Is it the need to stand up and be heard? The act of vandalism?
Some landlords have gone the can't-beat'em-join'em-approach:
Then there is the approach that leaves our scribe so intimdated that they decide to wait for a bathroom with less witnesses.
A person could instead leave a note on a bulletin board, or in a stairwell, on a door, a garbage can, but it's the bathroom wall that draws the greatest response in commentary. It must be the captive audience. But it makes you wonder who leaves that first comment on the bathroom wall. What was that first thought that started it all? Which scribble was it and why?
I have a hypothesis that bathroom stalls are a primitive form of internet forum. A place where if you have the tools you can anonymously leave your thoughts to mingle with the crowd of those who came before and will come after. And like the internet, most of the writings are pretty base and puerile in nature. This might actually be an interesting topic for a book itself, a picture book of bathroom stalls and their messages from across the country (or world, even).
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