One look at the trains this summer should be enough to tell you the kids are starting to win the graffiti war again. It’s a battle that has raged continuously in Sydney since the early 1980s – when crews of “writers” inspired by their long established brethren in NYC first started to attack any surface owned by the then State Rail Authority.
It’s funny to think that it took a good decade for graffiti to really take off around the world. But back then the underground network of 14-year-olds still shared their ideas ostensibly through the lines of traditional media. And traditional media typically tended not to promote cultural trends that were at best deemed anti-social – and at worst criminal – and from which no ready buck could be made.
Neither the opening credits of Welcome Back Kotter nor Blondie’s “Rapture” clip were sufficient to get the kids painting here. Even the New York arthouse crossover documentary Style Wars – a veritable “how-to” guide – came and went.
In the end it took full-on mainstream exploitation flicks like Beatstreet to really get graffiti a local following in Australia. But while slow on the initial uptake, Aussie teenagers took to the pursuit with vigour and commitment. And in 2009, a generation of teenagers not even alive during the Australian graffiti “mid-school” period – let alone the halcyon pre-’89 “old-school” days – is bombing trains with a new passion. And part of me says that’s great.
The other afternoon I was waiting at Central when in rolled a train that featured one carriage completely painted by graffiti writers – what’s traditionally referred to as a “top-to-bottom-whole-car”. Not a bad job either. It must’ve taken a small crew some hours during the non-peak lay-up period for the train in the middle of the day.
The train wasn’t heading my way but I jumped on anyhow to see what the response would be like.
All the members of the aforementioned small crew were aboard the train, running amok celebrating what was probably the highlight of their writing careers. And so was a growing group of supporters collecting at each subsequent station, cheering the train as it pulled in, all doing the mobile phone photo thing paparazzi-style. It was incredible to witness the speed with which an army could be mobilised to witness this victory parade. And by the time the train made it to Ashfield and the police stopped the train to arrest the artists, they easily escaped into the crowd of waiting kids making perfect camouflage.
Outrageous! Criminal! Costly to the community! All true. But the funny thing was how much “average” passengers seemed to enjoy the experience as well. They’d inadvertently been granted entrée into a secret world, had some of its codes revealed and were basking in some reflected glory. They maybe even felt young and powerful again.
Some will probably now enjoy their passive pastime of starring out the window trying to make sense of the “vandalism” with an active new interest – if not total appreciation. And part of me says that’s great too.
Graffiti writers have more in common with us in the ad game than you might think. They have a product – their identity – to sell, they use a visual medium to build their brands and they use highly strategic “media” to create campaigns that when analysed employ basic notions of reach and frequency, just like we do. Add to that their use of viral and social networking techniques and you’ve got some of the most sophisticated young marketing talent around. The kind of talent that will help the agencies of the future wise enough to engage it to Keep Moving Forward.* <
* Marketing-speak at its very best.
Bram Williams is head of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi.
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