Anonymous Expression: A Structural View of Graffiti

Author(s): George Gonos, Virginia Mulkern and Nicholas Poushinsky

Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 89, No. 351 (Jan. - Mar., 1976), pp. 40-48
Published by: American Folklore Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/539545
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 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN,
and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY

Anonymous Expression
A Structural View of Graffiti

THE THEMATIC CONTENT OF GRAFFITI has been the focus of considerable

social scientific interest and has yielded several explanations. As is
characteristic of the work done on the value contents of other media of
communication, students of graffiti have looked for a direct reflection of
the "collective conscience." For such theorists, a correspondence between
cultural values and media pronouncements is implicitly assumed to exist.
Within this model, discrepant findings can only mean puzzlement or a
drastic revision in the researcher's assessment of the value-system of the
culture in question. There seems to be little attention paid to the
refracting power that the peculiar characteristics of any medium exercises
on the value-system for which it serves as outlet. Thus, there is no
recognition that, as we look at culture through the window afforded us by
any expressive outlet, what we see has been modified by the peculiar
nature of the medium. Hence, at present, explanations of value content
tend not to take account of the distorting nature of the medium, and seek
instead to establish content as a true reflection of culture.'
This is very much the state of "theorizing" in the case of graffiti. This
paper seeks to evaluate, through empirical test, this notion, as put forward
by Stocker et al., that the collective conscience is only reflected, not
refracted or inverted, in this medium.2

A Structural View of Graffiti Content

Stocker et al. have made three suggestions concerning graffiti and have

1For a similar argument regarding the analysis of works of "high culture" see Lucien
Goldmann, "Genetic-Structuralist Method in History of Literature," in Berel Lang and Forrest
Williams, eds., Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism (New York, 1972).
2Terrance L. Stocker, Linda W. Dutcher, Stephen M. Hargrove, and Edwin A. Cook, "Social
Analysis of Graffiti," Journal of American Folklore, 85 (1972), 356-366; reprinted in Marcello
Truzzi, ed., Sociology for Pleasure (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1974), pp. 93-106.

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 ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 41

generated data which, they argue, are supportive of their notions. They
hypothesized that
(1) graffiti are an accurate indicator of the social attitudes of a community, and their
thematic content will discriminate similar communities with different sociopolitical
ideation; (2) most homosexual graffiti are a result of societal condemnation of
homosexual behavior, which permits this behavior to be used as an insulting device;
and with Gay Liberation as a liberalizing influence, homosexual graffiti will decrease;
and (3) the difference between women's and men's graffiti is due to childhood
socialization; and if there is a change in amount and kind of women's and men's
graffiti, then there has been a change in some aspect of women's [and presumably
men's] socialization patterns.3

Our preliminary experiences in the field and the suggestions of other

folklorists led us to construct an alternative set of explanations.4 Since
our "theory" (as we shall show below) contradicts the hypotheses
suggested by Stocker et al., we are in a position to make a "crucial test"
of the alternative explanations.
In place of Stocker's major hypothesis (No. 1 above) which posits a
direct relation between the content of graffiti and the dominant values,
we postulate that the relative frequencies of different thematic contents
of graffiti will vary inversely with relevant dominant values of the social
milieu in which the graffiti are found. Our reasoning is that when values
are in the process of change and proscriptions against the public utterance
of particular sentiments are becoming stronger, there will be a tendency
for some individuals to express these sentiments covertly. One forum for
such expression is the public bathroom.
Given the above formulation, we are led to a prediction which
contradicts Stocker's second hypothesis. We would expect the frequency
of anti-homosexual graffiti to increase, not with harsher "societal
condemnation" of homosexuality, but with the spread of a public
tolerance of homosexuality. As it becomes increasingly inappropriate to
disparage homosexuality publicly, anti-homosexual sentiment will become
manifest in graffiti. Seen in this way, our notion of graffiti might be
termed a "mechanical model" because it argues that when the public
utterance of a particular sentiment is proscribed the pressure to be
expressive of it can be "relieved" in the anonymity of the public
bathroom.
Thus, in place of the Stocker explanation of the thematic content of
graffiti in the reductionist terms of "childhood socialization" (No. 3
above), our theory suggests that the normative structure of the com-
munity is the major factor affecting the content of expressive graffiti. This
occurs in the following manner: As particular slurs, insults and put-downs
come to be proscribed (that is, defined as situational improprieties) by
3Ibid., p. 358, italics ours.
4In particular we refer here to Freeman's analysis in which he argues that innovations in the
verses of a Hawaiian folksong occur in response to a pressure to express hostility to some values or
behaviors. Cf. L. Freeman, "The Changing Functions of a Folksong," Journal of American
Folklore, 70 (1957), 215-220.

