Growing up in NYC during the late 80s and early 90s was something special. Though it was the genesis of the Crack Era, Hip-Hop/Rap and Graffiti were also prevalent during this time, in the streets and subway, respectively. I vividly remember riding the subway as a kid with my mom and siblings and staring at all the graffiti plastered on the trains, from top to bottom, inside and out. Some of my older brother’s friends used to actually go bombing. They would go to the Brooklyn Bridge layup (this is where the trains would temporarily park) and bomb the trains before the train started its next shift. I heard stories of how they would get chased by cops, and get into fights with rival graffiti crews. I even remember the time one guy from my neighborhood named Slick was hit by a train and killed while he was bombing in the subway. They must have really loved doing graffiti to be willing to take those kinds of life-or-death chances. Eventually, the city and transit system began cracking down and cleaning the trains faster than the paint could even dry. Many writers then started taking it to the streets, hitting truck yards, storefront gates, schoolyards—anywhere there was space to write on. Graffiti is like a culture; it’s a lifestyle, but once you get older, the desire to bomb the streets and risk getting caught, blows away like the mist of a spray can spraying in the air.
What if I told you, you could go bombing every night with an unlimited supply of paint, and you don’t have to leave your home or worry about getting caught? Don’t believe me? Well, let me introduce you to Kingspray Graffiti VR, a virtual reality graffiti app released by Infectious Ape in 2016. It’s the real deal!! It’s incredible how accurately they recreated graffiti in VR. It’s insane—you even hear the little metal ball rattling in the can when you shake it up and down. The app is available both in PCVR mode (tethered to a computer) and standalone on the Meta Quest. There is a huge Kingspray VR community out there, ranging from little to super skills, and levels. Most people seem to take it pretty seriously. I even came across people who have virtual graffiti beef—yes, it’s true. I’ve witnessed the back-and-forth between writers on Discord, calling each other toys (a wack writer) and other insulting titles. I also came across some amazing writers in one of the Facebook groups I joined called Kingspray VR, which has over 8K members. I connected with one of the group moderators, GravesFX, who happens to be a phenomenal artist. Some of his work is unreal. Hailing from Spring Hill, FL, GravesFX first started using Kingspray VR in 2019, courtesy of an Oculus Quest 1 he purchased from the Facebook Marketplace. I met up with him in VR, and we chatted for about an hour or so. He even showed me some of his work while we were in a warehouse-looking space. He told me some of his pieces can take him up to 8 hours to complete, but with the type of detail he displays in his work, I can see why.
“How accurate would you say is the can in VR vs. the can in the real world?” I asked. “Absolutely accurate, If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be in here every day,” said GravesFX. From what I can see, it appears that the developers of this app have not been active for a while as the app has not received any of the needed updates. With all that, it still remains one of the top downloaded apps in the Oculus/Horizon store and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Do yourself a favor and download this gem if you haven’t done so already. It has a multiplayer mode, which allows you to paint with up to three additional writers at the same time. So if you are a graffiti head and you ever get that sudden itch to hit the streets to bomb the streets.. do yourself a favor and pick up a Meta Quest 2 or 3 and add the Kingspray VR app to your library.