One of the first things that people often learn about me is my obsession with Traffic cones. For example, when people introduce me to their friends, they might often say something like, “This is my friend, and he’s really into traffic cones”. And yes, this is accurate. I probably spend more time thinking about traffic cones than most people who aren’t directly involved in the construction industry or cone production factories. And I think a lot of people find this strange…because it is.
When the conversation comes up people ask, “Why cones? Why do you care?”. But after I present my case people are more open to the ideas. “Oh that’s actually pretty interesting,” they say. And then, in future meetings, they will state that I completely changed the way they look at traffic cones. So I guess that’s my purpose in life? Educating the world about cones? While a lot of this cone obsession is “a bit” there’s a lot of me that takes this fully seriously, or at least to the capacity that one can take it fully seriously.
In case you doubt my claim that I am actually not into traffic cones, here are my specific “cone” qualifications: 1) I have a Cone instagram account (@Captain_Traphik) and it has been one of the most consistent and long-lasting traffic cones accounts on instagram (of which there are a lot). 2) I wrote a chapter of my Master’s dissertation that featured traffic cones (this will be discussed later in this post), and, based on my research, I am likely the leading academic regarding traffic cones. Ultimately, I think that if anyone were to give a Ted Talk about traffic cones, it would be me. Not to brag or anything…
So this post is basically that Ted Talk. It’s a manifesto for what cone culture is, and how it can be used. It will serve as an introduction to what I call “Cone Culture”. First I will define cone culture and cone consciousness and discuss the general theory of the traffic cones. I will also talk about how I got involved with traffic cones in the first place. Then I will use two urban case studies (Philadelphia and Glasgow) to demonstrate that traffic cones can be used as markers of greater social systems. I lastly mention other forms of cone appreciation, such as cone art. Hopefully, you will recognize at the end of this post that there really is more than meet the eye with traffic cones.
Cone Culture is the term that is used to explain the sociological dimension of traffic cones and to appreciate the stories the cones can tell about human culture. I recognize that this is a bit of a redundant definition because traffic cones are in fact human constructs, anything involving traffic cones is inherently a part of cone culture. But the awareness of traffic cones allows one to understand cone culture. And I call this cone consciousness: the ability to regard traffic cones as signifiers of greater social narratives. Cone consciousness is using the geographical imagination and applying it specifically to traffic cones, connecting cones to narratives about space, social dynamics, and spatial inequalities. I believe that in developing cone consciousness one can begin to learn how to examine how little things, such as traffic cones, are just small parts in greater social narratives.
My Personal "Cone"ecction to Traffic Cones
So when did I become cone conscious? how did I get involved with Cone Culture? Here’s the story:
It was summertime and I was 17. This was the last day of my junior and had I just started to drive my car to school. The seniors constructed a senior “prank” where they put traffic cones blocking all the exits and entrances of the high school. Having not a great sense of auto-kinesthesia yet, I thought the Honda fit could clear the cone, which it effectively did not. I ended up dragging the cone for approximately 1 minute before I realized I had to unlodge it from the underside of my automobile. I did as such and then drove around with the traffic cone in the passenger seat for the rest of the summer. I give some symbolic import to the little pylon: some sort of symbol of summertime freedom. I drew a face on the cone, and basically brought it around to different places like the beach and parties. I named the cone Coney (the year was 2012 - so as a 17-year-old, “CONEY 2012” was the natural bit) and I have kept him ever since.
I then became known as the “Cone guy” in college because of Coney and because I partook in the long-established college tradition of, during evenings out, “relocating” the pylons on campus. I just leaned into the classification of being the “cone guy” because it was funny. I began taking pictures of interesting traffic cones, and eventually, I made the instagram account called which was dedicated exclusively to traffic cones.
On instagram I found many more traffic cone accounts - it wasn’t only me, there was clearly a whole collective of people who are into these strange orange relics. Constagram changed my whole perspective on cones, and it made me begin to notice the small details about cones when I traversed city streets. I was also added to a facebook group called "Cone-spotting" by another cone culture enthusiast; it was a platform where people from all over posed traffic cones. Furthermore, my friends and strangers began to send me interesting looking traffic cones from all over. Between seeing all these other cone accounts and recognizing the banal objects in day-to-day life I realized that there must be some underlying reason why these coins are so captivating.
Cone Consciousness
Once one becomes cone conscious, it becomes almost impossible to ignore those little orange guys scattered throughout the city. One starts seeing cones everywhere, one begins understanding the quirks and nuances of cones, and one recognizes their omnipresence. I guarantee that after you read this post, you will gain a new perspective on cones.
