The topic of local visual culture that I have explored for my final project is the relatively new phenomenon of university student personal computer decoration.

 

I’d like to demonstrate how these laptops not only display and relate to the students’ individuality and identity, but is also participating in a new form of counterculture, as many laptops are like miniature billboards for students to express political activism.

 

There is also the act itself of “tainting” an expensive digital object with “unprofessional” decoration and rebelling against the impersonal, going against uniformity of the mass-produced design from a large company like Apple and turning it into something unique and personalized.

 

When looking around USC's campus, laptop stickers have exploded in popularity. They seem to be a huge part of the current university culture, and are a unique new way of self-expression for students. While USC is only a small component of the greater Los Angeles area, I think it serves as an observable microcosm for the city as a whole and what campaigns, popular culture, causes, philanthropies, and interests that the young people of this city participate with on a daily basis.  

 

I think there is a lot of importance in documenting this trend, and that it is going to be seen as a big part of the college culture of the 2010’s and 20’s, and I’m not sure how long this trend will stay around for, or what else it might lead to, as corporations are notorious for co-opting messages of resistance, such as how “Modern feminism was co-opted by the market almost as soon as it was born” (Zeiser, 4).  

 

Students use stickers as a type of counter cultural engagement, to put a personal touch on a product that is meant to look sleek, simplistic, and impersonal. They also put on display what these students want someone to take away about their interests and personalities at first glance. Stickers are both a commitment, as well as a public statement, much like a miniature billboard, and it curates a visual identity, or instant “persona”. I also believe this exercise was beneficial in capturing a specific place and time: by looking at this sample we can get a good gauge of hot topics and important political issues in current times. “Whether the sticker elicits admiration or ire, “your” reaction to “my” [bumper] sticker helps “me” define who “I” am.” (Nicholson).

 

Here’s a visual and exhaustive list of all the activist messages on the laptops I photographed for this project, and I think showcasing university students involvement with certain political opinions is not only important but also archival, as we are living through a particular politically charged moment in time.

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Using stickers on expensive personal property is nothing new. Take the bumper sticker, for example. This type of decoration shares many similarities to the laptop sticker, as a cheapening aspect that is also a commitment because of the difficulty of removal. The bumper sticker is similarly on display for all to see, and bumper stickers once again carry a connotation of youthfulness and unprofessionalism, as unprofessionalism has always been a sign as going against the “mainstream” or sticking up to the “man” of the corporate world.  Not to mention that a large sample of the students that I photographed either intentionally, or unintentionally, cover up the Apple logo that is the one large symbol on the back of the empty computer. Of the 81 computers I collected for this project, 25 logos were covered by stickers (about 30%).

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Sometimes it is used creatively, such as a student who used the glow from the apple to shine through the eyes of a lion decal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For others, it seems like the student is covering up the apple with something that they personally hold to be more important: such as the students with lone “SC” or “Nasa” decals, that cover up the apple logo.

 

Instead of protesting war in Vietnam, the youth are now calling for Peace in the Middle East. While older generations focused on the women’s liberation movement and civil rights, now there’s a focus on intersectional feminism, marriage equality, diversity, and call an end to police brutality.  While these students wore pins on their clothing, we’ve transitioned to the laptop sticker as "the new pin". The more things change, the more they stay the same (Edwards).

 

However, the presence of these stickers could be read into in multiple ways, some that are not counter cultural at all but take advantage of laptops as a new type of “ad space” to promote products. For example, a few of the students explained that they did not actively seek out stickers to put on their property, but since they were handed one they stuck it to their laptops: this includes a winking lemon from Hubert’s Lemonade (which is a company that frequents campus to hand out free drink samples and, you guessed it, stickers).

 

Another student blurted out as I took the picture:

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“You know, I don’t actually like Rockstar. I don’t ever drink it. I don’t really know why I put it on there.”

 

But it was on his laptop because the sticker was handed to him by a promoter, and the bright yellow and star shape of the sticker might have looked decorative and eye-catching enough to stick on his property.

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In Stick This! Using Promotional Stickers to Build Identity, Create Word-of-Mouth and Grow Sales, Nicholson claims that there is “simply no better marketing than the marketing done by your “fans”. These are the people putting a promotional sticker on their car or computer. They are the “Badgers”- proud and willing to wear the badge of a band, location, product they love or idea they agree with.”

 

While we read about the helpless nature of the “captive audience” that exposed to and are forced to watch or listen to advertisements due to circumstance, such as while commuting (Rosewarne), these laptops are not really seen as a mode of “advertising” at all.  Ken Chitwood explains: “It is not interruptive advertising, it’s an endorsement of the highest degree. With personal decoration and other markers, humans today continue to trademark their territory so that others know what is theirs and how they identify their own.”

 

Since the “base” of these computers are a standard rectangular shape, I have displayed them in a type of grid layout on the "Main" page to emphasize the stark uniformity of the shape of the computers put in contrast with the expressive and individualistic nature of the stickers and decorations, adorning these computers like barnacles of interest and identity. Can you imagine with the grid might look like if all of them were bare?

 

USC has students from many different places and a variety of interests that they often use their laptops as a type of bulletin board to display their interests and express themselves, to develop an at-a-glance persona. No one told them to do this, nor has it been urged or pressured by the Media, but it developed organically through college culture and trends.

 

This is an important segment of Los Angeles visual culture, because USC is an important fixture and micro-community within the greater city that brings in students from all around the US and globe, which diversifies Los Angeles as a whole.

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Works Cited

 

Chitwood, Ken. “Bumper-Sticker religion: our very human need for identity.” Houston Chronicle, 29 Mar. 2012, www.chron.com/life/houston-belief/article/Bumper-sticker-religion-our-very-human-need-for-3445350.php.

 

Edwards, H.H. “The Second Coming Of The Hippie Counterculture.” Theculturetrip.com, The Culture Trip Ltd, 17 Oct. 2015, theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/the-second-coming-of-the-hippie-counterculture/.

 

Gudis, Catherine (2004). “Conclusion: The Road Ahead” in Buyways: Billboards, Automobiles, and the American Landscape (pp. 231-246).

 

Lieberman, Henry. “Review: From Whole Earth to the World Web.” Science, New Series, Vol. 315, No. 5817 , 12 Oct. 2017, www.jstor.org.libproxy2.usc.edu/stable/pdf/20035731.pdf.

 

Nicholson, Jeff. Stick This!: Using Promotional Stickers to Build Identity, Create Word-Of-Mouth and Grow Sales. BookBaby, 2014.

 

Rosewarne, Lauren (2007). “Advertising and Public Space” in Sex in Public: Women, Outdoor Advertising and Public Policy (pp. 9-31).

 

Zeiser, Andi (2016). “The Corridors of Empower” in We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement (pp. 3-28).

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