I've had my eye on this pack of stickers for my next laptop upgrade: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1133836260/cursed-programming-s...
(the joke here is that all of the tech has the wrong logo, ie the javascript sticker has a java logo, the vscode sticker has a vim logo, etc)
It's actually kind of concerning how these just look normal at first glance
I would get these if they were all OSS alternative logos with the paid names.
I feel like the GitHub one needs an inverse GitLab one. Otherwise it might look like you just have a GitLab logo and GitHub text logo separately.
I think of GitHub more with the octo cat logo (couldn't find a good link for it, and didn't want to hug anyone too hard, so no link), or their current logo: https://github.githubassets.com/assets/GitHub-Mark-ea2971cee... and not so much the stylized words GitHub.
This is incredible
This is awesome
So, you just like pissing people off?
I certainly do like being able to quickly categorize people into groups of those who can find humor in such stickers, and those who will get angry over them. Seems pretty useful in determining whether or not I would want to continue engaging with them :)
Unfortunately it's hard to tell at a glance whether it's a joke or the owner is extremely incompetent (though a quick conversation should reveal that)
Like the 5 people that downvoted my question.
> Your real middle class refuses to show any but the most bland books and magazines on its coffee tables: otherwise, expressions of opinion, awkward questions, or even ideas might result. -Paul Fussell, Class
The greyification of our lives, the loss of whimsy and kitsch and being too afraid to be a little cringe, I get the sense that a lot of people associate "growing up" as the loss of any and all expression: we wake up in our grey beds in our millennial grey house, drive to work in our grey car to work in our grey cubical, etc, etc. If you want a gauche laptop covered in stickers, do it, embrace the gauche. Everyone sneering at you is more miserable than you.
It has nothing to do with that.
A good portion of these stickers are to do with things that are political or quasi political. What tends to happen is that a lot if times people have been burned in someway for supporting an idea or a cause. This is often because people have been fooled by charlatan, or it was later revealed that things were more complicated or different than they were led to believe.
Cringe and why people hate it is best explained by watching the very first episode of the UK office.
Most people want to go to work, turn up and do their time and go home. People that are often top enthusiastic are difficult to deal with day to day. People that adorn their personal possessions with slogans are seen as a warning sign.
I think it's more a very lame flex. Macbooks were expensive and if you were walking around the office with a Macbook it was because you were important enough to convince management to buy you one instead of some crappy Dell. Eventually enough people get Macbooks that you need another way to stand out so you slap a bunch of cheap stickers all over it to show everyone, "See, you coddle your trophies. I beat mine up because it's just a tool and I don't care. I'm too busy gettin' it done!"
My work devices don't have much on them, mostly corporate asset tags and the like. My own, though, I make my own. The stickers reflect things I like or find amusing; maybe they'll get a smirk or a chuckle from someone else, maybe not.
In the end, they're like the tattoos that someone else commented on. (I have those as well.) If you appreciate them, great! If you don't like them, that's fine too. Fundamentally, they're not for you.
You so perfectly verbalized the semiotics behind those stickers.
NASCAR for nerds :)
Stickers on my laptop make it easy to see if anyone's making off with it.
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> sacred knowledge?
I think you might be romanticizing this, a bit. When you convince the public that not talking about something is the best course of action, they become a lot easier to control. We learned this during WWII with the propaganda machine that was fully employed on all fronts, and arguably before that with the work of Edward Bernays and people like him. If public discourse and debate could be quashed, then it was much, much easier to simply tell everyone what their opinions of a thing should be.
Where do I say not to talk about it?
I think that on its face the term "sacred knowledge" kind of communicates an intimacy that indicates that it's not something that's shared with people who don't have a privileged relationship with you.
I think the big difference now is that people have a megaphone in the form of social media and they forget just how wide the statements they shout through it can spread.
Prior to secret ballots being a thing you would have voted "viva voce" by saying your preference aloud. Violence and intimidation were common.
There's no problem with publicly engaging in politics. In fact, it's a great thing to do.
What is a problem is doing it on an environment where participation is mandatory or required for basic survival.
I think generally people are I'll equipped to engage publicly in politics. Politics is an extremely dirty game and can be extremely divisive.
My friends are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. Strangers usually only offer shallow ridicule and trolling- especially online.
But why so many stickers? Why so many tattoos? Why not pick one you very much like and agree with? Less noise. More signal. Less is more.
I don't like many of the ones mentioned on this website but here are some minimalist examples [1] [2] [3] [4] and an exception I do like a bit because of the custom shape [5]. [1] is more like a skin.
[1] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/20250221_00333...
