Walk into any public restroom and you’ll undoubtedly find hastily scribbled words splashed across the dull, factory colored bathroom stall wall. The public restrooms scattered across campus are no exception.

Written in an assortment of colors and scrawled in various scripts, the writings on the bathroom walls on campus range from politics, to every day observances, to things that look like they should be in a gas station bathroom rather than a University public restroom.

For many students, the scribbles are a source of entertainment.

“In my opinion, they are really interesting, because you can see the comments different people make to one person’s comment and it spreads out all over the stall,” said Jennifer Hernandez, junior in LAS.

Sometimes, a single statement can spawn an entire discussion that branches off in every direction. In some cases, the discussion takes up entire bathroom stalls.

“It’s a game of one-upsmanship,” said Steve Davenport, associate director of Creative Writing. “[It’s] usually people just trying to be witty off of each other’s statements. When somebody makes a statement, misspells a word, somebody makes fun of the person who misspells. And somebody makes fun of the person who makes fun of the person who misspells and it goes around.”

Along with this game of one-upping, the bathroom stall can be a medium that is similar to the Internet. The stall walls provide a space of anonymity in which statements can be made without the author being revealed.

Davenport said these stall walls are like “temporary autonomous zones,” — a term he borrows from American political writer, Hakim Bey. These zones temporarily elude formal structures of control.

“If you think of those spaces as a T.A.Z, a temporary autonomous zone, then it can be creative, it can liberating, it can be truth-telling,” Davenport said. “One could call someone out. But since there’s no accountability, anybody could ink anyone’s name and call them out.”

The reasons for vandalizing public property may vary, but one compelling reason is the medium’s anonymity. This allows for some self-expression to be conveyed without any judgments on the author.

“I see it as a form of expressing one’s opinions,” Hernandez said. “It’s kind of liberating, like turning in a survey without knowing who said it.”

Humans, according to Davenport, are pattern-producing and pattern-consuming animals. And as such, when in the bathroom with no one else, the need to leave behind something to interpret is present.

“I think it’s completely natural,” Davenport said. “I think it’s going to occur no matter what. Anytime there’s a means to express, people are going to express. People just don’t sit like zombies, they consume and produce patterns, so why not in a public bathroom?”

These forms of self-expression, however, are considered illegal. In an attempt to reduce such acts of vandalism, the Undergraduate Library has taken some measures in the last year to provide students with patterns to “consume.”

“What we have done is, hoping that it will prevent the graffiti, we’ve put two plastic covers in the bathroom stalls,” said Lori Mestre, head of the Undergraduate Library.

“We put a flier for McKinley Health and another flier so that it gives people something to look at.”

While writing on the bathroom stalls is technically illegal, it is still considered a form of anonymous self-expression, a way to say whatever you want and permanently leave your mark. That is, until it’s painted over.