Before I moved to Seattle, graffiti rarely shocked me. I’ve seen enough music-venue greenrooms plastered with drawings of dicks that they may as well be doodles of daisies or hearts. The phalluses barely even register anymore. A tag like “Shitbarf” has the same effect as seeing a rat on the sidewalk. Yeah, it’s pretty gross, but it doesn’t surprise me.
What startles me now is not vulgarity, but emotional vulnerability. And since I moved here from Denver, Colorado, last summer, I’ve been disarmed by the trend of sensitive graffiti in the way I’m shocked when a sad song comes on in the grocery store and unexpectedly makes me feel real feelings in a public space. Seeing “I’m fine, it’s fine” scrawled in neat cursive in the Linda’s bathroom evokes a tragic feeling that’s completely familiar…