Almost all of the city of São Paulo is covered in gang graffiti, buildings covered in these rune-like tags from top to bottom. It is extremely ugly, and of course also unsettling since it is a signal on who runs the city.
Those aren’t gang tags at all, they’re quick and easy graffiti (albeit illegal in most cases) that is done by people trying to either fit in or showcase themselves. Most of the murals shown in this thread that are considered “art” were painted by artists who started off doing the Pixo letters. While much loathed and a bit of an eyesore they’re the single most unique thing about the city, nowhere else in the world or even Brazil has anything like it.
The only gang graffiti you’ll see in São Paulo are written in plain letters or numbers (“PCC” or 1533), nothing like Pixo.
Having lived in São Paulo most of my life, I'd like to corroborate this. The groups tagging buildings generally have nothing to do with (other) crimes. The only unsettling part was the time I saw that that the wall below my 6th floor bedroom window had been tagged overnight
> Actually it is the opposite, it is a scream from those who don't really have a voice in the city.
It is most certainly not. This romanticizing of criminals and vandals is not any kind of compassion. Who would like their neighborhood or home turned into a hell scape?
Edit: To those who downvoted my comment, go look up some pictures of how these neighborhoods look when they are all covered in tags. Ask yourself if you would want to live there? But of course it's easy to be such a benevolent and tolerant hacker, when you don't have to live it yourself...
Would you like to look at only buildings and every surface around you looking like the picture above and worse for hours every day for your commute. Because that is the reality for millions of people. Desolation and decay might be a cool photo for traveling hackers to put on their Instagram, but I think it is different when you have to live in it.
I have never heard anybody from São Paulo talk about the delights of this grafitti covering the whole city. I guess they're just uncultured?
