, Research Paper
Lauren Moore
Sociology
January 24th 2001
Paper topic #1
“Let Your Car Speak for You”
What does your car say about you? The colors, size and type of car all reflect how people driving, vision others as a people. Bumper stickers are a way individuals show particular sides of who they are. Bumper stickers can range from humor, politics, sexual orientations, gender, or personal information, such as school , nationality or location.
Over the last week I have seen bumper stickers that associate individuals with different organizations and clubs, such as N.R.A. The National Rifle Association. Another sticker told people that the person driving the car was a Vietnam Veteran. These types of bumper stickers show what type of group this person is around or associated themselves with. In some cases this is not a good idea of what the person is like, and can give off a wrong impression. Other times bumper stickers give off a good impression, such as religious People choose these bumper stickers because they are proud of or environmental stickers. what they have done with their lives or want to allow people to see what group they belong to. “My Child was Student of the Month at….. School, ” it’s always a good impression and would tend to show that the parents enjoy and are very proud or their child(ren). However I also Saw a bumper sticker which said, “My child beat up your honor roll student,” Which is intended for humor but if looked at seriously, may not be taken all that well by other people who see this bumper sticker.
Most bumper sticker which I have come across have all dealt particularly on a humorous base. One sticker read, “You’re just jealous because the voices talk to me. ” This is a very funny bumper sticker and hopefully was not meant to be taken literally. Others have read, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” “I want to be barbie, that bitch has everything,” “This is what a goddess looks like,” and “Mean people suck, nice people swallow and cool people let them.” These bumper stickers are all meant to be taken in a jokingly way and show people that they have a great sense of humor, a dirty mind, or perhaps they are bumptious people whom truly believe they do look like a goddess. Mostly these bumper sticker are meant to catch the attention of other drivers and create different reactions.
Military stickers can be honorable and represent, hard work, pride, and dedication to ones country or discipline. Marines, Army, and the Navy, all have stickers which can be applied to cars so people ca
to others.
Proud parents display art work on their refrigerators and at their jobs, and in other cases they display bumper stickers which display the name of the school their child attends and what their child accomplished while attending that school. Some scholarly bumper stickers are simply college bumpers tickers which show some one is an alumni, or presently attending a particular college. This can be a symbol of pride dealing with intelligence, sports and sometimes just showing competitive people that they attend or attended a high class school and received a great education.
Nationality is also a common bumper sticker which I saw placed on cars. This is also a sense of pride and heritage, and in some cases a procedure for allowing others to see what type of person(s) they are dealing with customs.
Radio station bumper stickers show advertisement and what type of music a person enjoys. This may show some portion of who they are but not a lot about inner personality. Radio stations are focused some what on age groups, so radio station stickers could show an approximate age group.
Environmental stickers were also a very popular number for cars. Environmental protection for air, water and animals were all very common. People whom tend to feel very strongly bout the health of planet try to inform and remind people about what pollution and humans are doing to out natural environment.
Another type of bumper stickers I saw were political stickers . Political stickers represented who a person voted for and what voting class they’re included in, Republican or Democrat. If a person reading the bumper sticker is well informed about politics then they may know more about the person than other, because certain political parties agree differently with intense subject matters.
Bumper stickers colorful, plain, simple, and wordy all have meanings and represent part of a person whether it’s desired or not. However society tends to judge based on simple details such as bumpers stickers and car style to determine what kind of person another may be. each bumpers ticker even if meant for humor can offend sensitive people, and serious bumper stickers can even upset some body else creating a false impression of who the driver or owner of the car is.