Un-Written Rules Of Graffiti 

Odd Ways Graffiti Writers Do Their Graffiti: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E9zVzkBy47k.html

Write on the Scientology buildings tho

this should've been called the un-sprayed rules of graffiti

its crazy how grafitti in brazil works in a totally different way, people's houses are not off limits at all and disrespect is way to common. wish we had a little bit more of this perspective, but sometimes it's what makes the scene so strong here.

I'm not a graffiti artist, but I always loved seeing huge pieces on trains and over bridges.

1:25 "Don't Write On Houses" It super sucks when people don't respect that one, especially since you don't know what the family is already going through. A few years ago, my next-door neighbour's baby passed away. Like a day later, someone sprayed a big, ugly tag on her garage. It was a real dick move, forcing the family to have to deal with the expense and effort of cleaning that up in an already horrible time.

I believe "Do not spray on community buildings" is one, if its for elderly or homeless. Its usually the first step to get said building removed and those people onto the streets if it is getting tagged.

An unspoken and really basic rule is not to use someone’s missing cans, if someone has like a half empty can lying around on the scene then leave it there coz it’s usually there for unfinished peace’s

This popped up on my home page and I clicked out of curiosity. I never realized there was such a rich culture and ruleset around graffiti. Interesting video!

ALWAYS make a photo of the peace you are going to cross. NEVER go over a piece made by an artist who left the culture (not painting for some reason) (or at least ask for a permission)

I can’t believe he wrote these unwritten rules, this is absolutely graffiti.

I would add that legal graff is also part of the culture. Trading around slaps, getting down in blackbooks, and making canvases is also important to graff culture. It is a dynamic artform that belongs in personal collections too. I know this is a video about getting up, but I just wanted to bring up a part of the culture that is overlooked a lot of the time.

As someone that does not know much at all about the world of graffiti, this video was very intriguing and informative! Good job man

My favorite job I had was unloading rail cars. The graffiti that covered the trains were amazing. Some of my favorite were from the artist DIF with the bones, Ratek who drew the Homer Simpson piece, Freight Bandit just to name a few. I uploaded a video of working there showing a lot of their pieces in it. Keep doing your thing artists. Not everyone appreciates it but I do.

I work for the railroad, thank you all for your beautiful graffiti art on our trains and for not covering our trains important transport information written on the side, which would get your art erased if covered. I truly love most of the work I see out there!

As someone who has friends that do graffiti (and has the joy of watching some walls in my neighborhood get updated with their new art every now and then), thanks for this video!

my favourite thing in the entire world is to go on graffittis and write like ''jimmy did it'' and then i imagine the hypothetical beefs i might have started and i sleep peacefully

Surprisingly accurate. I started watching this video as a goof for a laugh, but you actually pretty much hit everything dead on. Much respect

One thing I would like to add related to trains: Please do not cover windows. When people have to ride a train/subway for longer distances they sometimes can not chose where to sit and then they can not look outside the window and will start to HATE the whole graffity scene. Doing cargo is fine - might even prevent some rusting :D

Honestly, seeing a place tagged wall-to-wall with graffiti is really comforting and makes the place feel a lot safer-it's an extension of the soul, and that area clearly belongs to the people

Basically, never do any graffiti that would cause most reasonable people to start to hate graffiti artists, and their art.

2:20 this one pretty much saved my friends garage door. It kept being vandalised by someone, so they paid an experienced graffiti-artist to make a big artwork over it. After that, it was left alone and still looks really pretty

I am in no way related to the graffiti scene, but got this video recommended randomly to me. Not disappointed, this was a great watch, genuinely made me want to dive deeper into the culture 👀 Thanks for spreading the word to us normies 🤣👍

For number 3, we had a jerk toy named Smokey who would tag his crappy tag everywhere, even on pieces and murals which were wayy out of his class. We are a very small town, but have a lot of murals painted in our downtown, which he painted on. My mom's workplace has a dumpster with Smokey's tag on it. I also talked to some other people in the surrounding areas and they said they had some experiences with him tagging on their garage. To new graffiti artists and taggers: DONT BE LIKE SMOKEY!