[2] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/laptop_cover.j...
[3] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_1259.jpg
[4] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_5753.JPG
[5] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/54917193947_1f...
> But why so many stickers?
I 'unno, it's fun I guess?
I see a sticker I like somewhere, brain goes 'heh, neat' and so I put it on my laptop with the other stickers. There's not much more to it.
My stickers will one day have layers as I stack them again and again. Anthropologists of the future will be able to trace my beliefs, humor, and tech stack from my laptop lid alone, adding to the corpus of knowlege for tech workers in the late american period.
Why? Because your aesthetic taste is not universal.
Well, you cant argue about taste.
I happen to heartily agree with you but now we're talking taste and... yeah.
Thank you. I have tried to raise my daughters that way despite, potentially, (occasionally) embarrassing myself or the family.
God, I can't stand living in an artless world.
I feel like this direction of thinking is also a bit reductionist: there are plenty of reasons not to want to put stickers on a laptop. For me, personally, I don't like stickers because a year or two later, they don't represent how I think anymore. It's not an expression I would make today, it's a ghost of my old expressions.
And I feel like this greyification is only true in theory from the perspective of the manufacturers. I still run into plenty of people that are not afraid to decorate their space, laptop, or whatever else.
Greyification actually makes sense precisely because everyone has a different way of expression. That's why canvases are still white; you just have to find a different primer.
"Go ahead on Mr. Businessman You can't dress like me"
Jimmy Hendrix, If 6 was 9.
Has another relevant spoken word bit about waving his freak flag :)
its cringe because its not an original expression, its overdone and heavily political and obnouxious.
I don't judge people who put stickers on their laptop, but for me I don't simply because it brings me no pleasure or joy. I have never really understood decorative things in general. It is probably part of my neurodivergence, but I just don't get value from decorative things.
TBH I think putting stickers on your laptop is a practical imperative, as it makes it much less likely that you'll accidentally grab someone else's.
Not everybody copying a fanciful trend is, themselves, a fanciful independent free thinker.
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I like to view it as living authentically and seizing every opportunity to add a little color or whimsy to the mundan, but to each their own.
Yeah, OP's username seems pretty appropriate
Authenticity is in your heart. Putting stickers onto your laptop, which is the least authentic thing for a software developer to do, makes you just look ridiculous.
Authenticity is behaving in a way that is true to yourself. In this case, putting stickers on a laptop or otherwise decorating it is a form of art and self expression. It’s not complicated or controversial.
I do it because it can be creative and fun. It adds color to an otherwise gray and boring surface and provides a practical way of identifying my laptop from everyone else’s.
When I was in school, we used to cover out textbooks with brown paper bags and then drawn on them. How is this any different?
You seem to have you entire identity tied to the notion of what you think a software developer is and that everyone should conform to that idea. I’d rather have people be creative, embrace fun, and add color and self expression to the world. We could all use more color in our lives.
I'll be honest I think that dying on the hill of "putting stickers on your laptop [...] is the least authentic thing for a software developer to do" makes you look pretty ridiculous.
Doing something, which is so extremely commonplace does not make you unique in any way.
Do you really think something, which is so extremely common among software developers, has the potential to showing your uniqueness.
The hill I will die on is that I despise outward signaling, especially outward signaling of something like "uniqueness".
And yet here you are, signaling to others your uniqueness by saying how much you hate the way that they signal theirs. It's not that deep, man. This sounds like a really tough way to live and I genuinely wish you the best of luck with your vendetta against *checks notes* people expressing themselves with stickers on their laptops.
>And yet here you are, signaling to others your uniqueness by saying how much you hate the way that they signal theirs. It's not that deep, man.
I don't think my opinion is particularly unique and certainly I do it to appear unique.
>This sounds like a really tough way to live
It is much easier, because I do not have to be worried whether people see me as unique.
>I genuinely wish you the best of luck with your vendetta against checks notes people expressing themselves with stickers on their laptops.
Thank you.
My laptop has stickers, one of which is a photo of my previous laptop and its stickers. One of those is a photo of the laptop before that…
That's how git commits work.
Current laptop stickers: current state.
Photo of the previous laptop: reference to previous commit.
I love this... I haven't had the courage to "spend" my sticker collection on my current laptop, as they obviously don't last forever. A solution could be to photograph the old cover, and print it as a full-size sticker as a starting point for the next laptop!
That's how my laptop home directory used to look. A subdirectory with a copy of the prior incarnation's home directory ad infinitum...
I am totally going to do this now. I always hate when I have to leave my old laptop stickers behind and this is such a neat way to keep them around.
