it written on the wall of a brothel. At the end of the episode, Maya repeats it herself and Elliott confusedly remembers that he wrote that same saying on a wall somewhere.
154* ''Series/JustTheTenOfUs'': To get there father out of the house so they can plan a surprise for him, daughter Cindy tells her father that obscene things are written about her on the boys bathroom wall. Incensed, he goes to paint it over himself. She later asks her sister Connie how she could stomach writing those things.
155-->'''Connie:''' Most of it was already there, I just had to paint your name over Wendy's (another sister).
156* In "Something's Rotten in Redmund" from ''Series/TheMentalist'', the [=CBI=] are investigating a murder at a high school. Patrick Jane, acting on a suspicion, vandalizes the boys' bathroom with the phrase "SNYDER SUCKS," referring to the school's principal. He is almost immediately called into the principal's office about the graffiti, but asks the principal how he possibly could have known when he made sure that there were no witnesses. The principal insists a student tipped him off, but Jane then flings open the doors of a cupboard, reveling the monitors for the highly illegal hidden cameras that Snyder has for the restrooms.
157* The ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf" has Sharona see the mysterious blood-soaked man with a knife in his chest and a screwdriver in his ear hanging from a bathroom ceiling. By the time she gets Monk there, there's no evidence of any man other than the words "HELP ME" written on a wall, apparently with Sharona's lipstick. Stottlemeyer admits recalling the 1970s when people used bathroom walls to write love letters, phone numbers, and limericks.
158* Implied: ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' has the private school play of "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" as the Padre enters late, saying he'd been wrestling with Plato. The Headmaster comments "What you do on your own time, Padre, is written on the walls of the vestry."
159* In ''Series/MySoCalledLife'', it wasn't just the stalls, the ENTIRE girl's bathroom was coated completely in graffiti.
160* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': The screening of "Cave Dwellers" has the hero, Ator, studying some hieroglyphics carved in a rock:
161-->'''Tom Servo:''' It reads "He who reads these words of wit will eat their..." oh, now that's infantile. Even for the dark ages.
162* In the ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'' episode on Bathrooms, Ned gets Moze to write his name on the "Hottie List" in the girls' toilets. Someone puts a lipstick kiss on the toilet wall next to his name (which is a really gross thing to do) and Ned tries to find out whose lipstick it was.
163* ''Series/NightCourt'' had an episode where the Judge has a brief fling with a rock star in the men's bathroom - full of graffiti, she comments that the women's bathroom has more interesting ones.
164* In ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', Elliot ends up in the men's bathroom and finds her "butt rating" in one of the stalls. Initially, she’s ecstatic when she sees its 9.6...and then Kelso informs her the scale is out of 100.
165* ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'' had a skit in scenes from a hat of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBpp42_VVtQ "Graffitti in the Whose Line Bathroom"]] which put a twist on it
166--> '''Brad:''' *reading off imaginary wall* Colin IS here *looks up, feigns surprise*
167* From ''Series/TheWire'': "Rawls Sucks Cock" at the Baltimore Central Police station staff men's room.
168[[/folder]]
169
170[[folder:Magazines]]
171* Parodied in a 1976 ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' feature, "''Mad's'' Nice Graffiti," which demonstrates how to make standard vulgar bathroom doggerel LighterAndSofter. For example, "Here I sit, broken-hearted / Paid my dime[[note]]U.S. airport washroom stalls used to be coin-operated[[/note]] and only farted" becomes "Here I sit, happy-hearted, / Talks on Mid-East peace have started."
172[[/folder]]
173
174[[folder:Music]]
175* Music/JimmyBuffett admitted that a graffito inspired him to write the song, "The Weather Is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful."
176* Creator/JimmyFallon's comedy/music album ''The Bathroom Wall''. Even has a title drop in one song: "Now listen up, y'all/ I know I'm not tall/ My name is never written on the bathroom wall."
177* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-kXgB21PcQ Bathroom Wall]]" by Faster Pussycat.
178* The cover of Music/{{Foreigner|Band}}'s third album, ''Head Games'', features a girl in a men's bathroom trying to erase her number from the wall.
179* As quoted above, "Jesus of Suburbia" from Music/GreenDay's ''American Idiot''. In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8v3B1SxR0 video]], he trashes a bathroom and covers it with graffiti.
180* Music/MidnightOil's ''Redneck Wonderland'' album took its title from a graffiti drawing of a map of Australia with the phrase written on it.
181* The cover art of Nomeansno compilation ''The People's Choice'' features some real-life graffiti in what looks to be a club's bathroom, reading "How fucken [sic] old are Nomeansno? Give it up granddads", followed by band member John Wright's signed response of "That's 'great granddad' to you fucker!".
