It’s amazing how in this online world we live in that Facebook has become a writers bench of sorts, loads of random people you never met before in your life suddenly want to become your friend, in the vain hope that somehow you may hook up with them in Guadalajara or Palermo and paint.
It’s also amazing how you get once legendary train crews from New York having pages where fans can access rare photos and crew shots from a time long gone by. It also seems that if you email these oldskool people enough and tag them in enough pictures that theyre not even in, and give them a shout on a piece, you can now become part of that very crew!
Which begs the question: What does being in a crew actually mean in this digital age? If all of a sudden you are now in a New York crew that stopped painting trains in the 80s, with a bunch of guys you never met before, who risked their lives and a whole heap of violence just to get up, where they stood up for each other and could count on each other through thick and thin?
These guys know nothing about you. You rep a crew in another country, they don’t know whether you actually have a back history, you could be some sort of internet revisionist who convinces people you are the best thing in your country since sliced bread. Does it not weaken the reputation and history of a crew if suddenly a bunch of guys around the world who weren’t there, who didnt take the lumps and bumps and couldn’t even survive in that environment are putting it up?
I think these crews should capitalise on this desperation and introduce a membership fee system, the more crews you put up the more you pay. Set up a Paypal scheme and rep away, even if you dont do shit other than chat online you can still be down with some of the biggest names in New York history for a modest annual fee!
(via)
