Bathroom Stall Graffiti: Writings on the Stall

The purpose of this study is to examine the motivation behind bathroom stall art as well as what it signifies and affects in terms of mediating and negotiating emotional relationships among students, as well as individual identity, at a major land grant university as expressed through stall graffiti. Through observational research, personal interviews, and surveys, I discovered that bathroom stall graffiti is a form of negotiation and expression around campus. . It is a rather silent and staple form of expression, especially in buildings where student majors are seen as more subcultural and are otherized. Common topics are love, relationships, sex, religion, politics, life, and humor. There is a difference between male and female graffiti topics, with men???s main topics being sex related and random content, and women???s main topics being life and then love/relationships. There is also a difference in the topics by bathroom. The Union hosts more random, humorous, and controversial (argumentative) topics for graffiti. The English Building is predominantly literature passages as well as debates over existentialism and politics, and thirdly life and love. The Art and Design Building hosts much more graphic images and large scale graffiti as well as literary passages and humor. This gender and building content specific divisions in the graffiti show that students are sharing a piece of themselves in their tagging of the bathrooms and that the bathroom frequenters respond more to what they feel is a reflection or relatable to them as well. I feel that bathroom graffiti studies, given more resources, could find significant and meaningful correlations in content and space through the subculture of bathroom stall graffiti.unpublishednot peer reviewe