Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Bumper Stickers

I've decided I don't really care for bumper stickers or any sort of sticker people put in their windows or frames that go around license plates. Mainly because I feel like they are usually one of 3 things: some sort of advertisement, some statement that makes a jab at some one else or a group of people, or some lame shot at humor. On occasion you will see that random bumper sticker that is kind of funny but those ones don't ever seem to be mass distributed. The ones that are all over the place are usually the crappy ones.

Over the next few days pay attention to what you see on cars and let us know if you see any good ones. You can also point out some of the bad ones too.

Here's some of the typical ones I see that I'm tired of, if you have one of these don't take it too personally that I don't like one of your car decorations.

Anything related to the Skin Industries brand - these are the window stickers that outline girl devils and what not.

NOTW - the not of this world window stickers can be very ellaborate but I think it's kind of an odd message to give everyone driving behind you. Most people probably don't know what it means.

Any "I'd rather be..." license plate frames. Quite frankly I don't really care and it is usually stuff I could guess anyway considering most people would rather be doing anything than driving around town.

Political stickers - I don't need to know who people voted for 12 years ago, "Clinton/Gore" is really no longer a valid sticker.

Social Issue statements - When you put these on your car, are you really doing that much to improve the issue? Do people really make an effort to save the dolphins because it said to on your car. Or do I have the power to legalize marijuana and I was just waiting for your bumper to tell me to do it?

Bands - what's funny about a lot of these is if you read it and you've never heard of the band, chances are you don't realize its a band name you are reading.

Honda Sticker - When you're driving a Honda Civic it doesn't seem necessary to put a big sticker in the window that says "Honda"

Calvin - I'm almost curious with this one of what all people can portray calvin doing, and where is Hobbes in these illustrations?

This list is getting long so here's all the rest: Honor Student/Student of the month, Any sort of ribbon sticker that tells people to do something like support our troops, pencil sketches of your family members with their names on them, old harvest crusade stickers, in memory of window decals.

I hope I don't anger any of you too much with these!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh - you did mention it toward the end ... the stick figure family! I used to think this was funny - but now I kind of like them. I like seeing the car, and then knowing who they have in their family who rides around in that car! I know - it is weird! But I was even considering it and wondering if I should ad Macy, our cat. Who does not ride in the car with us, but is part of the family! If I do get it, then I will always lead when we caravan somewhere so you can be behind us and look at it!

Anonymous said...

Bumper stickers that say my other car is... are funny and if my other car were something cool I'd be driving it.
I think there should be a fine when the bumper sticker is out dated, like political statements of
who you are voting for, or stop the war in some country that does not even exist any more or the war has been over for years.
I think the "I Found it" bumper stickers are funny. It makes me think they found the car they are driving.

Rosebud Organics said...

Hmmm, what category would you put "pray for our troops" in?
:)

Anonymous said...

I think the idea of band bumper stickers is to add credence to yourself. In other words "I've got a U2 sticker, U2 is cool; therefore, I am cool,listen to everything I say. So when I say, 'free Tibet?' or 'kill your TV' you must listen to me. Remeber, I like U2?"

Anonymous said...

Incidentlly, I think you should both free Tibet and kill your TV; and, I like U2.

MillerTime said...

Thanks for your comments everyone. It sounds like maybe you all love bumper stickers so I'll be sure to keep that in mind as your birthday's come around.

Nate - I agree that there is probably a belief that associating with "cool" things will make that person seem cool as well. What's kind of funny is I don't think I've ever thought hey that person listens to NOFX they must be pretty cool.

Rosebud - I would say I don't see the purpose of displaying a sticker that says "pray for our troops". I would say a lot of times those stickers are being used in the same way band stickers are, like Nate pointed out. People want to be thought of as a good person and a sticker like that is an effort to send that message to people, and it only costs a couple bucks.

I have more thoughts on the "pray for our troops" sticker but I'd first like to hear if it is a sticker you really like and display on your car, or is it one you don't like and if so why?

Anonymous said...

I'm not convinced the bumper is necessarily the ideal venue of expressing opinions. Although it might be a good reminder for us to pray for our troops everytime we see one of those stickers. (I think maybe I'll try that)

I remember being in a buddy's car once while he was getting pulled over for speeding some twenty miles over the limit. The cop saw a USMC sticker on his back window, asked a couple questions, and then let him off 'cause my buddy's brother was a marine. (apparently the cop was a retired marine as well)

Another time I was driving back from a show we played at a brew pub. The driver apparently had been drinking quite a bit although none of us knew it. We got pulled over a block from the pub. My drunk friend was a fire fighter and had a sticker in his window to prove it so the cop let him off without even asking him if he'd been drinking (although the entire truck reeked of booze).

Anonymous said...

How you would perform a reverse license plate owner look up? I have to know if there's any type of way you can type in a license plate number via the internet and see the name of that guy if it belongs to or perhaps the address of that person. Can anybody help me? It is an Illinois plate with S at the end of it. Please email me if you can investigate or post if you know easy methods to do a totally free one. Thanks very much.