The Wit’s Guide to Bumper Stickers
Or, if you can, read this
Who are the New Bumper Sticker People and what do they want from us? This is the sort of thought that bubbles up when I’m sitting in traffic and recognize a line from a Mary Oliver poem on the Honda Civic in front of me:
These are the new bumper stickers: Inside jokes on the outside of vehicles. Max Read, author of the deeply internetty newsletter Read Max, noticed this resurgence last month, writing that “your stick-figure families and candidate names have been joined by a certain previously unseen category of highly ironized, hiply obscure, ‘internet humor’-ish sticker, generally applied to cars owned by people who you would not have in more recent decades thought of as ‘bumper sticker people.”
Hence the New Bumper Sticker People (hereafter, NBSPs). Surely they’re not the same bumper sticker people of 15 years ago, when social psychologists found adhesive slogans to be “significant predictors of aggressive driving.” (Glad they got that study in just before the replicability crisis hit.) Which explains this comedian’s riff of that era:
“A lot of people don’t like bumper stickers. I don’t mind bumper stickers. To me a bumper sticker is a shortcut. It’s like a little sign that says ‘Hey, let’s never hang out.’”
― Demetri Martin
Now, though, the NBSPs seem like exactly the sort of super chill kids that Martin would want to hang with. The gateway drug for this group was the Keep Honking sticker as seen below:
According to a 2022 GQ article on this particular fender mindbender, Los Angeles artist Christopher DeLoach saw the classic “Keep Honking, I’m Listening to Jazz” bumper sticker and decided to improve upon it. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (and OG NBSP) wanted one, and a very minor cult classic was born.
Now, Read writes, if you’re regularly seeing these stickers, you probably live “in and adjacent to those graphic designer-type neighborhoods,” which I certainly do! Hence these locally spotted examples:
Why, I myself may be a NBSP, as I’ve been inspired to create my own version as promotional items for my sister-in-law’s folk music festivals as follows:
Though this year, recognizing that the Montreal folk dance set leaned more toward two-wheel transportation, I went with bilingual bicycle stickers:
As keepers of the Alice Coltrane flame, The New Bumper Sticker People often have deeply held and proudly esoteric musical beliefs. The finer the print needed to explain, the better.
Though the bumper sticker renaissance may not have started in Toronto, I’d posit that our graphic designer types are creating some of the most admirable adhesives out there on the general theme of joyful mortality. The design brand NO FUN makes this wonderfully bleak example that lives up to their name:
While Evan Doherty of the website arcanebullshit.com, is responsible for several of my faves:
Why, though? Why bumper stickers, again? My theory is it has something to do with inflation: The last time cars were festooned with such esoteric self-expression was the late 1970s and early 1980s, when inflation last hit historic highs. It’s the economy? Stupid? Honk if you agree! Or not! I can’t hear you! But do enjoy this absolute all-time classic:
ReccoMention
If the new bumper stickers are filled with way too many words to read on the highway, let me suggest a palate cleanser by way of this week’s ReccoMention, a brilliant collection of mostly wordless wit:
Riposte Card
It’s June, so I can hereby officially announce that our Riposte Card artist for this month is Jason Logan, the famed Toronto artist known to The New York Times as The Wizard of Ink. The quip he chose to illustrate and the gorgeous design has already been mailed to founding subscribers and will be revealed to the rest of youse in weeks to come! In the meantime, check out his
newsletter.Quote Vote
“There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.”
― Charles M. Schulz
There’s also a difference between Peanuts the cartoon and Peanuts the legume. Anyway, on to next week, which will be …
Content warning: Get Wit Quick No. 257 was waaaay more cultural anthropology than usual. Don’t get too excited because I’ll likely be back to my dusty old nonsense next week. I brake for format breaks. All of the above photos are © me, except the Boy Genius one, which was peeped by Loyal Reader Blake on a Stereogum comments thread. My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting can be taped to the fender if that’s your thing. I honk for ❤️s, and vice versa.
I loved this. I seldom are out in a car, and when I am, so was totally unaware of this new fad, but I also can't help but wonder it also reflects how bad traffic has become, forcing people to stare at the rear bumpers of cars.