Writing on the Wall: Patterns of Discourse in Undergraduate Graffitti

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This research examines 2,400 samples of desktop graffiti (pictures or words that are drawn or etched into the wood of a writing desk) collected from a liberal arts college study space in Ohio, establishing chronology when possible. Much of what is written in the graffiti approximates patterns of discourse on social media websites like Reddit and Twitter. I therefore use archaeological theories of permanence and materiality to probe why modern college students, as digital natives, choose to express themselves on material surfaces when they can can easily express the same things online. Many graffiti samples follow a similar pattern: A central phrase or drawing (“locus”), and one or multiple “answers” to that locus. These answers can take the form of words or sentences responding to the locus via arrows, as well as revisions of the locus itself. Revisions usually either reify or change the meaning of the locus, and provide evidence of the uncensored sociopolitical values held by the student body. We conclude that students engage in desktop graffiti to cultivate an uncensored community. Because it is anonymous, desktop graffiti affords a space for frank expression of the taboo, whether that be vulgar sexuality or unpopular politics.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 30932