Pieces go over burners, burners go over throwies, and throwies go over tags. Now there’s straight letters. I’d go over a straight letter with a burner.

Thanks for sharing this! I’m a muralist and have had a couple of my pieced tagged. Frustrating but it is what it is. I would add to the list: “Don’t tag/mark up murals” I work really hard on my pieces too :)

As someone who grew up with Grafitti artists in the family (Father, Cousins, Etc.) It's real nice to see someone talk about the fact that graffiti artists aren't just what they're perceived as (Vandals) - It's a culture that many people use as a way to express themselves and create art or messages.

I’ve always been into the more forgotten areas, the kinda zones that city infrastructure forgets about and builds over/around. I’m into urbex and I’ve seen a lot of cool graffiti pieces that probably nobody other than the artist who painted it has seen. There’s this one block in my city that has a back alley completely cut off and inaccessible, it’s one big horse shoe shaped building capped by a long skinny building which creates a donut shape, and in the centre is this forgotten fire escape paradise filled with bricked over windows, slanted staircases leading to ancient looking doors, and huge old graffiti pieces. Only way in was to climb a gas pipe onto the roof from the side walk, then climb down one of the fire escapes into “the pit” It’s a very cool feeling to find a place like that.

Funny how literal crime has rules and manners

The don't write in houses is a good rule. I love street art, grafitti, tagging, everything. But when i was thirteen i literally woke up in my room, choking because of the smell of the paint (have athsma) and got terrified because a guy had climbed my window (second floor) and was tagging above it. Never got so frightened before on my life. I used to never close that window, and thank god I closed it in that day before going to sleep. For someone that was born a girl, that shit make me fear for my fucking life. Now I know this does not represent street art and street artists but in Brazil this is way more common then I would like to admit.

Huh... Watching this as someone who has always grown up being strictly taught that grafitti is bad, was an experience for sure. I think I get why some do it, but I don't think this changes the times nice-looking places get ruined by lots of tags that are barely readable... I can respect the core thoughts of it though

Even though I don’t have any plans on actually making graffiti, I still love learning about it. Just seeing all the graffiti on trains and other things on my way to and from work is probably the best part of my day.

Thanks for the tips I have been wanting to stuff like this and get into this and I'll keep all these in my mind when finding a good spot

i wanna say something important to not tag mailboxes cause there was a 9 year old kid that went around with some cheap paint markers and put their toy tag on almost every mailbox someone called the cops on him and he got caught he got charged with a week of community service and a 4000$ fine i say its a bit too much with the fact on how much it cost but was still very disrespectful.

Oh man this takes me back to when I was like 12 and my mates and I went through a phase of graffiti. We "tagged" up this laneway that was just outside their houses, putting shit like "FTS" f the system in this ugly bubble scribble lmao. Our parents found out and we got an ear full and one of their dads had to powerwash it off. I even used to bring my mother down to the local skateshop that sold paint because he wouldn't sell it to me because I was so young and she gave the okay promising I wouldn't be spraying on things I shouldn't. We thought we were the hardest kids ever walking around with our pockets buldging out with massive sop markers and grog unbuffable ink just scribbling our toy tags on everything, even going into clothing shops changing rooms and tagging them up. Got caught once by the police in an abandoned building that we climbed over a fence and up in to, which we were standing in broad daylight on the roof tagging infront of passing traffic, we left all our paint inside and said we were just exploring, they took our names and sent us home and one of our friends older mates climbed in the next day and took all our leftover cans, which they were a lot of, all alien and montana gold. Anyway sorry for the drunk ramble, wow ring white or whatever you said at the end lmao.

I don’t have any experience with graffiti myself but when this video got recommended to me I had to watch it- it was super awesome learning about a subculture I previously had little information on, amazing video!

