He Who Writes Upon These Walls

It's said that an Englishman published a book of early graffiti from the walls of public toilets around old Londontown in 1731, and for sure, there was graffiti long before that else (the word itself is the plural form of "graffito," the Italian word for drawings or markings on public walls. That plural form is fun to think about. Say you have one tiny little piece of paper to throw at a parade; that's a confetto. But a bucketful of tiny pieces of paper is confetti! 

And I will wager you that long before the English and the Italians got their pencils out and started doodling on men's room walls, Og the Cave Man was doing the same to amuse Nog, his buddy.

A study in 1983 stated that there are three types of graffiti:

1 - Tourist graffiti ("Marge and Nick Forever" scrawled on the windowsill of a diner)

2 - Inner-city graffiti, which includes tagging, street art, and the marking of turf

3 - Toilet graffiti - anything on lavatory walls. Shortly after the Baltimore Orioles won the World Series in 1983, I saw "Orioles campeão do mundo" on the mirror in the men's lounge at a downtown spot, and I realized that a Brazilian-speaking person was celebrating that the O's were world champs.  I haven't been back to that men's room since, and I really need to go. Er...

 

However, I don't see that much graffiti on men's room walls these days, and while I can't speak for the many ladies' rooms around here, I can only surmise it's the same there. Reasons?

For one thing, maybe not everyone carries a pen or pencil anymore, with digital devices at hand. 

For another, have you noticed, the stall walls are all in that thick non-markable paint? You can't just scrawl: "Here I sit, broken hearted..." without going home and getting spray paint, or making a Word document of your doggerel and printing it out to be glued on yonder Water Closet walls.

For a third, it's reasonable to assume that someone somewhere is watching remotely as you write on the walls, and one week of detention is a high price to pay for writing on the walls at a high school boys' room, I'm here to tell you.

But I think the biggest reason is the internet, which is basically a plugged-in, worldwide lavatory wall with infinite room for people to write what they think, and hide behind the cloak on anonymity that the handle "EDSHEERANFAN43" provides.

You know that's a fake name because it asks you to believe that Ed has 42 other fans.