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42 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY

those incumbents of a particular social milieu, the relative frequency of

this type of insult in public bathrooms will increase. For example, as the
word "Nigger" comes to be less and less acceptable in the public
conversation characterizing a particular milieu, we would expect it to
become more popular in the graffiti of the individuals of that milieu.
What we call expressive graffiti, then, may not be a direct reflection of
the dominant community value-system at all, but a manifestation of that
content which is proscribed, restricted or taboo in the graffitists' ordinary
circle of social life. Expressive graffiti on bathroom walls airs the values
that are being suppressed in more public places.
We would maintain that the argument of Stocker does not recognize
the primary sociological characteristic of the graffitists' medium, namely
the anomymity the setting affords its user. As one observer has noted,
"they [graffitists] are rhetorically removed from the obligations of
debate.... The rhetoric is final and unimpeachable, in a word secure-as
secure as the latch on a lavatory stall . . . [T]he habits of public
personality are suspended."' The anonymity afforded the graffitist allows
the opportunity to use language, and present beliefs and sentiments,
which are not acceptable in ordinary social life. The enforced privacy of
the bathroom stall in this society grants would-be graffitists a niche of
freedom even within a public institution.6
Hence, as proscriptions about statements laden with particular value
judgments come to be enforced in a certain milieu, we suggest that these
statements will be seen with a greater frequency in graffiti. Our
mechanical model positing an inverse relation between the social norms of
a community and the thematic content of expressive graffiti runs quite
opposite to the "common-sense," intuitive notion that Stocker et al.
present.
As presented, the model above might be mobilized to study a variety of
content-generating situations, such as clients' interactions with prostitutes
or with priests in confessional. However, its application to graffiti
demands that we specify a set of boundaries within which our
explanations are suitable. For example, we are clearly explaining graffiti in
situations where anonymous expression is possible. Therefore, bathroom
graffiti is of central concern to us as opposed to any other inscriptions
termed graffiti. Further, we attempt to explain only that graffiti which is
"expressive." That is, we eliminate from our theoretical concern two
other classes of graffiti. First, we do not analyze what others have called
"traditional" or "trite" and what we prefer to call "oral tradition"
graffiti.' An example of this might be

5Paul D. McGlynn, "Graffiti and Slogans: Flushing the Id," Journal of Popular Culture, 7
(Fall 1972), 353.
6Notwithstanding, of course, incidents of police stakeouts in bathrooms to identify graffitists,
or reports that industry sometimes keeps a clock on the time spent in bathrooms by employees
during work hours.
7Stocker et al., 360.

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 ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 43

Flush twice, it's a long way to

[variously] The White House
The Kitchen
Moscow

or

Fighting for Peace is like fucking for chastity

or

If you sprinkle
When you tinkle,
Please be neat

And wipe the seat.

Such graffiti, which we argue are the basis of the "oral tradition" of the
public washroom, are beyond the scope of the present analysis.

Secondly, we will not include in our analysis what we term "tea-room

trade" graffiti. These are graffiti which attempt to arrange a sexual
contact with another bathroom user. An example of this is

If you want a good blow job done

meet me here on Thursdays after 7:15 P.M.
No small cock will be accepted,
must be at least 8" when hard.
P.S. If for any reason you miss me,
leave your phone number.