Keep it going! I did that to my Facebook pfp (they also have stickers) - after a few years it became this abstract, glitchy work of art. I don’t use fb anymore but still remember that fondly
I didn't go that far, but I did take the back cover from my old (stickered) laptop and hang it on the wall.
Like my primary storage, with the old storage in a sub folder.
There's still a WP51 folder in there somewhere...
Obligatory XKCD
stickerception
Stickers all the way down.
My laptop hasn't had stickers since a CTO asked why mine didn't have any stickers like the ones on the laptops of his cool cloud team. Personally I've found laptop stickers bad taste since then.
It has become less fun since it has become common. My most recent laptop doesn't have stickers but I might apply some from my sizable collection before it becomes secondary laptop in 1-2 years.
You can still "hipster it" and only use actually cool stickers. Community open source projects, hackerspaces, good conferences, EFF and similar organizations, weird funny stuff.
Good:
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/1762135251053-...
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_9222-1.jpe...
"Employee of the month":
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_20200717_2...
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.
From my POV (old?, never on social mass media), you live in a strange world if some influencer has any... influence on your opinion of Debian. I see little to no monetization of "the good stuff".
They don't have any influence about what I think of Debian. What happens though is people outside will associate their (unbearably cringe in this case) behaviour with you, whether you like it or not.
I'm a long-time Debian user and I have no idea who you're talking about. How much weight do they actually carry? Who is this influencer you're talking about?
Go on YouTube, Mastodon or any sort of social media that is bit techy orientated and you will find it easily.
Stop being a clown and just write down the fucking name if you want to complain that badly.
I gave an example of something I remembered from last month. I can't remember the exact name of the account, and I normally block them afterwards or mute them from the feed.
The reason I am complaining about this is I was trying to find some good info to send to a friend. I ended up making my own videos to send to them as I had 3 or 4 different people asking me to show them how to do things on Debian. So I ended up recording how to do it myself.
I will also complain about it in the manner I wish. Since you have no called me a clown, I will now complain about it more vaguely.
I legitimately do not understand this kind of behavior. A: "I have an excellent example that clearly illustrates my point." B: "Great, what is it?" A: "Uhm, if you don't already know, then you're stupid. You can easily find it anywhere."
We're gatekeeping evidence that supports our claims now?
No. I just can't remember who these accounts are because I pretty much insta-block the them from my feed.
The reason I am complaining about this is I was trying to find some good info to send to a friend.
I ended up making my own no-BS videos to send to my friends instead and putting them up on YouTube.
What? I’ve been active frequently on Mastodon since 2018 and I have no idea who or what you’re talking about. A link would be helpful rather than playing the “oh you know who…” game.
There are loads of tech influencers in the Linux space on Youtube and loads of techie platforms. There is various levels of cringe in the Linux space, some of it is honestly embarrassing. If you don't see it already, you are going to tell me it isn't a problem. There isn't one person doing this. There are plenty.
If you won't say who is the person you're talking about, can you at least tell an example of that cringe behavior?
It isn't I won't say. It is I can't remember because I pretty much insta-block it when I see it.
Some notable examples of stuff I've seen in Linux / Tech land the last few months:
- One person was dressed in a furry lizard suit, while compiling gentoo.
- Another person made a song about Debian packages. I thought it was a gag at first.
- Another woman was dressed in a school girl outfit, cat ears and a push up bra (not sure she was Linux stuff, but it was tech).
I am not expecting everyone to be some greybeard in his office but some of it is a bit much and sometimes they have really good info in the video, but the initial impression is so jarring that it will put people off (I had people tell me this).
I actually made my own YouTube channel because I was trying to find decent information to send to someone who was a new Linux user without this BS. I ended up making videos myself detailing how to setup a bunch of stuff up.
> It isn't I won't say. It is I can't remember because I pretty much insta-block it when I see it.
Go to your masto instance and navigate to /blocks to see these users. Or on BlueSky, use clearsky.app.
It's possible to find a breadcrumb for what you're "remembering".
I am mainly talking about YouTube. I mainly lurk on other platforms, but the same people are there.
OK, so check your YouTube watch history?
The point we're making in this thread is that we aren't seeing the same things you are, and it's highly likely that whatever comments you're thinking about are not representative of the kinds of opinions people in tech hold.
I am not going back through months worth of YouTube history to satisfy people have insinuated that I have been lying on a claim that isn't even that controversial. I mainly watch car and canal boats videos these days and don't bother with tech stuff outside of security and home lab bits and pieces.
I was trying to find videos palatable to someone that is interested and just wants to run something reliable instead of Windows. I didn't find any.
