Laptops with Stickers

The problem is that a lot of that has been ruined by corporate cringe and "weird funny stuff" is no longer weird and funny, especially when you have a bunch of influencers trying to either monetise it, sanitise it and/or attach their personal brand to it.

e.g. One of the biggest people that does Debian content, does a bunch of absolute cringe behaviour associated with them where I almost want to die of second hand embarrassment.

Actual LOL for that comment. Thank you.

They won't give a shit about your political opinions as long as it's one of those in the linked gallery of corporate-friendly pre-approved ones.

Anything right of center and suddenly people start caring very much.

Well, nobody cares about you're views about stickers and tattoos, but you still commented. Compared to you though, nobody here called you a retard; maybe that says something about how people are here or how you tend to use inflammatory language when it's not needed.

Stickers all the way down.

Are they really that funny though? While I appreciate that it is subjective, they are often only vaguely funny.

More often or not a lot of the supposed humour is a thin veneer over some sort of political or quasi-political messaging. You can even see in the screenshots that most of it is either political, product placement or some people tech stack.

But you can also use them as a reminder of how you felt/who you were when you got them.

Even someone who get a very trendy tattoo should keep it: "look how I used to follow every trend and how I evolved because I would never do something like that now".

Biologically and philosophically, tattoos are scars.

What about the appreciation of nature?

There’s also the problem with both most tattoos and all the stickers in the article that there’s nothing left that’s counter-cultural about them, which defeats the entire purpose of doing something edgy as a statement.

I get this, but thankfully the regrettable tattoos I got back in the day were small/simple enough to hide under cover-ups. My former tattoos were drug-related, but these days, they're all themed with the retrovideo games I still love play, especially when I need a breather from everything else.

As a result, I am that guy that tells people a few rules about tattoos:

1. Don't get a tattoo of a band. They will eventually fall out of favor or do something stupid.

2. Don't get a tattoo of any person unless they've been dead for a long, long time. Like a band, a person will also eventually fall out of favor or do something stupid. Even after they're dead, it may still be uncovered that they did something stupid in secret.

3. Don't make your self-expression about other people. Rules 1 and 2 should have already put you on this path.

4. Consider time. So you like cars, especially the 1987 Pontiac Firebird you had in high school. Have you always liked cars? Will you always like cars? Have you and will you always like that car? If there is doubt, rule it out.

5. Are you drunk or high? Best sleep on it.

6. Can you be honest with yourself? This is the Catch 22 question, but an important one. We tend to have a few versions of ourselves to contend with; the one we want to be, the one others perceive us as, and the one we need to be. Sometimes they align, sometimes they don't, but self-expression hinges on understanding the difference and allowing that we might be deceiving ourselves about who we really are, sometimes.

Getting a tattoo is a remarkably difficult and personal thing that I see a lot of people not take seriously enough, then live to regret it, myself included. The artist who has now done all my visible work is an absolute master at getting people to slow down and think about what they want, which was a terrific boon in my life, because he probably did more for me as a person than my therapist did. His clients are life-long, one even having traveled from another country to get more work done by him. That's to say nothing of his absolutely radical art and style that always produces something unique and fit for the person to make part of their lives.

It's something I often think about when I look down at my arms, see those old game homages and realize, regardless of what else has happened in my life or whoever I thought I was at the time, they have been with me since the beginning and are still here, helping me through it.

Removing a sticker is easier than getting rid of a tattoo. Some people on this website even declare that they wear a chastity device on their laptop stickers: https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_9217-2.jpe...

I have one on my laptop that says "Fuck Your Algorithm." It's like a fine wine that gets more potent by the week, but it's about as political as my stickers get. The rest are just cool art I enjoy, usually from artists I meet at street fairs and whatnot, since it's an easy way to throw them a few supportive bucks without breaking my own wallet.

Saying they don't age well is pretty generalizing, given the variety of ways one can express themselves with stickers that aren't necessarily topical or political.

Theres better ways to choose stickers. Make them yourself and it's extremely unlikely you'll ever be at odds with that artist ;). Pretty art or ubiquitous fun phrases generally also don't really go bad, unless it's so tied to a specific artist that it represents them too.