The Hypothesis
In keeping with the basic character of our model we are led to
hypothesize with regard to settings with bathrooms where graffiti is a
mode of expression, that the relative frequency of graffiti giving
expression to a particular value will be greater in social milieus where the
suppression of remarks carrying this value is greater.
Suppression here, as always, involves two necessary and jointly
sufficient factors. The first of these factors, obviously, is the pressure to
be expressive on a certain topic in a certain vein. That is to say, we would
expect no expressive graffiti in situations where there is no pressure to be
expressive. The second factor that must be involved in an explanation of
the actual incidence of graffiti is the operation of normative constraints
against a public utterance of particular positions on the topic. Alone,
neither of these is sufficient to produce graffiti, for clearly, if "non-
utterance" normative constraints do not operate, expression can occur in
face-to-face, or other public, situations. Therefore, we would expect
graffiti to occur about particularly pressing topics in settings where there
is an incongruence between some individual views and a well-defined,
"appropriate" public position on the matter.
Not surprisingly, then, our experience with expressive graffiti has been

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44 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY

one of observing statements which espouse alternative views or proscribed

positions on a variety of issues and behaviors. For example:
Niggers eat shit
Go back to Africa, Nigger
or

Faggots are like maggots

They eat old stinking meat
And they should be exterminated.

Clearly, these isolated pieces of graffiti, expressive as they are, must be

considered in their original social context in order for them to contribute
as data to an explanation of graffiti as a social phenomenon.
The Data

The data reported here are the results of extensive fieldwork in the
northeastern United States with the bulk of the data from settings in New
York and New Jersey." The data are not intended as a representative
sample of either graffiti or graffitists. Instead, several settings have been
focused upon for theoretical reasons which will become clear. The data
(N = 1563 cases of graffiti) were gathered by pairs of trained observers,
one female and one male wherever possible, and thus the graffiti are
reasonable indicators of the relative activity of males and females in the
settings studied. Each observer counted and recorded the frequency of
each of a pre-established variety of types of graffiti (for example,
"expressive, anti-black") they encountered in each bathroom visited. In
addition, the observer recorded, as thoroughly as possible, the
demographic characteristics of the locale or milieu. For example, for a bar
the demographic characteristics might have been, male toilet, clientele
mostly working class males, few couples, in a Hungarian section of the
city.

The Analysis
Let us initially look at the social context of such anti-homosexual
graffiti as illustrated by the example above. Our gathering of "homosexual
graffiti" exploited a situation quite interesting when seen from the
vantage point afforded by our model. We examined the graffiti written in
a university which contains a nationally prominent and vocal homophile
league. We will call it University A. The setting is characterized by an
overriding "liberal" attitude toward homosexuality, and public expres-
sions of anti-homosexual sentiment at this university are not simply
negatively received but are strongly proscribed. Our hypothesis led us to
predict that there would be a greater incidence of anti-homosexual graffiti
there, than in other settings where there is less pressure to be vocal about

8We would like to acknowledge the data gathering assistance of Laurie Beck, Cathy Lipper,
Sondra Abrams, Mike Boulos, Pauline Levy, Dorothy O'Rourke, Paul McHugh, and W. Dale
Dannefer.

