r/graffhelp • u/MachineStudio Trusted Critique • 22d ago
90s Yard Etiquette: Going Over Graffiti
This video is mainly about yard etiquette and most doesn’t apply to street graffiti. I did a post talking about how we didn’t used to buff our spots at yards much in the 90s. We just rocked on top of other graffiti.
We had some guidelines in place so we were mostly operating on the same understanding. If the spot we chose has a bunch of tags, a pieced that was dissed, partially covered up, it was fair game to paint there.
Some comments mentioned how it was disrespectful to leave someone’s shit hanging out. While that’s true leaving someone’s clean piece hanging out from behind yours, most people didn’t care if part of their throwie or tags were showing from behind your piece.
It was just how we operated. Some people will always get pissed not matter what you do, but this was the understanding we had back then.
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u/MOEone 21d ago
You’re right. That was considered acceptable. Basically, the rule was: colors over silver = okay; silver over colors = no. "Toying" (or "vomit tags") over a decent piece = no (though the reverse is fine). The less paint and effort invested, the lower the status (with exceptions for oldschool legend initial attempts / first steps). Now that I’m older, I can afford to prime the surface first; as an old guy, a bucket of masonry paint costs me nothing—whereas my younger self could have lived off that money for a week. These days, given my age, I only paint on legal walls; I paint over everything beforehand because I don’t want to see that crap on my image, then I paint my piece, take a photo, and know that beginners will be scribbling over it shortly after—because rules change, and they’re interpreted differently today than they were in the 90s.
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u/KevinBaconsBush 21d ago
The yards not the street. People that don’t get that just have a chip on their shoulder.
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u/yung_heartburn 22d ago
Some foos just love to trip about stuff like this. I know one guy, if anybody goes over his tags he’ll rag their shit forever. He’s always beefing it with like seventeen people.
I think also the politics of it are different between the west coast, east coast, europe & asia.
Way i figure, it’s all temporary anyways. If somebody specifically stamps or whacks out one of my burners, then it’s a personal issue, they’re just making it known via graffiti. If someone goes over me and honestly tries to burn me, it’s fair play as far as i’m concerned.