182* The original cover art of Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}' 1968 album ''Music/BeggarsBanquet'' features this. While their record label refused to issue it at the time (substituting a spare white cover with a mock dinner invitation instead), the bathroom cover was eventually restored for the album's CD reissue.
183* A line from Music/SimonAndGarfunkel's "The Sounds Of Silence" goes "...and they say that the words of the prophet are written on the subway walls and tenement halls."
184** There's also "A Poem on the Underground Wall", a song about a person who writes on subway walls. The live version of this song is introduced by Art Garfunkel, who tells a story about how the group went into a New York subway station to take photographs for the cover of their album ''Wednesday Morning, 3 AM''. After taking a whole bunch of photographs, they later find out that the wall they posed in front of had, in Garfunkel's words, "the old familiar suggestion. [[note]] "F-Bomb You".[[/note]] They had a meeting with the bigwigs at Columbia Records about this and, according to Garfunkel, "naturally we told them that this was exactly what we wanted on the cover of the L.P."[[note]]Fuggetaboutit![[/note]]
185* The famous eighties song "867-5309/Jenny" by Music/TommyTutone is based on this trope.
186** There's a gay GenderFlip version of Tommy Tutone's song, which rather implies that 867-5309/Jimmy wrote ''his own'' number on the men's room wall.
187* The album ''MAD Twists Rock 'n' Roll'' has a song called "Boys' Bathroom Wall" in which the singer breaks up with his girlfriend after he finds her number written there.
188[[/folder]]
189
190[[folder:Radio]]
191* There's a bit from ''Radio/TheBobAndTomShow'', circa 2000 entitled "Graffiti Wisdom". It's a fake commercial for 2 hours of recordings of bathroom graffiti being read by "Creator/JamesEarlJones".
192-->"Here I sit / all broken-hearted. / Came to sh-* beep* / but only farted.
193-->"Please don't throw toothpicks in the urinals. The crabs have learned to pole-vault."
194* In ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue'' spin-off ''Radio/HamishAndDougal'', the title characters notice the graffiti in the ladies' has much neater handwriting.
195-->'''Hamish:''' That'll be because they have both hands free.\
196'''Dougal:''' Och, I never thought of that. Often heard it, but never thought of it.
197[[/folder]]
198
199[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
200* The horror RPG ''TabletopGame/InDarkAlleys'' has the [[MeaningfulName Scribblers]], a group of radical philosophers and academics who specialize in taboo ideas and all subjects other scholars find too ridiculous, scary, or "obviously wrong" to deal with. Once, they exchanged ideas by writing little notes inside of unpopular library books, but they were found out by [[AncientConspiracy The Powers That Be]], all the books (mostly...) were burned and many Scribblers eliminated. These days, they communicate with each other by writing graffiti in all the places it is usually ignored: bathroom stalls, subway and bus stations, dirty back alleys. Try to take a closer look at the graffiti on a bathroom stall: between all the phone numbers of prostitutes, you just may find a mysterious argument about Nietzsche and Paglia, and the strange and terrible powers you may learn to wield if you truly understand the meaning of their philosophies...
201* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=5273 "No home, no heart, no hope"]] - Stronghold graffito. Bathroom stalls on [[CrapsackWorld Rath]] are a depressing place to be.
202[[/folder]]
203
204[[folder:Video Games]]
205* The third ''VideoGame/AliceIsDead'' game has tons of these in the club's bathroom. Some contain phone numbers. Which you can call.
206* The Resistance in ''VideoGame/{{Brink}}'' graffiti over the signs in the aquarium, complete with [[YourMum Yo Momma]] jokes.
207* While not quite bathroom stalls, The floor of the Wielder Temple in ''VideoGame/ChicoryAColorfulTale'' has hidden messages that can only be revealed by coloring the floor, giving hints to the puzzles within... as well as graffiti from someone who loved the word "butts". There's even counter-graffiti from an exasperated maintainer of the Temple begging them to stop.
208* In ''VideoGame/CityOfSecrets'', it's possible to see a piece of graffiti in a public toilet that hints at a possible puzzle.
209* In "Episode 2: Memory" of ''VideoGame/Code7'' you find several of them on the walls of the showers in the Paranoya Theatre, the hideout of the [[GangBangers Dark Dragons]]: lots of tags, a mermaid with two machine guns, the line "The dragons will rise" and "42" written in large letters.
210* ''VideoGame/CragneManor'': The meatpacking plant's bathroom is covered in graffiti. Most of it refers to {{Noodle Incident}}s about the places people have tried to go, such as "Stop Shitting In The Sink" and "Don't Shit In The Shower Anymore Bro!"