So what is a cone? The archetypical traffic cones is an orange “cone-shaped” object usually with one or two lines of reflective tape that is used as a demarcator to draw ones attention to danger (like a pothole) or, used in a group, as a way to set up a social boundary. Cones are forms of communication, but they also have some authority. Cones are unobtrusive objects, they are meant to be seen but also not be seen at the same time. Cones are typically distributed by a public works company when placing cones around a construction site or a new development, often grouping cones to develop a physical and symbolic barrier so that an unaware individual does not get into danger. This tends to be how people encounter cones, by instinctively avoiding them.
What I find more interesting is when cones drift from this particular narrative of distribution and safety and become more than just markers for construction sites. The cones that are abandoned. The cones that have been stolen. The cones are simply somewhere they are not supposed to be. These narratives about cones can reveal a lot about urban power structures as well as how individuals interact with cones.
Something that is often overlooked is that there is always a human element in the placement of traffic cones. This is true for most aspects of our material world. When a cone is moved, it is the result of a whole network of decision-making, a nexus of interrelated groups that decide there is going to be a new building here or that this road needs construction there. Cones in this sense signify the decision to make a change to space by greater institutions and social forces. Cones that exist outside of this order, represent chaotic factors (e.g. drunk college student). Ultimately, cones and their placement represent the duality of order and chaos.
What follows are two “case studies” about how traffic cones have real-world social implications that affect much more than just construction zones, I will discuss how cones affect the social dynamics of Philadelphia and Glasgow.
Cones as Power in Philadelphia
I would argue that Philadelphia is the US city that has the most dynamic and omnipresent cone culture. And there are several interesting ways in which we can use the geographical imagination to examine what stories cones tell about this city. Between near-constant road work, development, and construction, Philadelphia is a city that is dominated by traffic cones and I believe that cones are indicators of several key cultural shifts and dynamics in play within this urban space.
Note all images of cones in this section are were collected by @cones_of_philadelphia . Cones of Philadelphia is in my opinion the best cone culture instagram page, they just have such a diverse range of cones and really recognize the topics I discuss in this section.
Cones are signifiers of change and development in the most literal sense as they are often markers for physical construction. Philadelphia Gas Works, SEPTA, and other Philadelphian municipal institutions use traffic cones as symbols of development and repair, or to signify intended development. However, if you live in Philadelphia you know that this is not always the case. The roads of Philadelphia are known by its residents as being really bad, and there is no better example of this by looking at the number of cones used to fill potholes, block off dangerous parts of the sidewalk, and indicate future road repairs. Traffic cones occupy streets for months at a time, seemingly becoming a part of the street. Rather than being the temporary objects they are signed to be, they become spatial fixtures. And Philadelphia residents believe this is no accident. People may perceive that traffic cones are placed by the city to suggest “yes we see there is a problem here” but without any intent to actually fix the problem. There is a sentiment that the cone is simply a patching device to pacify residents so they do not get upset about the terrible state of the roads. The cones are believed to be a false flag of attention.
What stories might cones tell in these situations then? There are more strategically placed cones in places that are “up-and-coming”, places designed to maximize profit and consumption. Using cone consciousness, one can identify linkages between the number of abandoned traffic cones and the socio-economic status of the neighborhood. The poorer the neighborhood, the more abandoned cones are present. These are not “cones with purpose”, cones that are accounted for by construction companies, but lost cones, cones without a clear purpose, cones that have been abandoned or disregarded. In these cases, cones are not markers of intended improvement, but rather as makers of urban neglect and decay. The cone distribution in Philadelphia signifies complex developmental narratives around city planning, namely neglecting neighborhoods with less perceived prosperous futures, but cones are also indicators of gentrification and consumption-focused development.
Another Philly-based phenomenon regarding cones, perhaps something Philly residents are aware of, is the usage of “domestic cones''. There is a custom in this city where people have their own traffic cones and use them to claim space on their roadway as to reserve parking nearby their houses. It should be noted that Philadelphia is a city currently dominated by the automobile, and this is why the state of the roads and access to a car are important to residents' ability to prosper in the city. The domestic cone phenomenon is rather layered. On one hand, it is annoying when you are looking for a space to park in the city and you can’t find one because all the places where one could park are occupied by orange pylons. A direct example of this is the organization known as the Cone Ranger, which monitors and record the usage of “illegal” parking spot reservations by way of conage.
But on the other hand, the usage of cones in such a way could be read as a way for residents to claim their right to the city. Cones are perceived to have a certain authority, they indicate that this space is off-limits. A well-placed pylon has a shocking amount of symbolic power. People using domestic cones in this way are effectively claiming their own space within the city, a city that prioritizes profit and consumption, over the needs of the residents (in this case, parking). In a fully just city, transportation would be widely available and easy to use. Access to affordable and easily accessible public transportation would negate the dependence on a car, and therefore this desperation to maintain a parking space would be unnecessary. Cones can signify how people try to adapt to unjust conditions. So, while cones can represent neglect, they can also signify people claiming their own space, an act of desperation considering transport inequality. While technically illegal, the usage of domestic cones could be thought of as an act of near desperation in a city with unjust transportation systems.
Cone Culture in Glasgow
The second example of dynamic cone culture is in Glasgow. While Glasgow’s cone culture does have many similarities with Philadelphia’s in terms of development, gentrification, and neglect, what I want to focus on is what I consider the most notable display of cone culture in probably the entirety of the world: The Duke of Wellington statue outside Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. The Duke was featured as a whole chapter in my Master’s dissertation about the urban mythology of Glasgow which you can read fully here if you want to learn about this in greater detail with a more academic analysis.
For those of you who are not familiar, this Duke of Wellington statue is nearly always adorned with a traffic cone. The tradition is said to originate in the early 1980s as drunken Glaswegians would continually cone the duke during nights out. Despite efforts by the Glasgow city council to remove the cone, the cone has remained on the head of The Duke as a result of the community continually ensuring the statue is properly adorned. One will likely see a cone on the horse’s head as well. On one lucky occasion, I captured this image where four traffic cones were on the statue.
The coned statue has become an identifying symbol of the city and the monument is often used as the representation for Glasgow. The coned duke is also a success story for the residents claiming their own space, changing the symbolic narrative of the statue to better fit the community’s ideals. In 2013, Glasgow’s city council released a plan to increase the height of the statue’s plinth to deter pranksters from coning the Duke’s head. They cited the disruptive nature of the cone as being a reason for this, as well as the continual removal of the cone was an annoyance and cost for the local police. This proposal infuriated Glaswegians and thus the “Keep the Cone” campaign was mobilized to prevent the council from going through with their plan. The Keep the Cone campaign organized a Facebook group, now with nearly 77,000 members, and distributed a petition to ensure that the council doesn’t go through with the plan. This campaign ended up being successful, and the council scrapped the plans. Ultimately this was a grassroots win for Glaswegians for having a say in how they wanted their space to be represented, which is truly a rare occurrence!
The cone, "cone"-sequently, has become an identifying feature of Glasgow and part of the city’s spatial narrative. The image of the monument is replicated in various places throughout the city almost like an official icon. Its likeness is painted on the walls of bars, on sightseeing buses, travel advertisements, and on the University of Glasgow swimming pool. The image of the coned statue is a feature of the place that is Glasgow, and it exists as a symbolic shorthand for the city. A traffic cone is the icon for Glasgow’s subreddit, again using the cone to imply community. No longer is the statue of the Duke of Wellington just the representation of the “Duke of Wellington”, rather it is a syncretic monument with a cone on its head that can be understood to be emblematic of the city as a whole, just as the Eiffel Tower signifies Paris or The Brandenburg Gate signifies Berlin. The cone became a part of the city’s cultural landscape.
This sculpture can tell us a lot about geographical imaginations and the narratives that specific places can construct. The act of coning the duke is a symbolic act, removing something that is an object meant to represent order and authority and placing it on something representative of history and tradition then reclaiming that space as an act of community consciousness through humor. The statue is changed by people within the city to better reflect the values of the citizens and is linked to the Glaswegian idea of community. The coning of the Duke can be read as the Glaswegians making a claim for making the city how they want it to be seen. Instead of an old history of conquest and imperialism represented by the Duke of Wellington, the cone turns the statue into a monument of humor and silliness. The cone represents the everyman, whilst the statue is the narrative of the elite and powerful.
In recent years, coning has increasingly been linked to greater-scale national and global events through artistically modifying the cone. Notable examples of this phenomenon include EU flag-stylized traffic cones on Brexit day when the United Kingdom officially left the European Union and a cone stylized with the Ukraine Flag after Ukraine had been invaded by Russian forces in 2022. The meanings behind these cone modifications are clear; they represent the people of Glasgow’s inferred symbolic alignment with these global events. While a cone does not speak for all people in the city, it is a symbolic representation of the people of Glasgow and their will. The Duke has been used to convey to the world how Glasgow stands with global events, and I predict that this trend will become increasingly common as time goes on.
