well I know you’re (possibly) a huge square and probably think tags ought to all be covered up with a nice solid layer of gray paint, but when you said you take exception to the idea covering up tags is uncool, do you mean you disagree it’s uncool for other artists to cover up people’s tags or you disagree it’s uncool for like, the authorities to cover up tags?
huge square checking in!
if a bunch of people are playing the same tagging game then yes I guess it’s tautologically uncool for one of them to break the rules of the game.
but since I’m not playing that game I’m free to say fuck your tag.
you’re dodging the question, square boy
not at all! I admitted that there is a subset of people for whom it is uncool to cover up tags: namely those people who participate in a subculture with mutually agreed upon codes of behaviour that describe covering up tags as being uncool.
I don’t know if Banksy is such a person, but if so then their action was uncool according to the conventions of this subculture they implicitly agreed to uphold.
However, anyone outside this subculture is free to disregard its conventions and cover up or otherwise obscure, modify, or erase tags with complete impunity, disclaiming any allegations of uncoolness as being mere status grab attempts.
Honestly, the whole tagging thing involves writing on other peoples’ walls without their permission, what right could they possibly have to object to other taggers tagging over their tags? “Oh well it’s my tag” - well it’s not your wall it isn’t, you already broke the rules of ownership, you can’t claim to be covered under them again.
One could argue on a Consequential basis or an aesthetic basis, but the vast majority of graffiti has insufficient artistic value for that. It’s mostly just people writing their names, over and over again, usually making walls and buildings look worse in expensive ways.
Every tagger caught by the state should be conscripted into removing all these worthless name tags as community service and be made to pay for the paint to do so themselves.
I bet a lot more people would be sympathetic if the act if illegally spraying paint on a building usually looked more like this:
Or even this:
