How did tag graffiti end up very similar everywhere?

Question

Broadly speaking, I’ve noticed 2 “styles” of tag graffiti: Serif-y line signature-like tags and big bubble writing. This is broadly speaking, there are of course subtleties, but as an outsider, graffiti can look very similar and does feel like they mostly fall into these 2 groups, whether it’s in North America, Europe, etc. You don’t usually hear “that is European style tagging”, I just see bubbly text no matter the location, and they not noticeable different to an outsider the way, say, American food looks different than Chinese food.

Was tagging a thing everywhere and they happened to look similar? Did styles in different places converge? Was there a cult of bubble taggers and the leader told them to spread the gospel around the world? Am I wrong with a biased dataset (noting of course there can be lesser seen visual styles)? ELI5.

Flairing as “other” as this is sort of a sociology topic, probably.

In: 362

Answer 1

The modern graffiti style originated in Southern California in the 80’s and 90’s, with Kelly Gravel being the person often credited as being the main innovator behind it. The style spread across the world because most tv shows and movies of the time were shot in LA and would incidentally include Gravel’s work simply by virtue of the fact that it was present at the shooting location.

Which isn’t to say that the style doesn’t have merits. Particularly important for graffiti, its a high visibility style that is relatively easy to copy – even for people with limited talent or experience.

Something that a lot of people don’t appreciate is that throughout history there have been a handful of people like Picasso or Andy Warhol. The vast, vast majority of people who produce art – including professional artists – don’t have the ability to innovate a new *style* of art. They become artists by copying and becoming good at an existing style.

The fact that 80’s and 90’s media was accidentally filled with examples of an attractive, easy to duplicate style basically guaranteed that it was going to spread around the world.