Two kinds of graffiti have popped up in town.
One is in the underpass near my house: a massive BLACK LIVES MATTER, written over about 20 yards. In between there are some extra slogans: "Don't trust the media! Think for yourself!"
It is signed by Knapple, Norwich's best known graffiti artist. Knapple's signature is a stylized, coloured pineapple. Sometimes, she gives lectures. Her website says "Graffiti is about everyone being entitled to have a voice, regardless of whether you like it or not."
The work is big and stylish. It took time. Knapple works in daylight. The council (or maybe the Business Improvement District) hires her to paint the underpass. She has an on-going battle with the local kids. They graffiti her graffiti.
The second kind of work is all around the town centre. The council has marked social distancing signs on the pavement: "this way" and "keep 2m apart". The unknown artist, or artists, have commented on this, in brightly coloured chalk: "No evidence!", "Don't think for yourself", "Do as you're told" and in one place, scornfully, "Baa! Baa!". Several buildings have been marked with a stencil: COVID IS A HOAX.
Knapple has several advantages over the anonymous artist, like "not being insane" and "being unlikely to kill anyone". But the other wins in one way: they are more sincere. When Knapple says don't trust the media and think for yourself, she probably means "don't trust the Daily Mail". The Guardian might get a pass. If someone were to actually bypass the mainstream media and start reading 5G conspiracy websites, then she would be horrified. (I am making assumptions, but they are generous ones.) If she were discovered writing COVID IS A HOAX, her paid work would dry up.
The anonymous artists really mean "don't trust the media" – any of it. They really want you to think for yourself, and to find your own truth, on Facebook or Youtube, in the internet's dark corners.
A lot of the left wing is a bit Knapplish today. They want to be radicals. They have radical styling. Black Power clenched fists get posted to corporate Twitter feeds. Young couples, feet on the property ladder, declare allegiance to socialism.
It is fun to feel like a rebel. It is hard to give up this feeling. But if you don't, you might end up succouring people who really do want to overturn everything, and who are too stupid, mad or heartless to care about the side effects.
The property owners have quickly painted over COVID IS A HOAX. People in Norwich aren't daft.
Update: the underpass graffiti has been joined by antisemitic theories ("Rotschilds made millions"), an anti-police acronym ("ACAB") and a White Power symbol and slogan.
