Sometimes when I'm reading my daily news and blogs I find a subject that I find particularly interesting and start researching it. Today my interest was in the DC grafitti artist Borf. I had kind of been following the story after the artist got arrested last summer, but lost touch with it after that. Today I went into more detail about the message that "Borf" was trying to get out. Turns out, "Borf" is an anarchist (a philosophy which seems particularly popular with todays youth). The image of a young boy that is often accompanied with the Borf name is actually the image of a friend the young man who got arrested who had commited suicide several years ago. According to "Borf"'s mother, he saw his friends image as portraying everything he felt was wrong in this world.

Personally, I don't agree with anarchy, but I do admire these people who feel so strongly against our government that they choose not to follow any of its rules. Though a bit of graffiti isn't really going to do much rebelling, it is a unique way of getting out a message and catching people's attention.

Anyways, within the whole Borf search I found an article entitled We're All Borf in the End by Oxford student Claude Willan. The article talks about how the youth of today (Gen X, Gen Y, whatever you want to call us) don't have a single voice representing their generation. Perhaps thats because we are all so different in our ideas or that we have each able to represent ourselves through the power of the internet. I'm not sure if it actually means anything that we can't point to a guy like Abbie Hoffman or Jack Kerouac and say, "See what this guy is saying? THIS is how we feel." So what is really better? To have one person speak for millions or to have millions speak for themselves? Which is the better way to be heard and understood? Its much easier for one individual to be a kind of poster boy or girl for a cause...someone charismatic, good-looking, and well spoken that the press loves to interview. But as we can see more recently, people are paying attention to the blogs...a collective group of anonymous voices. Maybe not having one person represent, but all of us speaking out has and will make the difference that we long for.