Thank you for this video dude, I am doing a presentation on graffiti for my art class and this video helped me learn a lot about the scene you take part in, thanks a lot for doing these vids

in one of the backstreets of my downtown theres this wall that the changing building owners always commissioned graffiti artists to spray a giant piece for,, when i was little it was of a giant robotic praying mantis. i wish i remembered the artist’s tag ( the coverup burners were never better ), but it kept me fascinated about graffiti and the idea of art for and by the community. thank you for this video!

I think the reason graffiti gets such a bad rep in society is because its a form of art we don’t try to consume naturally. Unlike traditional art in museums or music on streaming, where we consciously decide to engage with that art, graffiti can be anywhere and appear at the most mundane places. It can be off putting to see a wall you walk past every day suddenly appear full of incomprehensible tags. One person can enjoy “ugly” art if they wish to, but not if they are forced to.

I work somewhere thats right next to a train track and for the most part im pretty much just standing around waiting so i like to look at and appreciate the art people put on these trains really helps the hours go by

I see so much graffiti art in my area I’ve always love drawing interceding I think I’m gonna start thank you for the tips

Thank you so immensely much for taking time out of your day to watch this video. i noticed it’s gaining traction amongs people who dont have the slightest interest in graffiti, And i’m glad many of you found it interesting & took the time to actually watch it till the end. I appreciate it heaps, thank you for being here and hope you have your self a fine day! - Youfo

I have never been into Graffiti outside of the beautiful style and this video alone has really opened my eyes to what it is to be a Graffiti artist. There's so much talent, respect, chivalry, history and it's all so amazing. There's probably people who have been doing it for a year and people who have been doing it for 10 years.

I watched the video till the end, DCN cali kempin it on, mad respect to you for posting this , I send mines

Always loved seeing good looking pieces in “boring” parts of town. Adding life to the place. I have always hated seeing tags though.

As you're someone quite experienced with tagging, I have a really specific question to ask you. As a New Yorker, mainly around NYC, I always see an absurd amount of graffiti of a little gingerbread man. I have no clue if this has any meaning, like some underground artist's tag/signature piece, but I see gingerbread men all over New York randomly. If anyone has any info on this, please inform me about it, since I couldn't find anything on Google, and I'm super curious about who it is that makes all these gingerbread men!!

I don't think I'd ever get into graffiti myself but I've always appreciated seeing all the creative colourful works when walking down by the railway. Much better than plain concrete. I love seeing stories unfold over brick walls and concrete slabs. Rivalries, beefs but also memorials to lost friends, expressions of creativity and wicked collaborations. It's modern day cave painting, keep our cities and suburbs colourful

Man, this brings me back! I got out of the game a good while ago for family etc but always kept up with sketching. My painting had prob turned to custard though haha. I love graffiti and the people behind it - some of the most funny, awesome and genuine people i have met, hung out with and painted with!

thanks dude

Been watching for about a month love the vids and graff info definitely helps us 6 month beginers

Please don’t tag over the bus timetables at bus stops 👍 people need them

Nice video, man, thank you! Good points, well put together and nice supporting images. Keep it up

Reminds me at our primary school there was a school project where the year 6 kids would (with consent from the owner) paint on the garage door of people in the street to prevent people from tagging the doors but someone still put a tag on one of the doors that already had artwork on it. Plus it's private property.

I love the gta grafitii missions. It helped me remember the rule: never go over a gang tag in their hood or pretty much do any tag in a hood unless you are in it or are in a gang and are willing to risk it. (Because the cops are the least of your worries at that point because at least the cops won't shoot you on sight for it)

Another unwritten rule: Don't leave a work unfinished, unless you're sure you can get back to it fast make sure you're satisfied with the result

The cap throw up during the rule about what goes over what was pretty funny to me

this was a random recommendation from youtube but i throughly enjoyed. glad i learned something and would love to learn more

Holy shit, I didn't realise how deep the graffiti lore is, now i want to learn about the famous writers in my town, all the beefs and what not. That is honestly so interesting, thank you for this video man!

