Bumperstickers and Brand Me

I saw and old beat up car on I-75 North recently and it was covered with bumper stickers. One said “PEACE.” Not a bad sentiment. You can’t really argue with peace. Where ever possible I think peace is good. There were several others about free trade and various other slogans and ideologies but one in particular stuck in my mind.

It said “MEAN PEOPLE SUCK.” Hmmmmmm, I suppose mean people are not all that great. I’d even go so far as to say I’m not for hanging out with mean people. I’m just not one hundred percent sold on putting a “MEAN PEOPLE SUCK” sticker on my car.

I gave it some thought and the more I thought the more I disliked the bumper sticker. I disliked it to the point where I was really soured on the whole deal.

I wanted to get a bumper sticker that said “PEOPLE WHO HAVE BUMPER STICKERS THAT SAY MEAN PEOPLE SUCK ARE THE REAL PEOPLE WHO SUCK.” I’d need a really wide car though. (Does AMC still make the Pacer?)

Maybe mine could say “MAMASED YOU’RE NOT SPOSED TO SAY SUCK.” That would probably be a better bumper sticker. If you don’t know about the great philosopher Mamased be sure to read my note about The Unheralded Philosopher.

The funny thing is, we all do things to define ourselves, things to make our “brand me” stand out from the crowd in some small way. It could be as small as a “Jesus Fish” on the back of a car or a “soccer mom” sticker on the rear door of a minivan.

Many people get tattoos to stand out, to make a statement. In fact, it seems so many people are tattooed these days you can almost stand out more by not sporting any ink. Whatever floats your boat as far as tats go is fine by me.

If it is an ear ring or a particular hair style or maybe it is facial hair in a very conservative work place but we all have our little thing we do.

We all want to make a little “me” statement. We want to make our mark on life. To say we were here. We need to prove if only to ourselves that we existed, we mattered, if only in a very small way.

I wonder what my little “me” statement is? What’s the brand me? Hmmmmmmm.