Nat Has Herpes
Nat Has Herpes is my favourite artistic graffiti movement. If you are a Londoner or have spent any time in London you'll have seen words Nat Has Herpes scrawlled across fences, bridges, train tracks, bus stops, trees, walls even across the toilet cubicles in a nightclub. You name it, any flat surface you can think of Nat Has Herpes has the potential and likelyhood to be graffitied on it.
Nobody knows who the true creator of this movement is. Nat Has Herpes can be found everywhere you look across the city if you're looking for it. However the genral consensus is that the phrase first surfaced graffitied on a brick wall around 2016/17 in Hackney Wick, E9.
Thanks to the power of the Internet. The graffiti movement has gone viral and sitings of the phrase across London are photographed and well documented on social media.
A very, very poor mans Banksy you could call it. But just like Andy Warhol, who produced great artwork during the artistic movement of Pop Art that emerged in the late 50's. Which tapped into the zeitgeist of post-war UK & America . Art collections like Warhol's Campbell Soup reflected society at the time with the hyper industrialization of the food industry. Similarly, just as today times Nat Has Herpes sums up the abject hopelessness of surviving this COVID-19, Tier - 2, only allowed to have a pint with a meal world. This London orginated graffiti movement has taken off not just in the City but across the country and has given us a distraction from this reality series I call, Earth 2020
Who is Nat, does he/she/they have a real venereal diesease, and is this graffiti scrawelled across the city the sole work of one disgruntled person with an issue with Nat or an army of pisstakers who have jumped on the hype?
Thanks to social media and the Facebook group Shit London. That keeps the movement Nat Has Herpes on our psyche. With a network of over 150k members all Londoners who post pictures of unintentional human comedy you come across in the city. Its a society off people that observe and come across the random, unexpected, surprising and sometimes beautiful aspects of the City. From the crude adapted posters, the dirty joke on the back of a van, the misspelled signs, the glory hole in the public loo, that weird shop down the end of your road, the strategically placed objects for maximum effect. The members of Shit London have kept this movement current and relevant and always brings a joy when a new siting of Nat Has Herpes graffitied somewhere in the city alive. And just like all trends Nat Has Herpes has adapted and evolved with the current social climate. The latest scrawllings across the city being Nat Has Coronavirus.
At present we are going through testing times. We as people have never been more divided then ever. With Brexit, COVID and the debacle of the US Elections. 2020 has presented all of us with challenges and changed life as we know it. But regardless of your political views, personal opinions surrounding COVID-19 and the conspiracy theories that have picked up pace. The one thing that has united many off us, mostly Londoners and people with affliction to the city is Nat Has Herpes. A simple graffiti that origins probably was to slander one person reputation but has transgressed into a positive social art movement that unites people rather than divide us.
Whoever or wherever Nat is, I hope they haven’t got Herpes or have treated it by now. Although it may be a personal embarrassment to yourself. We are thankful for your plight and service to British Satire, you have made our lives far less dull and always gives us a chuckle when we see Nat Has Herpes.
