The Cyber Graffiti Generation – www.destroyalife.daily – Or save one.

A few things before you read this, please understand, I have nothing against beginners. If you have a passion stick with it. This writing is basically a rant that is not very well thought out, with many mistakes and points that can be argued easily.

Please, don’t bother trying, this is one persons’ view on a specific piece of a large pie.

THANK YOU ART CRIMES. - This may sound stupid, next to what you’re about to read, but Art Crimes founded this internet shit, like it or not. Most of the newcomers really don’t understand how Art Crimes put graffiti into an international perspective. I watched it from day one, and I have to say, Art Crimes was the epiphany of the modernization of Graffiti.

Thank you Susan and Brett, now I digress,

If you have a passion for this thing that really cannot be given a name if you really do have THAT passion, get down with yo’ bad self, get busy man, don’t let anyone tell you what is right or wrong.

But……

If you want to be cool, have a hot chick, get famous, and travel the world, graffiti isn’t the place for you, believe me. The writers you think are living glamorous lives, aren’t, in fact, most can’t pay the bills.

Do you know why?

Because graffiti isn’t a PAYING subculture.

Many people these days see graffiti in a different light than most of us did back in the 1990-95 era.

In those days, where I grew up, in Orange County, CA – graffiti was a wide spectrum from trendy white kids to death metal heads to mexican gangbangers, and every other possible “one word description” you can think of.

One thing seemed to be common before the internet though, writers had to have some face to face.

You couldn’t just take a bunch of pictures of shit underneath a bridge, slip your little card into your computer and get to babbling on your favorite forum. Many writers had heart for what they believed in.

Many still do, don’t get me wrong.

Many of the kids I grew up with are the same people many of the young bucks admire today, and they all started just like everyone else does, as a toy jocking the people who put it down before them.

If you are in this position, you have a chance to think over the journey you are about to take.

If you plan to be someone who matters in this movement, you will have to do dirt, you will have to fight, you will have to spend money and make money some how, you will lose friends, you will offend family members, you will piss many people off, you will be hated by many many people, you will inhale and or sponge many harmful chemicals, you will lose girls, you will probably fall off of something, you will come to a point where you wonder if you made the right choice in life, and that isn’t even the HALF of it.

TRUST ME.

The point of this article is to try to help you step back, take a look at how many people are that much further ahead in the game than you are, and ask yourself, can I make a difference?

If you have that passion, it’s possible you can, but remember, style isn’t everything.

Graffiti is so widespread these days that people build circles, if you aren’t a part of that circle, it doesn’t matter if you’re fucking Rembrandt, you’re not getting your propers even if everything you do is clean enough to wipe your ass with.

I’ve been in this game for about 15 years now, and I sometimes feel like I am wasting my time.

Then I get that urge to be out in the darkness, alone with my thoughts and maybe a friend or two of my choosing, the only people ordering me around are those who can incarcerate me, and for the most part, they are non-existent in my graffiti dream.

The mornings after, the drive to get flicks, the hindsight fixer uppers had the adrenaline not been flowing so abundantly. You haven’t lived until you’ve looked down 20+ stories at a bustling street below, knowing they can’t see/hear you, but you have the power to change their morning drive on the way to work tomorrow.

Getting busted is no fun either, but getting away is exhilarating.

The few ups that graffiti can POSSIBLY bring you, usually do not outweigh the downs it MOST DEFINITELY WILL bring you. Yet there are those rare cases, where that person is CHOSEN to be in this position in life.

Do you think that you’re chosen for that position?

Don’t answer unless you’ve bled for graffiti, unless you’ve fought for graffiti, had your freedom taken from you for graffiti, and overall, paid your dues.

If you plan to go there, more power to you.

If you have any doubt in your mind, and this stupid ass article can save one soul from the chopping board.

I haven’t wasted my time here.

Be safe out there.