Messages in the Landscape

My "messages" have the unifying theme of being bathroom literature. I went around to various gentleman's rooms on campus and took these photos. I will comment on each one individually and then give an overview afterwards. Also, the order of the images is the order in which I took them and therefore also map out my path on campus. I left my dorm in the apartments and went to the main floor of SUB I where I took the photo above. It was the only "message" in the entire restroom. It's written on top of a toilet paper dispenser. It's written in marker and it's interesting because the author used a wavy script, the font is not actually his own handwriting. What it means I don't know, but I think it's a standard graffiti mark, that the author puts in various places. I proceeded to leave SUB I and go to Krug Hall but I found no messages in the bathrooms there because the stalls had be freshly painted: a foreshadowing on the rest of my trip. I left Krug Hall and went in Robinson A to the first floor. There I took the next two photos. There are two authors to the message in the first photo; I found that commentary on previous messages was extremely prominent in bathroom literature, which now seems more like a blog or a message board on the internet. The content of the message is also a case of the internet springing out of the computer and into real life. Ya Rly! The second image is illustrative of a theme common to graffiti at GMU: politics or current political issues. This message seems quickly scrawled in pencil and deals with the assassination of the President. Again, a second author has come along and offered a reply. People must feel pretty strongly to stop on their way out of the bathroom (as this message is not in the stall but by the door) and reply to a bigoted remark speedily written. There were extremely slim pickings in Robinson A because most of the stalls had been repainted here as well. I therefore left Robinson A and went in to the Johnson Center. I went into the restroom near the exit which opens up to face David King Hall and Science and Tech II. Here I hit the jackpot. For whatever reason, all of the stalls had been painted except the one farthest in the back of the restroom, whose walls were covered with messages. Most were written in markers with a few in pencil. The first picture shows a brief obituary with one mistake, which someone obviously corrected. The second picture is the word "Token" with a French-sounding suffix. I don't know what it means but it almost seems like a one word poem. The word is by itself in the top left corner of the wall. The next picture is yet another comment on an existing message which didn't show up when I tried to photograph it. 420 is in reference to marijuana.
The next picture shows an interesting word play posing as philosophy but the reply underneath it again speaks of larger socio-political issues. The next picture shows another piece of philosophy, this time in the form of a quote from George Orwell's "1984." The following picture is of a message unique in that stall as it was the only one who asked a question and was the only one in white marker. The question by itself is very all-inclusive and almost profound. Do you realize whatever it is you have the potential to or already do realize? The next picture is of what appears to be a gang sign but the commentary below it is priceless, it reads, "We're in college, that's not cool." Apparently, gangs went out of fashion once people entered college. Here I departed the JC and went into Southside. I walked into the farthest back stall in the ground floor restroom and was confronted by the same gang marker that dominated the wall in the JC stall. In this picture, the gang sign is slightly different than in the JC and I'm also told that Bongo is somewhat nifty. The last message is either an interesting scribble or potentially someone's initials.

Several themes emerge from these photos. The main one, I think, is the lack of explicit sexual propositions or sexual bigotry, which I've seen dominating bathrooms at gas stations or restaurants, for example. The messages seem to focus on politics or current issues and often from a pro-immigrant perspective. This is particularly true in the JC bathroom. The other major theme, and perhaps the more relevant one in terms of this class, is the prevalence of retorts, replies, and commentary about previous messages. This suggests that people are becoming more used to the idea that their opinion really counts and is just as valid as any written word because they have the power to create written word themselves. Whether this stems from Web 2.0 or not, it is extremely interesting how people seem to feel the need to express their view even in a seemingly inconsequential setting as a bathroom wall. Truly, it redefines the meaning of validity when deep concerns about the refugee and immigration crises are expressed next to the occasional racist slur. As lewd and stupid fake comments about sex become more scarce, bathroom walls are becoming a legitimate medium for the expression of the vox populi.