Potty Prose

September 8, 2005 9:01 AM

It's All in the Head -- "It could be said that the restroom wall is the last great medium for pure self-expression."
posted by Orb (32 comments total)

Here I sit, on the pooper...
Giving birth to a Maine state trooper.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:05 AM on September 8, 2005

Here I sit, buns a flexin'
Giving birth to another Texan
posted by mrgrimm at 9:07 AM on September 8, 2005

That is such an awesome idea

BTW, I once something I thought was hilarious on a bathroom wall, during the height of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It went like this:

Give Osama a knife in the back
bullet in the head
an iMac
posted by poppo at 9:09 AM on September 8, 2005

I will now relate one of my life's great disappointments. I once saw a baby-changing station in a public restroom, on which someone had written:

KIDS SUCK

Below, in a different hand, was written:

KIDS ROCK

To this day I regret not having a pen with which to add:

KID ROCK SUCKS
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:29 AM on September 8, 2005

Crap post.
posted by papercake at 9:32 AM on September 8, 2005

I stink, therefore I am.
posted by Shfishp at 9:33 AM on September 8, 2005

"My mother made me a homosexual!"

"Can she make me one too?"

and, at the Astrohall (what is now the Reliant Center where so many people who've come here from the Gulf Coast now reside) in the midst of tons of homosexual-oriented graffiti someone writ large thus: "DOESN'T ANYONE WRITE ABOUT PUSSY ANYMORE???"
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:37 AM on September 8, 2005

What papercake said.

I can't stand this kind of garbage, and to see it glorified by some a-typical art-school psycho-babble is too much.

"It could be said that the restroom wall is the last great medium for pure self-expression."

Give me a break. From the "Rant" on the featured page...

"These are not contrived moments of reality metered out in hi-def sprinkled between thirty-second spots of mind numbing Wellbutrin and Zoloft commercials, but of a reality unfiltered"

Right - they're contrived moments of people sitting on a shitter who happen to have a sharpee in their pocket and are ignorant enough to project their turgid thoughts in chicken scratch. Candy-coat it with all the retarded prose and terrible analogies that you'd like, it doesn't change a damn thing.
posted by prostyle at 9:47 AM on September 8, 2005

COD SACK
ROD SACK
JOHN SACK
ASS SACK
--Charlottesville VA, spotted in 1991. I still wonder what it means.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:56 AM on September 8, 2005

prostyle
I think you need more roughage in your diet.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:57 AM on September 8, 2005

What's next, claiming that writing with splooge on the wall of the adult porno theater is "the last great medium for pure self-expression"? How about writing stuff with piss in the snow?
posted by clevershark at 10:04 AM on September 8, 2005

Uh, clevershark, you are aware that most graffiti in the bathroom is not written in human excretion, right?
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:05 AM on September 8, 2005

Well duh.
posted by clevershark at 10:10 AM on September 8, 2005

Above the toilet in the bathroom of a big old student house in London, Ontario, that was due to be torn down the following summer, circa 1993:

I FUCKED YOUR MOTHER

Written beneath it in a different hand:

GO HOME, DAD, YOU'RE DRUNK.
posted by gompa at 10:11 AM on September 8, 2005

My point being that bathroom graffiti would tend to be about on the same intellectual level as something written in the snow. Only probably a bit longer, due to people not having 10-gallon bladders.
posted by clevershark at 10:11 AM on September 8, 2005

I heard Nietzsche got his start peeing his name in the snow, but then he got a kidney stone, so it was all twilight of the idols after that.

I agree that the prose on the site is annoying art kid justifacio, but I like having funny and cryptic stuff written in bathrooms.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:20 AM on September 8, 2005

I am utterly amazed that nobody - NOT ONE OF YOU - has pointed out that bathroom wall graffitti is EXACTLY THE SAME MEDIUM we are using here.

Same art form.

Same opportunities.
posted by cleardawn at 10:20 AM on September 8, 2005

Well, I am posting this from the toilet.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:22 AM on September 8, 2005

MetaFilter: Candy-coat it with all the retarded prose and terrible analogies that you'd like, it doesn't change a damn thing.

and

MetaFilter: These are not contrived moments of reality

and

MetaFilter: project their turgid thoughts in chicken scratch
posted by cleardawn at 10:27 AM on September 8, 2005

This lets me ask the question I've never had the guts to ask on AskMe: are all those "who wants a blowjob 9/4 12:00" etc. messages for real? Are (enough) gay guys really that lucky/slutty?
posted by callmejay at 10:29 AM on September 8, 2005

That's a bit of a stretch, cleardawn.

You'd have to obfuscate the technological differences to the point of nonexistence, and even then everything is anonymous and there is such a large gap of time between "posts", if they can even be called such a thing.

I'll agree with you that the psychological motivations are probably very similar, but beyond that I don't see the point of comparing the two.
posted by prostyle at 10:31 AM on September 8, 2005

My all-time fav, written on the condom machine at my college:

"This gum tastes funny."
posted by cccorlew at 10:58 AM on September 8, 2005

prostyle, you're right, I was exaggerating for artistic reasons.

Anonymity, flexibility of content, ability to reply to or modify previous "posts' - these are similarities. Also, nobody gets paid for their work, and, as you say, the psychological motivation is probably very similar.

On the other hand, the audience is much bigger on MeFi. And you need to pay five bucks to get in.

And you can't write MeFi posts in human excrement. Yet.

Nor can you drill waist-height holes in the wall to callmejay's cubicle.
posted by cleardawn at 11:04 AM on September 8, 2005

Man, so many curmudgeons in this thread. As if you've never had a good chuckle before. Or maybe too bashful to take a shit in a public restroom.
posted by Mach3avelli at 11:06 AM on September 8, 2005

My all-time fav, written on the condom machine at my college:

"This gum tastes funny."

Not to bum you out, but that one qualifies as a golden oldie. See also: "For refund, please insert baby."
posted by Skot at 11:09 AM on September 8, 2005

For callmejay and other heterosexuals who recently discovered the Internet, this may surprise you. (probably NSFW).
posted by cleardawn at 11:19 AM on September 8, 2005

Theres a ton of these on this b3ta board
posted by Lanark at 12:05 PM on September 8, 2005

The Writings on the Stall is another site dedicated to this, as well (although no photos). It hasn't been updated in ages, but there's still lots of good reading to be had.
posted by Gamblor at 1:08 PM on September 8, 2005

One of my favorites, which was in a bathroom at the Memorial Union at the University of Wisconsin: "U.S. out of North America!"
posted by Gamblor at 1:13 PM on September 8, 2005

cleardawn is right. My favorite bathroom graffiti:

"Your mom sux balls"

Below, in a different hand:

"This is a double post. Someone wrote that in the first stall last week."
posted by mullacc at 2:37 PM on September 8, 2005

wonderful

the world just ain't a stage no more
it's a half-hinged, chipped-paint men's room door
the writing's on the wall
and i'm locked in the stall
where my car keys carve out poetry
between all that filthy pagentry
the racial slurs
and phone numbers
you'll find my masterpiece

posted by es_de_bah at 3:37 PM on September 8, 2005

I saw this in a Walmart bathroom:

"JESUS DIED FOR YOU!"

"Well, we all gotta go sometime..."
posted by chiababe at 3:51 PM on September 8, 2005