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 ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 45

homosexuality (that is, in situations where it is not a visible issue) or

where there is less militant tolerance of homosexuality. This prediction is
directly converse to that of Stocker et al. (No. 2 above). They would
predict that the incidence of anti-homosexual graffiti in communities
tolerant of homosexuality, where such expression is condemned, would be
small.
Table 1 contains a tabulation of the proportion of anti-homosexual
graffiti to all expressive graffiti in settings purposively selected to enable a
comparison of these two contrasting hypothetical notions as they bear on
anti-homosexual graffiti. An examination of Table 1 shows, as our
Table 1. Proportion of Anti-homosexual Graffiti'
All expressive
Anti-homosexual graffiti

University A 20% (47) (234)

Other universities 3% ( 4) (138)
High schools 1% ( 2) (338)
Public bathrooms 0% ( 0) ( 85)
hypothesis suggested, that in a setting where there is a vocally "liberal"
attitude to homosexuality and where homosexuality is a visible
phenomenon (in other words, an "issue"), there is a higher incidence of
anti-homosexual graffiti than in situations where such conditions do not
jointly obtain. Furthermore, those settings that may be said to be
characterized by "traditional" attitudes toward homosexuality do not
manifest anti-homosexual graffiti in accordance with this general value
orientation. Thus these data lead us to assert confidently that, at least
with regard to this sort of graffiti, our model can be mobilized effectively
to explain the incidence of graffiti. It should be noted that the data
directly contradict the Stocker et al. hypothesis (which was based on a
correspondence model between content and dominant value-system).
Further evaluations of our hypothesis can be effected by analyzing
sorts of graffiti expressive of other values in the context of the social
setting of their origin.
Following the discussion above, in those situations where there is a
relatively low pressure to vocalize in derogatory fashion about blacks (that
is, in racially homogeneous situations) or in situations where there is a
congruence between group norms (normative structure) and individuals'
sentiments, we would predict a low incidence of anti-black graffiti. And,
conversely, in integrated, "liberal" (for example, university) settings, we
would predict a relatively higher proportion of anti-black graffiti.
As Table 2 shows, this is indeed the case, for the segregated and
"conservative" high school setting is characterized by a low incidence of
9The universities examined include Barnard College, Boston College, and Columbia, Lehigh,
Princeton, and Rutgers Universities. The high schools studied were all white, "middle-class," New
Jersey high schools. Public settings included toilets in bars, department stores, gas stations and the
like.

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46 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY

racist graffiti and a higher proportion of expressive graffiti of this type is

observed in the "liberal," integrated university setting.1'

Table 2. Proportion of Racist Graffiti (Anti-Black)

All expressive
Racist graffiti

University restrooms 17% (63) (372)

(including University A)
High school restrooms 1% ( 3) (338)
Public restrooms 14% (12) ( 85)

For completeness we need to examine what sorts of graffiti are

characteristic of high school toilets observed. We found that virtually all
(90% N = 305) of expressive graffiti in these high schools expressed
romantic sentiments, such as
Chucky and Debbie '73, '74 ... ?

That this is the case follows directly from our main hypothesis, for we
would argue that although high school students experience a strong
pressure to express "love-like" sentiments to others (of the opposite sex),
the intersexual repressiveness of high schools allows few appropriate
opportunities for their fulfillment; thus we would predict these sentiments
would frequently appear in the bathroom stall. In contrast, the hetero-
sexual graffiti found in university bathrooms constituted only 22%
(N = 82) of the total and few of these could have been termed
"romantic." Of course, we would not now conclude from this that the
university setting is less oriented toward male-female relationships, only
that there is less suppression of their expression.
Thus as our analysis shows, it is fruitful to treat public toilet walls as a
publicly used medium of expression, the peculiar characteristic of which is
the anonymity afforded the communicator, for this situation facilitates
the expression of certain sentiments which are unsuitable for virtually all
other media and expressive situations.
As our structural view led us to expect, we have found that statements
expressive of exactly those values and sentiments whose public expression
is denied will be found on the toilet walls. Thus, as we hypothesized,
when a view is no longer appropriately expressed publicly, its expression
occurs in the anonymity of our public toilets. Hence, the pattern or
configuration of values found there resembles an "inverted image" of the

10Perhaps this example of anti-black graffiti, found in a university setting, encapsulates within
itself the forces which explain its presence:
(in response to a misspelling)
Perhaps he's [the misspeller] one of those "disadvantaged students" (i.e. Niggers) which
universities as sadistic as this delight in accepting so they can refuse admittance to a qualified
one.

