Act: Putting band stickers on your car

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CRAP or NOT CRAP: The act of putting band stickers on your car. Hell, I guess any stickers apply here, really. I'm curious about popular opinion on this one for some reason.

I'm thinkin' NOT CRAP if it isn't excessive.

[steve]

On your car, crap. In the tollbooth bucket? Not Crap! Who needs a "street team" when you have the Interstate working for you?

[Christopher]

If done tastefully - Not Crap.
As a moving billboard to advertise your personality - CRAP.

Since it seems to rarely be done tastefully, i'll vote CRAP.

I can definitely appreciate band stickers put in strange, unexpected places. I put one of my own band stickers on the outside of the Eiffel Tower, from the second floor. You'd need binoculars to even see it, but just knowing it's there cracks me up. I hear they paint it every few years or so...

Strangely, i've been seeing more and more band stickers appear on the inside of urinals and toilet bowls. That takes a commitment i will never have.

[thedonk]

unless your car is a total reeking abortion disaster heap, stickers make it look cheaper. even if it's your friend's band, stickers on cars = crap.

[Chris Hardings]

I thought band stickers on cars was crap. Until I saw someone with a Ted Nugent sticker beside a NRA sticker, just under a "stay-home dad" sticker. I then realized i like bumper stickers on cars because they are a warning that whoever it is that drives this car, should be completely avoided at all costs.

[Chris G]

I thought band stickers on cars was crap. Until I saw someone with a Ted Nugent sticker beside a NRA sticker, just under a "stay-home dad" sticker. I then realized i like bumper stickers on cars because they are a warning that whoever it is that drives this car, should be completely avoided at all costs.

Totally. Band stickers on my car are CRAP. Band stickers on others' cars are NOT CRAP because they serve as a clarion call, a shouted warning, a bright glowing neon sign that the occupant is NOT MY KIND OF PEOPLE.

Worst. Stickers. Ever.:

Jeebus fish next to Rusted Root and Amy Grant.

Dokken (!) next to Calvin pissing on Ford (or Chevy? can't remember.)

QUESTION AUTHORITY on a Lincoln Town Car with diplomatic plates.

[Mayfair]

I like band stickers on your van when you are on tour. I think it is funny to beg someone to rip off your stuff while you are sleeping.

Best sticker for this (as it is also best T-shirt design to let people know you are in a band: "Zildgian"...it's a classic. Better than walking around a club with your drum sticks in your back pocket.)

[aaron]

QUESTION AUTHORITY on a Lincoln Town Car with diplomatic plates.

that's funny.

calvin pissing on "NAACP"
calvin pissing on "morrissey"
calvin pissing on an extremely intricate die-cut vinyl likeness of osama bin laden
calvin pissing on calvin pissing
kneeling calvin praying in front of a cross
"burzum"
"look in too the eyes of a player" across front windshield

[geiginni]

I'd like to go around town placing "Live simply, so that others may simply live" stickers on the bumpers of Hummers and H2's that I see....

Oh, the Irony

I did see a "Sierra Club" sticker on a Ford Expedition once, I shit you not.

[geiginni]

Oh Yeah,

Band stickers on your car = CRAP

Except maybe a "Harmonicats" or "Ray Coniff" sticker on some old guy's Cadillac, then = NOT CRAP

[volthause]

the only band sticker i have on my car is for my band : NOT CRAP

stickers on cars of bands you know the occupants have never seen play : CRAP

[Maurice]

Is there a band named NOT CRAP? Surely there has to be. I fear, however, that that band's sticker on one's car would be, alas, CRAP.

[Tom]

On your car, crap. In the tollbooth bucket? Not Crap! Who needs a "street team" when you have the Interstate working for you?

I second that. I think its neat to think of fancy business types seeing the same scrotum grinder sticker that I do.

In high school, I used to put band stickers on my car to cover up dents so my dad wouldn't get pissed off that I was fucking that shit up.

led to some mighty weird placements.

[toomanyhelicopters]

i had maybe five or six stickers on the rear bumper of my old '92 blazer. it was a low bumper, and it was tastefully done. Washington Social Club, Gist... one of the stickers was a Divot sticker. one of the stickers was a Merge sticker. if even one person who likes as many Merge albums as i do saw that Divot sticker, found out about Divot records, and bought a Haymarket album or a Tekulvi album, then i'm very much glad to have been a part of that.

stickers all the fuck over the place, covering the whole back end, the windows, all over... i like to look at that, i find that very amusing. but i would never do that to my vehicle. i think the bumper stickers need to remain few, and focused. increasing general john public's awareness of something small and good (like Divot) is whati like to see bumper stickers used for. having 50 stickers to show off that you like the misfits and metallica and chevy rather than ford, and you love the NRA, etc, yeah, fuck a lotta that.

[sndo]

as far as devaluing your car by putting stickers on it, i don't think that's possible in my case. in fact, if the stickers cost say, $10, that would probably increase the re-sale value by about 20%. my car doesn't have stickers, but we made a stencil of a pentagram with "666" around it and used spray paint to let eveyone know that i have pledged allegiance with the devil. nah, just kidding, we couldn't think of what to put on the car so we just came up with that in a hurry. it's still funnier than nothing on my rust bucket at all.
on top there's a target and on the other side it says "sorry" just in case i forget to signal or i cut someone off.

[Christopher]

Nothing really to do with stickers on cars, but...

My first car was an '85 Caprice that I bought from a friend for - I'm not kidding - $150. It ran fine, but he just wanted rid of it. The catch was, it needed a new windshield and the whole outside of the car was pretty dented and scratched and generally fucked up...which I thought was great. My plan was to make the exterior of the car as junky and torn up as possible, and then make the interior really nice and comfortable. My friends and I had plenty of fun kicking huge dents in the doors and scratching our names into the paint and such. I remember one time, in a supermarket parking lot, I was scratching the word "DOOR" onto the driverside door, and this White Hat Frat Boy Hero walks up and starts angrily asking, "Hey - whatta you think you're doin' to that car!?!" And I told him exactly what I was doing, and that it was MY car, and continued carving. He walked away with the most puzzled, frustrated look on his face. It was great.

Man, I miss that car.

[capnreverb]

I put a Chicago sticker on my car. I like it. If someone can find me a Shellac sticker i will put it next to it. Then I will be done w/ car stickers. Most band stickers on cars are dumb becuase it looks like the car owner is advertising how cool they are by the bands they like (usually tool, or a bunch of stupid punk bands). I know Chicago is cool. So am I. You need a Chicago sticker on your car. Go for it. You will be cool too. Join me. We will be one.

[Chris G]

Way back in my youth, when those "MEAN PEOPLE SUCK" stickers were new, I snuck up to someone's car, neatly razored the SUCK off, and reapplied it above the MEAN so that it read

SUCK
MEAN
PEOPLE

And it looked stock, too. Dig it.

Also, when Dole was running for president, I X-Actoed a bunch of that guy's stickers to say OLD, with the missing "D" covering the "E."

Tee hee! I'm so naughty!

[Razor21]

I liken it to getting a tattoo of a looney toons character on you back because you think that character embodies your own perception of yourself.

You decide whether or not that's Crap...

[patrick md]

While I generally think band stickers on cars are complete crap, I have to admit I have a sticker of my college radio station on the back of my car. (The one and forever ONLY sticker on my car.) Over five and half years I've poured more blood, sweat, and tears into that place and spent far more time there than I ever did in class. What I learned in class in college was minimal, but what I picked up at the station in terms of engineering, the music business, and how to fix somethin' electronic when it done broke was one hell of an education and so I'm pretty proud to have it there.