The Personal Billboard

Why do we put stickers all over our stuff?

I am driving to a park to take a winter walk with my wife. In front of us is an old hatchback. The hatch, bumper, and the rear window are covered with stickers and decals: CoExist, Think: It’s not Illegal yet, I (Heart) SPAM. There must be two dozen stickers.

“Aren’t most cars like that driven by liberals?” my wife asks.

Interesting question.

Not sure you can automatically label a “sticker car” as a Democrat or a Republican, or right or left. But I try to answer anyway.

“My gut says most cars like that are owned by someone on the left.”

After I say that, I want to take it back. I’m not sure that’s fair to anyone on either side of the aisle. I think about my own car. Two stickers. Am I a moderate?

“Or maybe,” I continue, “they’re just creative people.” I think some more. “Or maybe they just have a lot of say.”

***

Why do some of us cover our cars, and for that matter our computers and our water bottles with stickers and decals? Some with just a few, others load them up with symbols of what we love, our passions, and our opinions. Some of those quite strong.

The simple answer is that the stickers are expressions of ourselves and some are purely meant to give us a laugh. I once saw a bumper sticker that read: What would Scooby Do? I was told once about a sticker on a car’s rear window that read: I was an Honor Student once. I don’t know what happened. There are also the stickers that broadcast a person’s life story or a family’s history. I’m Irish. Golden Doodles Rock. Marine Corps Mom.

A recent national survey on bumper stickers shows that most are found on cars in the U.S. South: Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky. Women are move likely to have a bumper sticker on their cars than men. (That surprised me.) In Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, most bumper stickers are family related. In California, one of three stickers espouses a political view.

But what about stickers that can offend. Certainly, you’ve seen those stickers that show a cartoon kid relieving himself on a truck’s logo. Probably that’s all good-natured fun and not a big deal. But what about the overtly blunt ones: Fuck Biden. Fuck Trump. I once say a sticker of a Glock pistol on a rearview window of a Ford pickup. Maybe that’s a deteriorate to the bad guys. Or maybe that’s just incredibly out of touch in an era when mass shootings are the norm.

On water bottles or computers, it’s not unusual to see Disney characters or Rock band names. Those are harmless. But, like those edgy bumper stickers, what about the ones that might step over the line? While working in a coffee shop on the campus where I used to teach, I regularly noticed laptops with middle-finger stickers on the lids. There was also one that showed two stick-figures performing intercourse. For me, this was all minor stuff. It was a college campus; students always push the envelope. But for some these might have been too much.

Still, in the end, it comes down to free speech, doesn’t it? I wonder though, when we will reach the limit; when will we just want everyone to shut up.

***

Once inside the park’s entrance, in the east lot, I notice a single car at the far end of the line of parking spaces. On the car’s rear panel is a single decal:

I Love Trees.

That seemed about right.

---

Photo 1: The Daily Drive

Photo 2: Inga Seliverstova