211* A drawing in ''VideoGame/EscapeFromStMarys'' fills your character with horror. You, the player, never get to actually see it.
212* In ''VideoGame/GrowingUp'', the high school restrooms have graffiti scrawled all over them; the girl's bathroom has its hand dryer vandalized to look like an elephant.
213* The high score screen from the ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' games from Harmonix, in which the scores are placed near a urinal.
214* Gorrister's scenario in ''VideoGame/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'' has a number of graffiti in a honky-tonk's bathroom. Some of it doubles as {{Foreshadowing}} to the plot, while the rest is just generic.
215* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' uses graffiti in safe rooms to add to the atmosphere, and to provide humor. There is also bathroom graffiti in The Passing DLC.
216* An early puzzle in ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry1InTheLandOfTheLoungeLizards'' requires reading the graffiti in a stall to find out the passphrase to a restricted room.
217* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' features a lot of graffiti throughout the game, reflecting the local student body's gossip and obsessions. In ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrangeBeforeTheStorm'', the player character Chloe is able to draw graffiti herself. In one scene, she covers the entire girl's bathroom with drawings and snide remarks.
218* A puzzle in ''VideoGame/ManiacMansion'' involves graffiti on a bathroom wall. In a ''house''.
219* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' has graffiti in every save room in the game, which happen to be--you guessed it--Bathrooms.
220* ''VideoGame/PaperChase'': In the BASIC version, graffiti can be found on a bathroom wall reading: "if pro is the opposite of con / then what is the opposite of progress?"
221* In the ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'' game "Chariot of the Dogs" we see the graffiti that Bosco has left in ''his own'' bathroom. These are hints to a puzzle, but to Max, they read suspiciously like male-enhancement ads.
222* ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' has some stalls with graffiti in Merlee's Mansion.
223* In ''VideoGAme/Uncharted3DrakesDeception'' Drake fights a giant mook in a bar bathroom that has tons of it.
224* Jeanette from ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' says [[ReallyGetsAround her name is all over the bathroom stalls]]. If her e-mail inbox is any indication, this isn't far from the truth. Just don't tell that to [[spoiler: Therese, her twin sister/other personality.]]
225* In ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' Clementine finds a TON of it in the bathroom of the first episode.
226[[/folder]]
227
228[[folder:Webcomics]]
229* Bathroom graffiti shows up in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' in [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-05-29 these]] [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-05-31 two]] strips. In the first strip, it is partially out of frame but probably reads "for a good time call the playah" followed by a FiveFiveFive phone number. The second reads "the duck quacks at midnight", a meaningless but [[RuleOfCool cool sounding]] code phrase.
230* ''Webcomic/GrimTrigger'': Hunter's introduction is him writing a phone number outside a stall Tage is hiding in.
231* ''Webcomic/MonkeyDust'' has a sketch where a character writes graffiti on a ''cubicle'' wall requesting oral sex.
232* In ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'', when Dave is unstuck in time, he reads an important message to himself in a public bathroom that had been there for ten years (ever since he wrote it, [[StableTimeLoop later in the same arc]], but [[TimeyWimeyBall earlier in the timestream]]). Apparently they don't clean it there.
233* In ''Webcomic/OutAtHome'', a teacher catches Thurman in the boys' room, scrawling such pithy sayings as "Who watches the Film/{{Watchmen}}? -- I did and found it lacking" and "Jews are Jewish."
234--> '''Teacher:''' Beckett! Are you defacing school property?\
235'''Thurman:''' Uh... no I'm not. (Think think excuse think) ''You'' are.
236* ''WebComic/SleeplessDomain'': Outrageous Lime at one point wrote 'Prof Parker Sux' on the bathroom door, causing Kokoro to decide Lime was 'too hardcore' for her.
237-->'''Kokoro:''' Permanent marker...
238* ''Webcomic/TerminalLance'' and its AnimatedAdaptation, ''Post'', both feature various vulgar images and sayings as graffiti, particularly the RealLife "[[MemeticMutation Wagner Loves The Cock]]".
239* [[http://xkcd.com/229/ This]] ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' strip, in which Randall laments that he looks for meaning in the wrong places, including bathroom stalls upon which graffiti is scribbled.
240[[/folder]]
241
242[[folder:Web Original]]
243* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': SCP-2703 manifests as a message in graffiti that appears mainly on bathroom doors throughout Manchester, UK, reading "For a good time call..." and a number. [[SchmuckBait Calling it]] summons an EldritchAbomination... [[spoiler:who is a friendly, cultured lady who really just does want to have a good, platonic time out and enjoys singing, though she ''is'' touchy about her appearance.]]
