Who is BORF?
You've seen it around town: a stencil of a smiling face labled "BORF," sometimes accompanied with a quirky statements. The work of the enigmatic Borf can be seen along U Street, in Adams Morgan, in the West End, Foggy Bottom, in Georgetown, and even at least one in Virginia. Just who is behind the graffiti?
While we still haven't met him, a little internet snooping has unearthed some clues.
His has sparked a post on Craigslist's rant and rave secion, and a reply which points to this usenet posting which says in geek-speak to "borf" someone is to "To uncerimoniously disconnect someone from a system without prior warning." Our trusty standby the Urban Dictionary has a significantly different definition, claiming it refers to a mental state of nirvana achieved through unsavory means.
His sheer volume has sparked some resentment, one Flickr user even posted some anti-borf graffiti.
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| Examples of Borf graffiti. From top right: graffiti on a sign on K Street between Georgetown and Washington Circle, a Borf stencil on a lightpost on the same street, a message on a garbage can south of Dupont Circle on 20th Street, and his pirate flag stencil on a cement wall outside the West End D.C. public library. All DCist photos by Rob Goodspeed |
First, rather than being enigmatic it appears Borf himself has an account on a website called stencil revolution, where he's posted a number of examples of his work in a gallery. The site's members in general review his work highly and post comments and requests. A user going by the name Boon posted last Friday on one post, "i see your stuff everywhere in DC its amazing ... please put more stuff on the key bridge for us loser virginians to amuse ourselves with as we cross it every morning ..." and Borf himself replying on Saturday, "will do! ill do one just for you within the next week."
All of this is interesting, however it doesn't say much about the identity of our graffiti artist friend. A post on this DCist's personal blog uncovered some intriguing claims. "i see him in new york, north carolina, richmond, maryland, dc, and even in bloomington, indiana," wrote one commenter. "Meghan" contributed the following:
I heard BORF is just some traveler kid that drifts around the east coast. They say he faked his death to get away from all the bullshit he had to put up with like school and work and all that, and now hes just putting up his face everywhere he goes to let people know he’s still alive. I don’t know if that’s true, but a friend of mine saw him putting up a sticker in adams morgan and talked to him about it. She said that’s what he told her. She also said he was the craziest kid she’d ever met!
Whomever he is, Borf is merely a graffiti fad when compared to some of the legends of D.C.'s graffiti history. For more information on that we suggest checking out Free Agents: A History of Washington, D.C. Graffiti, which includes information about the infamous Cool Disco Dan the most famous writer in D.C. history. The scene seems to have cooled recently, and some writer's work was even featured in a Georgetown art gallery in 2001.