MARIA LEITE

Graffiti material found on restroom walls have been a topic of interest since the eighteenth century when the book The Merry Thought: Or, The Glass Window and Bog-House Miscellany was published. The collection of poetry, which had authorship attributed to Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym), became known simply as The Bog House Miscellany. The infamous book included written pieces found on walls, windows, and carved wood in the eighteen-century British’s public restrooms. The collection was fiercely criticized as bad taste work at the time of its publication in 1731 (Novak, 1983).

 

To examine graffiti that was found in restroom walls, the folklorist Alan Dundes proposed the term “latrinalia” in his study Here I Sit – A Study of American Latrinalia, published in 1965. The term was specifically created to describe traditional inscriptions found in bathroom walls. According to Dundes (1965) “The term graffiti is too broad in that it includes all kinds of inscriptions and marks placed on walls” (p. 91). The term “latrinalia” was “the closest thing to a folk term, ‘shithouse poetry’ inasmuch as not all latrinalia is in verse or poetic form” (Dundes, 1965, p. 92).

 

Public restrooms graffiti, or simply “latrinalia” have been investigated from a variety of different perspectives. Green (2003) compared gender differences in communication through the analysis of graffiti in public restrooms as a “window into the relationship between gender, language, and social context” (p. 282). The study focused on the investigation of topics of graffiti and the linguistic style used to create the inscriptions. Findings of the study showed the differences between graffiti found in each gender’s restroom were more obvious in topics and more subtle in language style (Green, 2003). Inscriptions in men’s restroom included politics, homosexuality, and racist remarks, while the female’s restroom presented graffiti about sex, relationship, philosophy and religion (Green, 2003).

 

Anderson and Verplanck (1983) conducted a study at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, in which graffiti found in restrooms across 9 buildings located on campus were evaluated. The results of content analysis showed that the graffiti found in the restrooms varied among buildings and their populations and clearly exposed significant contemporary social issues (Anderson & Verplanck, 1983).