The unchallenged standard of personal identification

The signature is one of my favorite artifacts.

It’s been a staple of individualism and personality in our society for thousands of years.

Hancock, whose large and stylish signature first signed our nation’s declaration of independence, has even become the generic term as a synonym for the word signature itself.

Congratulations on buying your new portable heated outhouse, sir, just going to need your johnhancock at the bottom of the page.

One cool expression of the signature is in the world of graffiti. Street artists will call it tagging, which is the most basic writing of an artist’s name. It’s their hand style, as the hip kids stay.

Interestingly enough, after the eponymous hello my name is stickers were first introduced back in the late fifties, many graffiti artists have been known to do their tagging with actual nametags, like the ones I wear every day.

You can see these labels in most urban areas, often stuck on the backs of street signs, lamp posts, doorways and other hard to reach places.

Admittedly, I’ve done some of that tagging myself.

Don’t tell anybody. Because tagging is, in fact, illegal. It’s vandalism. That’s why these taggers will typically only put up simple one liners, executed with a single color. It’s fast and it’s simple. Graffiti artists need to be in and out in snap before the fuzz shows up.

The best part about tagging, though, is how graffiti artists take months, sometimes even years to develop, hone and perfect their signature. Even though the process of tagging itself renders in only a few seconds and a single stroke, the work behind the tag is hard earned.

Did you ever do that as a kid? Fill sheets of blank paper with your own signature when nobody was looking?

This was my favorite hobby during elementary and middle school. Especially during boring, useless classes like math, science and history. By ninth grade, my signature was cool enough to tag the bottom of any major work of museum art.

Couldn’t tell you who won the second world war or how to multiply fractions, but dammit, my tag was dope. Take that, standardized testing company.

Sadly, the signature may soon be a lost art, if not already. Most schools are moving away from written signatures because they no longer teach cursive, plus modern students live their lives through technology.

Kids don’t sign checks. They don’t even know what checks are. There’s no need to sign anything anymore. It’s all pin numbers, chip readers or barcode scans.

Or, if they do sign something, it’s just a few quick scribbles to get the payment over as quickly as possible.

It appears the signature no longer qualifies as a valid form of identification in this world.

For this reason, I’ve always stressed the importance of hand writing each and every one of my nametags. For twenty years, it’s been my way of keeping the spirit of the signature alive. It’s my tag, quite literally.

For me, the signature is still the unchallenged standard of personal identification. I love writing my name. It makes me feel like myself.

Scott isn’t exactly the most unique or interesting first name in the world, but nobody writes or wears it the way I do.

Hancock would have been proud.

What’s the artifact of your personality?