Recently, Vandalog revealed that the previous month on the website was dubbed 'Illegal August'. It was termed so because Vandalog's editor-in-chief RJ and the entire staff decided to attempt to post only illegal street art work throughout the month of August. In other words, Vandalog spent a month trying to live up to its name.
When discussing his motivation for Illegal August, RJ mentioned that many top street art blogs are essentially publishing the same legal wall mural content. Its the same ol'/same ol' with most of the top street art blogs are covering the same artists painting the same walls, and essentially all of these walls are legal commissioned walls.
At the end of the Illegal August experiment, RJ points out that it is much harder to actually go out and gather material for content, than it is to post whatever gets sent to one's email box. RJ also notes that during Illegal August Vandalog's overall traffic dropped by 10%. And, in terms of sheer popularity, the most popular post on Vandalog in August got only 1/3 of the traffic from the most popular post from the month before.
RJ then refers to select other street art blogs in analyzing their posts for the last week. RJ mentions several street art blogs and and the amount of illegal posts/total posts for that week. RJ includes Wooster Collective (0/1), StreetArtNews (1/38 with 9 maybe's), BrooklynStreetArt (2/7 with 3 more posts featuring both legal and illegal activity), and Juxtapoz (1/14).
RJ concludes that "maybe street art just doesn't mean the same thing that it once did".
Maybe. But the folks at MELROSEandFAIRFAX disagree wholeheartedly. Murals might be the prettiest and most accessible element of street art, but we believe murals are just one part of the big picture, and murals alone do not represent the soul of street art. Murals are like the icing on the cake of the street art world, but who wouldn't get sick after eating only icing? Exactly. M&F's opinion is that street art hasn't changed so much as street art blogs have failed to tell the story of the streets.
Its funny that RJ did not include MELROSEandFAIRFAX in his article. We know that RJ reads M&F, and even sometimes leaves comments or links to articles. RJ knows how things are done around here, and he is aware that the bulk of M&F's content is consistently illegal. M&F is not the only one left off. RJ even failed to mention Endless Canvas once during his 'Illegal August' article, even though RJ invited Endless Canvas to submit content on Vandalog during Illegal August. If readers rely on blogs for information, than it would seem questionable why Vandalog would write an article about if street art blogs are featuring illegal work--and then completely fail to mention the street art blogs that actually are consistently posting illegal work?
Ahem. Let M&F clear our throat and throw some numbers into the same article. Let it first be said that Endless Canvas is one of the best sites for illegal work and arguably the best street art blog in terms of quality of photography. If Endless Canvas had been included in the stats, last week they posted 7 features with 6 being clearly illegal and 1 being maybe illegal. So EC is posting illegal work. Clearly, there are street art blogs capturing illegal work, even if many are focusing solely on murals.
As for M&F, over the past week this blog has made 72 posts. Only 8 posts were clearly legal work, and another 13 of those were maybe's. The numbers don't lie and the hefty bulk of M&F's content is illegal work from the streets of Los Angeles. And if the internet is like the streets, than no one gets up more than M&F!
RJ does bring up some big points. Murals are more popular online and get more views than street posts. And it is harder gathering original content from the streets. Featuring illegal content from the streets requires more work with less payout. Yet this is what M&F defines itself doing. We work harder for less. Which makes it even more impressive when M&F brings some more stats into the mix. Based on the the independent Alexa Web rankings, M&F is STILL the #1 street art blog in the USA, and #3 in the world!
M&F has always maintained that this is the streetest out of any street art blogs anywhere. From the beginning, our goal has been to capture the all the different variables of the action including street art, graffiti, tags, caps, stickers, burners, collecting, spot jocking, going city wide, murals, combos, heavens, earning a name, the rules of the streets, public art, the installations, yes, even the yarn bombing, the blood, battles, beef and much more. We don't mean to brag, but its time to pat ourselves on the back and state it like it is. MELROSEandFAIRFAX is the only blog bringing the entire story of the streets streets online, and M&F is the #1 True Street Art Blog in the World~
Thanks to all the fans, artists, and contributors who have helped M&F achieve this success. Click the jump to see where M&F ranks compared to other top street art blogs.
Stay up!
I don't mean to be tonguing your asshole or anything, butt I couldn't give two shits about legal walls. Legal walls are for tourists.