> The point we're making in this thread is that we aren't seeing the same things you are, and it's highly likely that whatever comments you're thinking about are not representative of the kinds of opinions people in tech hold.
Linux cringe is a thing that been a complaint for a while. That why people do copy-pasta of the GNU\Linux stuff, the "programmer socks" meme, "I run arch BTW" and there is the infamous dropbox post made on here back in 2008.
Most people that don't exist in online world, find all of this very weird and off putting.
Yet you still show no receipts. So, until you do, I shall remain skeptical.
You are asking for something unreasonable i.e. I go through possibly several months of YouTube history in a comment section argument to "prove" that there people in the Linux community that do weird and cringey things, which is something that they are known for.
This is after you insinuated that I lied less than two comments ago. You put remembering in scare quotes and some other dude told me I was a "clown" because I can't remember username I saw months ago.
So no. I won't be doing that for you or anyone else now.
Then your claim won't be believed. Simple as that.
Tbh, from your nickname you wouldn't agree with this person's claims either way.
(I agree with your point, tho)
You'd think that, but I'm as much a critic of the worst parts of the furry community as any outsider.
And, to practice what I preach, here's some evidence:
https://soatok.blog/2025/06/12/furries-need-to-learn-that-su...
What you asked me to do was overly onerous for a discussion. Even if I found the links and gave you them, I will be told there isn't a problem (especially judging by the username) and I am "taking things too seriously".
There is huge amount of cringe and embarrassing behaviour in the Linux community and Tech community in general. It is well known and denying it is utterly disingenuous.
I try to avoid stickers from tech products which seem to be the common thing to do. Instead almost all of my stickers are from my friend's art projects.
I've gone with a few branded ones (e.g. "Lock your fcking computer!" from Zorus), but more from conferences I've gone to, notably bsides conferences.
Place of honor goes to a gift from my wife, a black cat staring at you with "Judging you. Quietly." It seems appropriate.
Right, which tells us that what was fun about it was feeling cool for doing something unusual.
Cue the scene from Office Space where Jennifer Anniston's waitress character is required to have a minimum of 7 pieces of flair on her uniform, per corporate franchise policy. And that movie is from the 90s!
15. But more is encouraged; they want their people to express themselves, after all. Do you just want to do the bare minimum?
My work laptop has a company sticker on it. If I'm at a customer's office I'd like everyone to know I don't work for them. TSA also has this really neat trick where my laptop has gotten "lost" several times going through security. I have to describe the laptop in order to get it back. If I don't have an identifying sticker it's basically impossbile to uniquely identify it
Our CTO: If you add stickers to your laptop you need to keep it for four years, rather than two.
We sell back our laptop to the company we get them from, they refurb them and give us a nice discount on the new model. Most vinyl stickers leave a mark on MacBooks that can't come off, hurting the resell value a lot. Some have protecting covers on their laptop and the stickers go on that instead.
Jeeze man… you get a new laptop after two years? I’ve had mine 5 and they ain’t looking to replace it any time soon…
> Most vinyl stickers leave a mark on MacBooks that can't come off
Doesn't sound like a problem acetone/isoprop can't solve, especially on anodized aluminium.
Big "needs more flair" vibes.
You are hanging out with the wrong crowd, if you can't get stickers the CTO would disapprove of. Visit a local squat, there are probably some which directly address the CTO job title. X-lube comes with collectible stickers too.
I usually just add a sticker to two so I can help make it easier to identify.
“We need to talk about your flair.”
Actual LOL for that comment. Thank you.
Yeah, that's the one problem I'd have with stickers.
I'm personally not interested, but I also would never make fun of people expressing themselves.
On the other hand... mandatory fun, mandatory self-expression, any anything that takes something very personal and turns it into official or unofficial company policy makes me sick. I'm glad it's not too common here in Germany.
It's like HR forcing you to listen to punk songs because the company wants to promote a rebellious spirit as long as it's compatible with "disruption". It's also a bit like being asked "why are you so quiet" by someone who said everything worthwhile 5 minutes after getting out of bed but never stopped yapping.
To me stickers on laptops are as tasteless and kitschy as tattoos. I would never get a tattoo for the same reason I would never put a sticker on my laptop.
Besides nobody gives a shit about your stupid political opinions or the software stack you use.
Personally I keep one Linux sticker on my laptop, less about expression and more a conversation starter. It's something that 99% of people won't notice but for the 1% that notices it's a nice conversation starter when everyone is bored (ie waiting at the airport)
When I next have a working laptop (I currently use a desktop and a phone), I'll probably stick on a Linux sticker and something from Discworld (probably the "Anthill Inside" sticker, intended for that purpose).
