Someone is Tagging Twin Falls, ID With ‘SLOP’ and We Might Know Why

Graffiti around Twin Falls isn't anything new. A few years ago 'Between the Lines' was showing up all over the place and now we are starting to see the word (or name) 'Slop' being painted on building walls around Twin Falls. What does 'Slop' mean and who is doing the graffiti? I think I may have found some insight.

Why Is Someone Tagging 'SLOP' All Around The Magic Valley?

The word 'Slop' seems like a pretty odd choice of words to write as your main choice of graffiti. To most of us it means sloppy, like my kids' rooms or the slop we feed to pigs and farm animals. That doesn't seem like something you'd want to be know for as a tagger. It also has a more sexual and derogatory meaning if you look it up on the Urban Dictionary. That might make more sense to a person up to no good with a can of spray paint.

Tagging walls with the word 'Slop' isn't something new or unique to Idaho. Slop Art goes back as far as the 1970's and it even has its own type font you can use on your computer. Though the graffiti we see around town is much less artistic and lower talent than other examples online.

There is also another reason to tag the word 'Slop' that has a possibly musical and artistic meaning to it.

How Is 'Slop' Graffiti Related To Art And Music?

In 1998 the Beastie Boys rap group released a song called 'Intergalactic' and one of the lines in the songs is 'When I wrote graffiti my name was Slop'. I don't think Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys is hanging out in the Magic Valley tagging buildings at night, but there could be a BB fan out there who heard Intergalactic and thought it would be a cool thing to put all over our buildings.

Police Are Actively Looking For The 'Slop' Tagger In The Magic Valley

The 'Slop' criminal recently vandalized the Washington Federal Bank on Blue Lakes in Twin Falls and a number of buildings in Filer. Police in both locations are asking for help from the community and investigating leads to find the vandal.

The 'Slop' graffiti is also often accompanied by a 21' and MBK tag which is probably the taggers signature and a reference to the current year.

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So, we don't know who the Slop vandal is yet, but we may have a few ideas now about why they are tagging the town with such a dumb word. The Slop graffiti actually showed up in our recent story about old abandoned Twin Falls buildings and their history. You can see it on the old Gem State Paper building: