Ghost of Midnight

Social media — the new graffiti?

From the BBC:

Graffiti was traditionally the only means love or hate-filled teenagers had of letting the world know about their passions.

Now, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, they can literally let the world know about it – and no-one will come along and remove it.

“Vandalising and spraying – the local council will just come and take it off,” says Kito, a youth worker of the Queen’s Crescent Youth Club. “They will wash it off. So you put it up, they wash it off, you put it up.

But if you put it up on your BlackBerry it’s yours, it’s your personal message and nobody bothers you.”

Vandalism is increasingly seen as a pointless activity. As one teenage girl at the Queen’s Crescent Youth Club put it: “If I get angry about something, I go on Facebook.”