One interesting fact is that these days graffiti is cracked down on hard in NYC and the majority of people who try and tag subway trains now are actually tourists who want to essentially re-enact the gritty era of 1980s NYC https://hyperallergic.com/731649/subway-graffiti-is-on-the-r...
“I can only speculate that after having experienced lockdowns thanks to the pandemic and with travel restrictions having recently been lifted worldwide, writers are eager to make up for lost time,”
A lot of the writers I know where I am (large Midwestern city) hated the pandemic because it created a ton of new writers who suddenly decided they wanted to do graffiti. One of the well known writers said it basically flooded their scene with a bunch "toys" (inexperienced poor artists) who were needlessly tagging anything and everything. They didn't know a lot of the unwritten rules and in many instances have pissed off a lot of the more experienced writers and their crews by going over older pieces, or putting up garbage over well respected writers. Its caused a lot of upheaval in the culture for several years. Things are starting to level out, but there's still a lot of younger writers still learning how this whole thing works.
It is true that even in our city I've seen a big influx of writers and crews coming from other cities. Unless you're a huge name in another country, its a good bet you're stuff will get covered up pretty quick as writers and crews are insanely protective of spots.
Graffiti has a lot of weird paradoxes like the fact there's "no rules" but there are a ton of unwritten rules writers and crews must follow.