244* [[http://www.thewritingsonthestall.com/ The Writings on the Stall]], a collection of graffiti supposedly found in RealLife.
245[[/folder]]
246
247[[folder:Western Animation]]
248* In ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'', the words "Courtney is a" can be seen in the boy's room in the elementary school. Hoodsie blocks out the rest of it. Other lines include "Courtney Gripling is a babe" and "Ginger and Jake".
249* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' had Butt-Head find graffiti in a bathroom stall that read "For a good time, call Beavis' mom!" When he pointed it out to Beavis, he responded that he found some graffiti that said "For a great time, call Butt-Head's dad!" They are in a MEN'S room.
250* The WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon "Fresh Hare" has three "wanted" posters of Bugs defaced with graffiti.
251* Glenn Quagmire of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' has something of this sort tattooed on his butt.
252** Mocked in one episode where Brian goes into a gas station bathroom and sees "I just wrote on the wall. Take that, society!"
253** In "Nanny Goats", Peter buys a bunch of pet goats and tells Lois he's finished milking them, only to be told they're all males. As Peter worries about this getting around, the scene [[CutawayGag cuts away]] to a goat in a bathroom stall taking a cellphone picture of graffiti reading "For a good time, call Peter Griffin".
254--->'''Goat:''' I like good times.
255* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'', one of the episodes centered around bathroom graffiti and stainless steel stalls. It's a WholePlotReference parody of ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs''. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Really]].
256* ''WesternAnimation/GirlStuffBoyStuff'', as part of a frankly contrived "everyone in detention" plotline, had the boys ''correcting the spelling'' of this.
257* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'':
258** The show has Billy being told to read what's on a stall. He reads "for a good time, call--" before being cut off and told he's reading the wrong thing.
259** According to Dean Toadblatt, one of the Weaselthorp House's many crimes is writing his name on the restroom wall.
260--->'''Squid Hat:''' They ''didn't!''\
261'''Toadblatt:''' They ''did!'' I saw it! 'For a very good time' indeed!
262* In ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw'', when Birdman wonders how he could get the number of the girl he likes, [[ReallyGetsAround every other man in the room]] immediately says "Stall three."
263* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Hank volunteers at Bobby's school to help the students learn about shop class. He becomes very popular with the students, and everyone decides to take up a project of just cleaning and fixing various things around the school. Hank is appalled after he starts reading "Here I Sit, Broken-Hearted" in one of the Boy's Room stalls, he asks if anyone has the power sander, to which Bobby runs in and clears it off.
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder:Real Life]]
267* Not only is it TruthInTelevision, but it's also OlderThanFeudalism. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190406173853/http://pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%20Pompeii.htm Take a look.]] (Okay, so only one of those was actually written in a latrine, but close enough.) [[TooMuchInformation Too Much Very Very Out Of Date Information]].
268* There was an interesting study [[http://io9.com/5856858/a-weird-chart-comparing-lewd-graffiti-in-ancient-pompeii-and-1960s-los-angeles comparing Pompeii graffiti to 1960s era]]. Turns out we're still similar.
269* The Jefferson Memorial bathroom has patriotic graffiti all over its walls.
270* There is an apocryphal WWII era tale, that within hours of his arrival at the Yalta Peace Summit between the Allies, [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] emerged from the men's room, furiously demanding to know "[[MemeticMutation who this 'Kilroy' person is]]". According to Website/TheOtherWiki, it was a meme created by the American soldiers who would draw a man's face peering at the person at the toilet with the inscriptions '[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here Kilroy Was Here]]'.
271* Some businesses fully embrace the graffiti. One business and some universities even have blackboards and chalk in the stalls, as cleaning a blackboard is a lot easier (and a lot cheaper) than re-painting the stalls...or in cases of extreme damage, REPLACING the walls or fixtures.
272* Lord Byron apparently once composed a prayer on behalf of patrons of the WC:
273-->O Cloacina[[note]]Goddess of the Roman sewer system, the Cloaca Maxima[[/note]], Goddess of this place,
274-->Look on thy suppliants with a smiling face.
275-->Soft, yet cohesive let their offerings flow,
276-->Not rashly swift nor insolently slow
277* The Museum of Erotic History in Las Vegas not only encourages graffiti in its restrooms, it provides markers.
278* In protest of Columbia University's inattentive treatment of rapists on campus, several female rape victims wrote a list of names to call attention to the problem.
279[[/folder]]
280----
281[-For an exciting, extreme waste of possibly valuable time, call 555-TABBEDBROWSING-]

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