Friday, June 6, 2008

Graffiti – PSYOP Secret Weapon?


I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and spent my formative years in a housing project run by the New York City Housing Authority. While that was certainly more than a few years ago, I have what I feel is a unique affinity for things urban. However, try as I may I don’t really recall much graffiti. Perhaps it was because we had more respect for authority, came from stronger families or maybe because graffiti had just not evolved to be a commonly accepted urban art form.

The picture accompanying this post was pulled from You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILGAIK4zhXM) and was purportedly posted in March of this year.

I’m not sure what story this tells, since I don’t read Arabic, nor do I know the surrounding environment, but my gut tells me it’s not a good one from our perspective.

While graffiti may be cheap to produce, the downside of getting it wrong is pretty high and the need to truly understand the nuances of the location and the surrounding population is daunting.

The point of today’s post is pretty simple – if we’re not employing this highly visible and powerful street medium – we ought to be.

Take a moment today and remember our brothers and sisters who planned and executed the Normandy invasion. They are a part of us and we are a part of them.

1 comment:

IKS said...

highly visible and powerful street medium - this is so very true, and it is sad that there are people who think of it as a vandalism. ofcourse we have to destinguish true vandalism (destroying buldings and stuff) and real and beautiful graffiti. Some time ago I made a small sociological study on this theme... and I was surprises with peoples answers. also I made a historical investigation of grafitti origins and whole movement in general - people really can do wonderful things.
Regards and c ya yoon :)