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If you spend time in East Vancouver, chances are you’ve heard of Mohinder.

The prolific graffiti tag is going viral online and all over Mount Pleasant streets, frustrating local business owners.

Beginning about six months ago, the tag “Mohinder” started showing up indiscriminately on Main Street businesses, commercial buildings, vehicles, sidewalks, dumpsters and even homes. According to the number of posts on social media, more than a hundred private and public spaces have been vandalized.

East Vancouver resident Douglas Haddow said the tagging started on Main Street and in the Downtown Eastside before quickly spread up through Chinatown and Commercial Drive.

Social media users started taking pictures of the tag and posting on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. A quick hashtag search of “Mohinder” yields hundreds of posts.

Haddow said one of the reasons it has been so popular online is because the tag is seemingly ironic and people find it funny.

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“It’s amusing because the original tag is very obviously jokey,” he said. “It’s not a serious tag, which is why people like it,” Haddow said.

Haddow suspects others are now copying the original tag, making it harder to determine who is responsible.

With the prevalence of social media, Haddow said tags aren’t just limited to being seen in the streets anymore.

“The whole Instagram component is what makes it so unique. It’s Vancouver’s first hashtag tagger, it’s a ‘hash-tagger,’” Haddow said. “It adds a whole new dimension to how people interact with this tag.”

But not everyone thinks the tag is so amusing.

The Dairy Queen Brazier restaurant on Main Street near 13th Avenue has been targeted several times by the person responsible and owner David Wong is extremely frustrated.

“We get graffiti all the time, but there’s been one tagger called Mohinder who keeps on tagging my building and I don’t know why. It’s frustrating because we have to paint our building at least six times a year. It’s just money out the door.”

Wong said Mohinder usually strikes in the middle of the night, usually on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“The minute we repaint it he comes back and retags it. “It’s just frustrating,” Wong said.

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Wong, who also owns the building next door to the Dairy Queen, has had to repaint that building with anti-graffiti paint.

“Hopefully that is going to help, but they’re still going to tag it.”

Vancouver police said they are aware of the Mohinder graffiti and if the person or group responsible is caught they can be charged with mischief.

Storify: Mohinder goes viral online

Beginning about six months ago, the tag “Mohinder” started showing up indiscriminately on Main Street businesses, commercial buildings, sidewalks, dumpsters and even homes. Social media users started taking pictures of the tag and posting on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

http://storify.com/globalbc/mohinder-tag-goes-viral-online