It seems that nobody in my country follows these rules... There's ugly, ilegible, scribbles everywhere in our main city. Churches, houses, statues, the sides of bridges, everywhere. I can't say that there aren't good works out there, but most of those are also covered with brain-dead calligraphy. There's also a graffiti that pops up everywhere you go here, no matter the province lol. It reads: "no tan rico chemita" or something.

I have a homie that passed away in 2007 and sometime before he passed he did a piece on a popular spot that taggers go to and he dated it (2007) and it's still there to this day, untouched. That's respect. R.I.P Odin, AIC

Ive always loved Graffiti and as a visual artist I have done some graffiti inspired pieces but never on a large surface or with spray paint. this really makes me wanna get into it a lil moar!!

I think this video made me appreciate graffiti culture more! I also didn't expect that the scene would be more close-knit than I thought, just in general a very illuminating video!

I do not do grafiti or know anything about it, but I remember there was a really popular and common grafiti artist here for a couple of years, his signature was very common, then he drew his signature over another grafiti artist’s painting (it was a well done portrait) and ever since then his signature disapeared, even on nearby cities, thanks this video explains alot, as a fellow artist I think it was deserved

You’ve made my essay on the code of ethics and habits of graffiti artists so much more easy

I don’t even graffiti but this was just recommended to me, great video honestly

As someone writing a character that does some graffiti, this is very useful! Really interesting to hear about all the rules of going over someone else's work, I'll keep that in mind

great video, man! you've made everything crystal clear there is a big mural dedicated to a tragically passed musician on one of the historical streets of our city. his music has been an enormous part of our culture and, well, this place easily can be called a memorial. it's so sad to see his face slowly fading under all of the tags and just outsiders' "i've been here" stuff. so disrespectful.

this was really insightful, I kinda stumbled on this video. but I've been I interested in street art and graffiti since I was a child

I remember finding some pretty rare graffiti at a power station with my brother, super interesting and made me want to get into it some more

I’m more of a traditional artist but I absolutely love seeing graffiti art! I think it’s a lot more interesting than bland walls when people put thought into it, and it’s wild to me that it’s so criminalised 😭 This was a cool video, I’m glad RU-vid recommended it

This is pretty neat. I don't know much about graffiti but I've always admired graffiti artists (excluding the ones that write on private property) and love seeing all the art on the sides of trains as they go by. Honestly way more interesting then the bland logos on the cars, it's like a moving art gallery!

Rule: If a property owner puts a lot of effort in cleaning or refacing after graffiti, get the message that it is not a blank canvas for you

I like the idea of this type of video, not condoning it but informing people who are going to do it anyway of the rules of the game so you don't get yourself in trouble or hurt

Understand the local culture. Someone moved to my hometown for work last year and tagged the salmon mural. The salmon mural has a bunch salmon swimming in the local river with an apple tree in the foreground. People were pissed. Graffiti isn’t really a big deal where I live, but no one has touched the salmon mural since it was painted by the class of 2000. That’s because salmon and apples are held in VERY high regards where I live. We have a week long celebration when the apple trees bloom, and year round apple related activities, because apples are a main source of income in my town. When the salmon come up river to spawn the schools have a three day weekend. I was born and raised in my hometown and honestly have no idea why salmon are such a big deal. They just are. The guy came back a few nights later, and because the people in my town are crazy there was a guy staking out the mural for the soul purpose of getting a picture of the guy if he came back or the next person that wanted to tag it. Honestly surprised he wasn’t left hog tied for the police to find in the morning. He ended up getting fined, but it’s not smart to piss off the entirety of a small town, where everyone knows everyone within the first month of moving there. As for the mural, some of the people who originally painted it still lived in the area, and were able to repair it, but it’s not perfect.

