I'm not going to explain that graffiti is older than its explosion in cities like New York or Philadelphia, I intend to focus on how graffiti from the 1970s onwards became an effective means of popular communication among the poorer neighborhoods of the United States and then in other parts of the world.

It's been a little more than 40 years since this street art consolidated as a means of communication in neighborhoods where the codes became visible but misunderstood by many because despite having a core in the alphabet used by the English its form became too abstract to be clearly understood.

Graffiti writers are originally called graffiti writers because they are responsible for impregnating a wall, a train carriage, with their particular style.

With the mass media showing different hip hop groups in movies and music videos that sing rap, breakdance and develop graffiti, this urban culture expanded and influenced other metropolises around the world and this is how this trend came to Venezuela, specifically to the capital city.

There is something curious that I could see many years ago in the town where I grew up, the impact of the media achieved that this culture came to small towns and although it had little to do with the codes of rural areas during my leadership in a cultural collective gave guidelines on how to compose graffiti based on the indigenous culture and local culture, this brought a unique style that gradually disappeared due to little training in this style.

In the case of Caracas where graffiti is present in every space, especially in those where nobody wants to be like sewage pipes or abandoned places. In an attempt to beautify spaces, graffiti artists continue to paint in certain places not desired by the majority.

Another complication is the fact that paint cans are very expensive so graffiti artists have to figure out how to get paint to follow the urban culture, another important aspect is that unlike cities like London or Madrid where graffiti is prohibited due to laws that benefit private property in Venezuela is different owners of structures do not mind if someone paints graffiti, so this has allowed this art to develop very differently from how it develops in other countries.

My conclusion is that it's amazing how in the middle of the 21st century where technology with smartphones has diminished the creativity of some people who spend their leisure time to do other activities or as I prefer to say they chose another way to communicate through social networks that often distance them from being really social beings.

Thanks for reading