As I said earlier, cones are objects used to communicate. On a surface level, this is to communicate a hazard or obstruction. Messages like “watch out” or “avoid this sidewalk”. But when applying geographical imagination, cones can communicate complex narratives about space, time, culture, and even justice. They communicate stories such as “gentrification is making this place hard to live in” or “I need to secure a space for my car” or “my city stands in unity with an invaded country”. Cones, through semiotic understandings, bring insights to social narratives.
Creative Cone Culture
The Duke of Wellington statue can also be understood not only as an act of defiance but as a form of performative art (although the two can be interrelated). If Duchamp turning a urinal on its side is considered art, then the Duke certainly the public art parallel, turning something normal into something artistically disruptive and paradigm-shifting. Sometimes the Duke can even have cones of pure artistic intent, such as @kirstywithaq’s Dragon Cone, which sat on top of The Duke of Wellington’s head since June 2022 until it was removed for the Queen’s death in early September of the same year (I wonder where this cone is today and how long the cone would have been up if the Queen hadn't passed!).
So it’s no surprise that Traffic cones are also the objects of creative endeavors. On #Conestagram one can find many artworks inspired by the banal object. Cone art is perhaps the most personalized form of cone culture, where an artist uses the cone in some form of artistic expression. This can happen in a handful of ways. Using a cone as the medium for painting or drawing is popular, something I have dabbled in myself, as well as using the cones as the subject of art. Occasionally I have seen traffic cone street art, cones with faces drawn on them, or even cones painted directly on city walls, which is absolutely meta. Below are some examples of how artists use cone consciousness within their artwork. Maybe in the future, I will write a whole other post about the specifics of Cone Art. But below you can find the breadth of cone-related art that I've accrued over the years:
Artwork Above:
Slides 1 : Detour Cones, Instagram: @detour_cones , Website: https://detourcones.com/
Slides 2: Andrew Samuel Harrison, Instagram: @andrewsamuelharrison Website:https://www.andrewsamuelharrison.com/ Slide 3: Miyuki Hirai, Instagram: @hiraiochimiyuki
Slide 4: Street art in Glasgow
Slide 5: My own little experiment with Cone Art
Slide 6: Detour Cones, Instagram: @detour_cones , Website: https://detourcones.com/
Slide 7: Cone Found in Boston, 2020.
Slide 8: Andrew Samuel Harrison, Instagram: @andrewsamuelharrison Website:https://www.andrewsamuelharrison.com/
Slide 9: Miyuki Hirai, Instagram: @hiraiochimiyuki
Creative cone culture is present in other spheres as well, not just physical media. One example, this website http://trafficcone.com/ is a classic showcase of late 90s early 2000s internet culture. On this website the author (who is Amy Winfrey) presents a case for Cone culture and the significant role they play in society. It makes me wonder…how much of the traffic cone’s presence in those animated shows is due to Winfrey’s presence? I always judge the quality of animated series by if there is the inclusion of traffic cones, it makes the world just feel so much more filled out and real.
To quote from the website: “Until the late 20th century, traffic cones were not thought worthy of scientific study. It is the Society's mission to counteract these centuries of neglect. By preserving and studying these "Helpers of Humanity," we hope to allow future generations the opportunity to enjoy these magnificent creatures in their natural habitats.”. The whole website is an absolute trip and I highly encourage you to check it out.
Cone culture exists in various other ways. Why are drunken college students so keen to steam cones? How are cones used in memes? How are traffic cones used during protests? What other unique uses do cones have? Furthermore, my understanding of cone culture is significantly grounded in the United States and UK, but cones are a global phenomenon. How are cones understood in different places? What uses for cones am I not yet aware of? These are all questions I could explore much deeper, however, I have already written enough.
Cone-Clusion
As you can clearly see, I spend a lot of time thinking about traffic cones. I’m not going to lie and say “Traffic cones are key to some fundamentals of human behavior”, but I do think that traffic cones are interesting social artifacts that could be used as data points for learning about human behavior and systems. What stories are traffic cones linked to? How can they be used as data points for revealing urban trends? And why is there such a fascination with them? I think that Cone Culture is evidence that small, silly, everyday objects, things that often go unnoticed, can be thought of imaginatively and can maybe reveal new insights. Overall, this is the introduction cone culture paradigm which is simply embracing traffic cones and seeing what they reveal about human behavior and culture.
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