As a traditional and digital artist, it's so interesting to see the different cultural standards and norms in this community. Obviously in other art forms it's rude to draw over someone else's art, but it's completely different in graffiti, the digital art version of a throw up going over a tag would be probably be considered art fixing, one upping, or in traditional art, painting over. At the least it would be considered mean, and at most incredibly disrespectful to the other artist and be seen as trying to humiliate the other person using your skills. I also find it interesting how graffiti isn't permanent (mostly) and that graffiti artists aren't afraid of that, and work with it anyway. I'd be terrified to try So convering up or working over somebody else's work is socially acceptable in the graffiti community, but leaving parts of the graffiti underneath yours showing or tagging over a throwup is considered starting beef or being disrespectful, doing the OPPOSITE in traditional and digital communities is what's considered disrespectful, as it's seen as theft if you don't give credit, I find that really neat Also, wow, ring light!

There is one thing I did when I was a kid, I used to grab like four or five leaves and write M- on a wall for all of my middle school years, I knew that if you keep doing it, it will basically stay on their forever. So far no one has taken it down so major win

Well spoken my friend. Been out the game for a minute but still draw, and always stayed true to the rules.

I've been in the game for a while. Where I'm from the burner never goes over the piece hence the word piece, masterpiece. The piece trumps all. It might take someone an hour or two to do a burner but it takes anywhere from four to eight hours to do a piece. It should go in this order, tag, hollow throwie(toss up), fill in throwie(toss up), burner, then masterpiece. What do ya think?

I've got a bit of a love hate relationship with grafitti, as a few pieces that I've done (commissions and personal work) have been tagged in disrespectful ways (purposefully covering faces and important features of the art) I don't mind seeing tags at the bottom or in areas that aren't central to the piece, I kinda like it actually, it almost feels like a collaborative piece with a stranger, but sometimes it can feel disrespectful Sorry for the rant, super interesting video btw!

I wrote for 10 year. I was taught to never write on a school. Sure, as a kid in high school I threw up a tag here and there, but that's a good way of getting yourself investigated. Once I got out of school, I felt it was in poor taste to go back and paint on one. There's always another spot. Also, I tried to stay away from small mom and pop businesses. Its hard enough to make a life for yourself, last thing they need is Graff on their building without permission. But, its these places that are usually more up for a mural on their business.

These rules have existed for decades, pretty accurate. However, I would say some private apartment complexes, churches even private garages on the ally side are fair game.

In my neighborhood there are a couple of garages all next to each other. I got used to the big piece people put up there (it spanned the entirety of the building) and one garage owner changed their door to a brand new one. Took 3 days until someone closed the gap. They really thought they could keep a white garage door in a building that had one big piece all over it.

The guy that did a throwie on the memorial had to be way down bad, keep up the great videos love them really inspired me to start tagging and designing things like sketches and stickers so its been a really big help! wow ring light 😉

Another unwritten rule is that as a new graffiti artist you should reuse your space to improve, I think graffiti brings a sense of culture to the area. But I hate going around and seeing awful graffiti just taking up space, like as if the people just drew some lines on paper and threw it away.

Every subculture should have an explainer guy with a vid about etiquette. Well done.

Next to our school is an underpassageway(?) and theres a lot of graffiti there but last year the principal had painted over EVERYTHING because he didnt like the graffiti but over the months it has all came back. I love it😂 Theres also a train platform near there too and like another commenter said, i adore the graffiti on the trains too, its really fun to look at while walking to school :D

As somebody who will probably never do more than a sharpie on a bathroom stall. This video has been very helpful

My grandpa was an artist and pretty well known in my community. He even painted a beautiful mural in my home town that is still here today. I have not seen my grandpa in a long time, so I usually look at his mural as a reminder of him. Someone once skribbled graffiti on the mural, and I was livid. It got fixed, eventually, but I am still really upset. Obviously, the artist didn't know the mural belonged to someone special to me, put I still am upset someone would have the nerve to do such a thing. I do, however, respect graffiti artists and like most art I see done by them. Just the disrespectful ones that get on my nerves.

I’ve never thought about graffiti at all. Had no idea it was such a culture, and I have much more respect for it now. This is so interesting. Great video!

i had no idea how deep graffiti was. really interesting stuff thanks

Thank you for making this video. Ever since watching the Into the Spider-verse series, I've been wanting to look into graffiti culture. Your video has inspired me to learn more. Please continue to spread the love and awareness.

