People are pissing all over the place

A strange online subculture that's disappearing as soon as it arrived

It’s not often that I’m taken completely aback on TikTok — but it happened recently.

I was flicking through my feed. A video of a tube on the London Underground appeared. Everything seemed pretty normal. It was grubby, the seats had those moquette patterns, and the train made an unholy shrieking noise.

There was one point of difference though: a fella pissing over everything.

I watched in disbelief. I checked out the account, which went by the name of Gang Pissers.

On its feed (which has since been taken down) were dozens and dozens of piss videos. Men urinated in and on and over everything and anything. Bathrooms were the most popular choice, with pee apostles raining riot on every square inch.

For a few short weeks, I was assaulted with videos of these wee terrorists.

If something could be pissed on, these men had made it their mission to do so.

By the time I got to writing this article, most of the pissing videos had been taken down on TikTok. As quickly as new accounts sprung up, the platform took them down. This means that all I have are a couple of screenshots.

Beyond the initial mixture of amusing shock (or shocking amusement?) I had when I first saw this copious bladder emptying, I felt something more. These urine-soaked escapades got me thinking.

Yes, it’s vile, but there’s a weird logic there under the surface.

Well, that was my thought process at least. To see how on-the-money I was, I managed to get in touch with two guys, each ran a now-deleted pee-centric TikTok account.

Unsurprisingly, neither wanted to share their names. So let’s call them Barry and Keith. Those seem like good, solid piss names.

“At first it started out as a cheeky pastime between the original gang pissers but our videos started to gain traction which led to an expansion in the gang,” says Barry, one of the people behind the Gang Pissers (@gang_pissers) account where this all kicked off.

He told me that the number of people submitting videos rose dramatically as their videos got traction.

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The other person I spoke to was Keith, who ran an account called Piss on the World (@piss.on.the.world). He was slightly more philosophical, telling me that this sort of piss graffiti has “always been a thing.”

The only thing that’s changed, he believes, is that now “people seem to be filming it.”

And it appears people seem to be watching it, too.

One of the videos posted on the Piss on the World account achieved over 800,000 views and 85,000 likes in a couple of days.

It seems folks behind the trend are onto something. The question, though, is simple: why? Why are these men urinating over everything?

“I guess it’s just rebellion against society and the system,” Keith tells me.

A good answer, certainly, but I have another theory.

Again, there was a severe lack of evidence still available. This one didn’t have the same tone as others, so it’s likely staged, but at least it gives you an insight into what this piss phenomenon is like.

Rather than a rebellion against society, it’s more a symptom of our interconnected world.

Hold on, don’t leave, it’s less wanky-sounding than that, I promise. Stick with me.

As humans, we’re evolutionarily built to desire praise and attention. But one thing we’re not wired to do is prioritise where it comes from. I mean, back in the day, it was only people in our immediate vicinity who could give us attention.

Social media blows this out the water.

Now, we can get external validation from people all around the world. What this amounts to is that bad localised behaviour can receive global praise and attention.

Take pissing as an example of this shift.

If you tell people in your area that you urinated all over the local pub bathroom, everyone will be disgusted. They use those facilities. It’s part of the neighbourhood. Defiling that is a direct act against them.

The shaming and public shunning that results will, in most cases, stop you from doing things in that vein.

Yet if you post a video like that online? You receive a lot of attention, but without bearing the weight of local opinion.

Sure, some people online will be mad, but what do you care? What difference does it make? They don’t know you. Plus, there’ll be plenty of others egging you on.

The global nature of social media trumps the integrity of your local area.

This is all I see when looking up all the links of the videos I’d saved for later. It’s both a shame and a blessing, I guess.

I can see why TikTok bans these accounts.

Well, besides the fact urinating everywhere is probably illegal as hell.

Awful behaviour happens irregardless of the internet. Of course it does. That’s the way humans are. The danger is when this activity is put on a pedestal, when people realise it’s something they can do for cheap online attention.

On his piss-drenched accounts being taken down, Barry tells me that “for now [their] conquest has been dampened” — which is a pretty good way of putting it.

He doesn’t believe it’s over though. “We will rise to even greater heights.”

Well, we best all watch out: anything could be covered in piss.