A private, yet public forum for debate
You are running across campus from the Gryphon to your classroom in MacKinnon. You are on the second floor and, before you can keep going, you’ve realized that the five coffees, you knocked back this morning made you desperate for the washroom. You decide “Whatever Class 101” can wait and you run into the bathroom stall.
Your eyes start to wander around the stall and you realize that it is covered in graffiti. Some of it showcases hilarious little drawings that make you laugh despite your sleep-deprived state, while other markings are horribly obscene comments that make you wonder whose dirty mind could be so brilliantly disgusting.
Graffiti is such a common occurrence nowadays that it often goes unnoticed. To be fair, most of this has to do with the fact that we are staring at our phones instead of actually taking in our surroundings (a good or bad thing depending on the bathroom you are in).
Graffiti appears in a lot of places and can be a form of really amazing art; however, it is in bathrooms that people seem to really notice it, and anyone who has a sharpie can write whatever they want without ever caring about being caught. But why the fascination or, more accurately, the inclination to write something where people are in extreme privacy?
One of the most obvious reasons for bathroom graffiti seems to be the opportunity to vandalize without any retribution. You wouldn’t write on someone’s bedroom wall (or maybe you would, if you’re five years old), but people do write on the bathroom stalls without a second thought.
The first thing that comes to mind for some good old-fashioned graffiti is the classic “For a good time call—insert phone number here.” This prank is one that can be seen in bathrooms everywhere, especially in bars. You just know there is a drunk guy with a pen who wants to mess with his buddy and puts down his real name and phone number. Do people actually ever call those numbers? Now that would be an interesting experiment to test.
Surprisingly, amidst the inappropriate comments and drawings, there seems to be a connection between where the bathroom is and what is depicted within it. Specifically, at our University, there are sometimes encouraging or even motivational statements.The campus library has similar tendencies. I have noticed both extremely motivating comments of encouragement, as well as some very offensive and unneeded comments in the study carrels (but also some very offensive comments that are just not needed).
Although kind words are always nice to see, I do feel like it is a school-specific occurrence when it comes to bathroom stalls; maybe this is because the drunk guy at the bar doesn’t need our wise-words to help him keep his dignity.
Graffiti in stalls can surprisingly become very politically charged. Public bathrooms, especially on campus, are used by a wide variety of people and this enables it to reach a fairly diverse audience. People will often respond back to political comments (or controversial ones in general) and a voiceless bathroom debate will occur. Ironically, it seems that people are more willing to debate and listen when they are in private, instead of having to face the judgement of public debate. Being anonymous gives power to the graffiti writer and opens up conversations that may have never happened—especially if people are more prone to yell over their adversary instead of actually listening.
That is the beauty of conversations on a wall: they force you to read, think, and then respond. There is no room for heated tempers between people because there is no one to get mad at; after all, you are alone in a stall. However, that is not to say that some people aren’t extremely inarticulate and have crappy responses (I had to make that joke at least once).
Regardless of how bathroom graffiti came about, it is here, and it is most certainly here to stay. Why we write in stalls may never make sense, but it does seem to be the best place for attention and a very broad audience of people. The semi-permanence of stall graffiti may give the writer a feeling of satisfaction knowing they left their mark; or maybe they just wanted to express a side of themselves they never could in a public place. Either way, next time you are in one of the campus washrooms, look up from your phone, take in your surroundings, and read some truly bizarre comments probably made by your classmates.
Photo by Heather Gilmore.