Thanks for this bro. Great insights here.

I've always admired graffiti. I love the look of the detailed and colorful designs. When I was a kid back in the early 70's I remember sitting in the car with my family driving into NYC for the first time. We all noticed the train cars and buildings with graffiti on them. To me, these were colorful and amazing works of art--nothing like the scribbles I saw on the buildings where I lived. My family was shocked, and kept saying they should catch the artists and arrest them for defacing public property. I was afraid to disagree and tell them I thought they made the ugliness of the city look better. I still feel this way, and I'm happy to see that this is still a thriving art form and that there are rules!

I have a passive interest in graffiti and am fascinated with writing and its culture, but don't regularly follow it. glad this popped up in my recommended. One of the first friends I made in college was a painter who was also super into graffiti and sticker slaps (dunno if this is the right terminology but w/e) and showed me style wars. still one of my favorite documentaries of all time. fast forward two years and I'm doing an art history semester abroad program in the UK with a small group of students taught by my university's music director. turns out the music director is a personal friend of henry chalfant (5:52) and was able to get him to come speak to our class for two hours in the living room of one of the flats the school rented about making style wars, 70s-80s nyc graffiti culture, and anecdotes about the people featured in the doc. he was a super personable guy and a vivid storyteller. I was never anti-graffiti but hearing his stories really humanized the individuals passionate about their culture and solidified my respect for what they do.

Near where I live, there's a memorial for a girl. Her name was Linn, and she was the average kind girl. She had a toxic boyfriend that was super controlling, never let her do anything. One of the few things she could freely do was graffiti, and she loved doing it. She was respectful with her graffiti, made some beautiful pieces, and only did it in places where it wouldn't need to be removed. She had this one signature, that always stood out from the rest of the names on every known graffiti wall. However, one night Linn got into a nasty fight with her boyfriend. He ended up stabbing her in the arm, but she managed to get out of the house and drive away in her car. He drove after her and crashed her straight into the wall of a building. She died in the crash. Linn's friends, despite not being too into graffiti, made a beautiful tribute to her with the words "For Linn!" beside it. It's been there for years now, and occasionally people will leave a quick "R.I.P" beside the tribute. Well, then comes this tough guy a couple years back. He claimed he was a "Bad boy" and tried to be cool. Well, he decided it would be a great idea to paint a huge detailed penis over the middle of the tribute and wrote "Linn's boyfriend was in the right. Women are bitches." Then one day when he came to school again, he had a bunch of bruises and a black eye and he was wearing lots of bandaids. A group of graffiti artists had absolutely beaten him black and blue, and had targeted all his pieces wherever they could find them and painted another memorial for Linn over each of them. The bad boy tried to ruin those too, but they all got fixed again withing a week. Now there are memorials for Linn all over the city, and even some in other cities too. It's beautiful to see things like this happen.

The merch part edited to be as short yet not re recorded as possible was funny lmao, don’t do graffiti but I’ve always respected the people who do (respectfully of course, no one likes there home getting tagged)

Heyo Youfo! I’m in art class at school currently making a clay project, and we are making a graffiti set, some trains and a skate bowl and we are going to paint it with tags and making a frog based on your character! I’ll post a video when it’s done. (BTW: This is BorneoFlow, if you remember)

Been watching you for a while great tips I started graffiti 5 months ago and it’s been way better with ur videos stay safe bro happy graffiti days

Where i live we have a place where yearly someone can grafity on a large AF wall (atleast 20m lenght) But its private property and u need to pay to "rent" it and for the paint that will go over it next year Its nice to have something like that and it does keep vandalism to minimum

I was happy to hear him mention that if you can’t do it better then don’t paint over it. Far too many forget this. I would go even further and say that if you’re not doing something interesting keep the cans and paint markers at home until you are. I’m tired of looking at paint marker tags.