ReplyDeleteyou can't really give journalistic merit to someone whose rich family gives said journo opportunities that real hard working sites have.
ReplyDeleteI selected those particular sites for comparison because they all try to cover the global street art scene and so I consider them peers of some sort with Vandalog. Local street art blogs like EC or M&F (or Streets Dept in my current city of Philadelphia) are great, but they are different. It's not quite apples and oranges, but it's maybe more like the difference between red apples and green apples. There are, of course, other street art blogs that cover a global array of work that I could have selected for comparison as well (Unurth and Ekosystem stand out to me as two that I would have liked to have brought given more time, and Ekosystem probably posts a higher percentage of illegal work than most other street art blogs looking at the global scene).
ReplyDeleteIf you asked people in London, Paris, Melbourne, NYC, LA, Sao Paulo... to list 5 street art blogs, people in each of those cities would probably name a mix of local and international blogs. For this comparison, I stuck to those blogs that people in all of those cities might name, plus I put Vandalog in the mix because it seems unfair to run that analysis without analyzing my own site.
I know you say M&F is the #3 street art blog in the world, but I'm curious what % of M&F's visitors are from the USA, even California.
If you could stop jerking yourself off to the brilliance of M&F for a moment to actually think critically about these issues, there is perhaps an interesting insight that you've hit on: From a very cursory glance, it seems like blogs that cover local work tend to have more of a focus on illegal work than blogs that cover work from around the world (and despite BSA's name, they do cover a fair bit of a work around the world). Streets Dept in Philadelphia, M&F in LA, Endless Canvas in the Bay Area, although Invurt in Melbourne seems to break this trend... Maybe that's something worth exploring further.
RJ-
ReplyDeleteYou can talk about apples and oranges all you want, but your article was about illegal work/murals, not local/global sites. You mentioned many street art blogs who are not focusing on illegal work, well, it seems like it would be an important one to include some ones who actually are.
Speaking of apples and oranges, your reply seems to confuse the point of your original article by arguing new ones, and in doing so, it seems that you are also trying to diminish your so-called 'local' street art blogs. To be clear, to have a 'local' street art blog, there has to be a booming 'local' scene. And to that into perspective, LA's 'local' street art scene is the most active in North America, and one of the top 3 in the world (along with other 'localities' like Berlin and Brazil). And that's in all aspects (graffiti, street art, stickers and culture), not just murals. Meanwhile, Oakland, home of Endless Canvas boasts the most vibrant illegal graffiti scene in America outside of Detroit. Possibly more so because Oakland boasts a much stronger local scene.
RJ, as you point out in your original article, the height of street art is experiential, it is best in that moment of confronting of the art itself on the streets. All street art is by definition 'local' to what street it is on. To dismiss 'local' street art as some sort of abstract microcosm seems to dismiss and devalue the point of street art in general. So maybe some of the top street art blogs are losing touch by the time the 'local' street art makes it 'global'?
Of course it is up to the local blogs capture and post the illegal work from the streets. Who else is going to do that ground work?
As for the stats, we have no idea how many supporters live where. Clearly, this blog has a stronger influence in America where it is based, but its worldwide influence is still stronger than Vandalog and most any other 'global' street art blog out there.
Truth be told, M&F has never got hung up on the stats because we have always been surprised and grateful for them. We are appreciative of and astounded by the support being so strong to drive those stats. The success of M&F is like a real-life David and Goliath. And one thing we are proudest of is how M&F has helped launch LA's 'local' hero's up onto a stage that is getting more shine than the biggest murals from the biggest street artists in the world. Stay up, Los Angeles~
RJ, Illegal August was a great 'experiment'. M&F enjoyed Vandalog's coverage more during that period. Hope that you continue posting illegal content. But just curious, why is the title of your street art blog VANDALog if the majority of the content is legal?
We do jerk ourselves off regularly, but never to the 'brilliance' of M&F (your words, not ours). Bout to go squeeze one out now!
Stay up! (like my boner)~
Keep a' jerkin' Greg! get dat nasty illegal cock snot all over my screen, dats da way i like it!
ReplyDeleteYou clearly run your OWN race. M&F does a fine job of posting kick ass pieces with well thought out commentary.......gotta loooooooove the hate. 3 years loyal, and counting! Stay up BIATCH!
MOhamed S.