Graffiti Artist 'Creepytings' Is Defacing National Parks

Make no mistake: Casey Nocket has earned all the ire coming her way. On Tuesday, Modern Hiker called her out for painting graffiti in maybe a dozen different national parks. The publication did not take kindly to the lowbrow portraits she painted near Telescope Peak in Death Valley, on an overlook at Crater Lake, and along the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park, among other pristine places. The Internet quickly piled on. Nocket has since taken down the Instagram feed where she documented her tagging (under the name "Creepytings"). But she's apparently taken to Tumblr to defend herself from her critics, answering one with, "if banksy did it u’d have a hardon" (#betterthanbanksy).

For now, Nocket appears to enjoy playing the villain, although she may savor that role less when the attention takes the form of federal misdemeanor charges. Since she makes her painting in acrylic (and not, say, chalk), it will take work for park rangers to remove them, but she hasn't permanently defaced nature. We can leave it to art history to judge whether her national-park paintings across the West stand up as a credible act of art and appropriation. A Yosemite National Park investigator posting on the Reddit thread about Nocket reminded angry readers that she deserves a fair hearing: "Due Process, Due Process, Due Process."