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 ANONYMOUS EXPRESSION 47

value-system which is dominant in the culture at the time of observation.

The data, then, permit the rejection of the Stocker et al. hypothesis, based
on a model of correspondence between cultural values and medium
content, in favor of the one presented above.'1
It is clear that the theory as presented makes no claim to explain what
we have characterized as nonexpressive graffiti. About half (49% N = 768)
of the graffiti we observed fall into this nonexpressive category, including
what we have termed "oral tradition," "cute-intellectual," and "tea-room
trade" graffiti. Neither ours nor the Stocker et al. hypothesis explains the
incidence of such graffiti.

Conclusion: A Dynamic Model of Graffiti Content

Our explanatory model of graffiti content, as described thus far, and as
tested in our research, is a static one. That is, it compares the normative
structures and value-contents of graffiti found within different social
milieus at a single point in time. We intend in this section to expand our
analysis to offer an explanation of the shifting contents of graffiti over
time.

Our model explains the content of graffiti by asserting that the toilet
wall serves a special expressive need for some of its users. It should be
apparent, however, that the extent of the need to be expressive of any
particular value changes over time with the structure of normative
constraints of the graffitists' social milieu. This need, or pressure, is
strongest when a value has a life outside of the "established" value-system
that has been institutionalized in the norms of the community; in other
words, where there is some degree of incongruence between normative
structure (public position) and some individuals' sentiments.
Two situations of incongruence are possible. On the one hand, the value
that graffitists play upon may be the residue of a traditional value (as
white racism) now submerged under a newly accepted dominant one. In
this case the expression of the value can be used to evoke past solidarities
in a presently changing moral atmosphere. On the other hand, the value
expressed in graffiti may represent a radical alternative still unacceptable
of mention in the everyday social circles of the graffitist (as Gay
Liberation). Obviously, however, the expression of racism was not always
unacceptable in public talk, and sentiments favorable to homosexuality
may not always be so either. Hence we posit the following dynamic model
describing the life span of graffiti expressive of a particular value.
With cultural homogeneity on any value, there is no need to employ the
anonymous medium for its expression; other more public media are
permissible. This "pre-graffiti consensus" on a value explains, for instance,
the lack of racist graffiti before widespread tolerance of blacks, or the
present lack of anti-homosexual graffiti in high schools, or in some

1Stocker et al. come closest to touching upon a key to our structural model when they note in
passing that "humor of elimination graffiti... entails the breaking of a taboo, discussing
defecation" (365, italics ours).

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48 GEORGE GONOS, VIRGINIA MULKERN, and NICHOLAS POUSHINSKY

"straight" bars, where graffiti of other kinds is thick. In these milieus,

open insults about "niggers" or "queers" are often acceptable in
conversation.

With the emergence of public tolerance of blacks or homosexuality,

racist or anti-homosexual remarks would be suppressed in public. The
bathroom stall becomes, at this time, the forum for their expression. Thus
we find, in the most "liberal" of atmospheres-where public expressions
of racism or anti-homosexuality would be most harshly condemned-the
greatest frequencies of anti-black and anti-homosexual graffiti, for here
expressions of this sort are most suppressed.
Now, we must follow this process one step further to its completion
when racist graffiti would no longer evoke the past solidarities of some
whites (as it still does), and when homosexuality is a life-style acceptable
to the established community. At this (future) time of newly formed
consensus (on these particular values), racist and anti-homosexual graffiti
would once again not appear in toilets, for there would be no pressure to
be expressive of such outmoded views. In terms of the incidence of
graffiti, this situation would parallel that past time when an earlier
consensus unambiguously excluded tolerance of blacks and homosexuals,
and the need to be expressive of racism anonymously did not exist. Thus,
the life span of graffiti expressive of a certain value is determined by the
changing normative structure of the surrounding social milieu.

Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey

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