When I next have a working laptop (I currently use a desktop and a phone), I'll probably stick on a Linux sticker and something from Discworld (probably the "Anthill Inside" sticker, made for that purpose).
I got a System76 laptop instead.
Need them to tell apart my work laptop from my home laptop as they look identical
I had equipped the family with identical corporate-refurb laptops - when you have any of 4 laptops in a family room, it was a way of not getting my laptop taken by my kids to school one day...
Back in the office days, it was also a way to identify a corporate laptop among a sea of identical models.
Also, like I don't wear branded clothing, I like to cover the device brand.
Back when I worked at Apple no one had stickers on their laptops (gasp, who would dare!). But everyone had identical MacBook Pros, and when we had meetings, they would go in the center of the table and then everyone would have trouble telling them apart. So I got a couple of gold star stickers like you give to children for my laptop.
"Besides nobody gives a shit about your stupid political opinions or the software stack you use."
But sure, tell everyone about your feelings on tattoos and stickers
I've always tried to apply "The Internet gives a fuck about what you don't like" when it comes to commenting, but it's also helpful to remember it's not just the Internet.
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.
I care! I dunno if I agree with him about all tattoos (surely some are tasteful even if it's a minority), but stickers are definitely all tasteless and kitschy.
Hi! I find your opinion tasteless and kitschy.
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.
Left of center types have worked for decades on being ignored while right of center types are going through something of a resurgance right now after being rightfully relegated to the thrash heap of history and tend to feel persecuted if someone disagrees with them. For those right of center types freedom of speech seems to cut only in one way and it, unsurprisingly, evokes more disagreement. It must suck to be right of center.
Of course, that's another thing. The site is full of "down with the system" types which are, for some reason, oblivious to the irony of their values being aligned with the corporate values of businesses that have a valuation of trillions.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
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> keeping women chained to their desks and away from children
> glorification of every other sexual special interest except the productive one
Yikes, someone should check your harddrives
Those are your arguments, a stupid fucking comic and calling someone a paedophile.
Once either of you present an argument worthy of respect within a civil and democratic society, I will respond in kind. Until then, statements like "the glorification of every other sexual special interest except the productive one" will continue to get the responses they deserve.
What do you think I have on my hard drives? I'm genuinely confused by that comment.
Of course only a pedophile would even think of having intercourse with a woman who has not yet entered menopause.
I should probably also get the lethal injection for being a product of such a sick and depraved congress, because apparently a child is guilty of the crimes of the father.
sometimes i forget that other critics of capital can also have regressive troglodyte opinions on gender roles and sexuality. thanks for the reminder!
What if furthering the human species through the use of stable two-parent households happens to be my kink? You wouldn't kink shame, would you?
It will always be funny to me how little it takes for the mask of limitless tolerance to slip and reveal what you people think of those of us who dare even dream of deviating from the prevailing social norms.
This would do rounds on TruthSocial or X, The Everything App. Might I suggest moving this conversation over there?
You still haven’t explained what you think I have on my hard drives.
Obviously just really cool stuff that would make everybody jealous. It’s pretty clear, what do you think they were talking about?
you are responding to arguments i have not made. would you care to engage with my criticism of your views or do you want to continue making things up?
What criticism, calling them "regressive troglodyte opinions" without any substantiation? You're not trying to have an argument, you're just trying to start a flame war.
ok, let me "hn-speak" what's already a clear position that you understand that i hold:
i think your views on women's roles are ridiculous, to the point of deserving hyperbolic comparison. your position is misogynistic, bigoted and repulsive to the ideas of self-determination, social equity, liberty, and nonaggression... summarized perhaps irreverently but not inaccurately by the phrasing "regressive troglodyte."
but you knew what i was saying.
It’s now misogynistic and repulsive to self-determination to and social equity to let women have maternity leave and spend time with their children?
You American tech bros are absolute ghouls.
Ohhh, you thought our objection to your regressive nonsense was an objection to parental leave? That's... no.
What was I supposed to think you were objecting to besides what I wrote?
So you admit that you are just making things up to be angry about.
Why would you assume that someone who specifically mentioned "self-determination, social equity, liberty, and nonaggression" was advocating for "keeping women chained to their desks and away from children" through a lack of parental leave?
If you don't want to keep women chained to their desks and away from children, then what's the problem?
Because of the clear regressive biases evident in your comments: not once in your little diatribe nor the tedious back and forths since then have you mentioned general paid time off, bereavement leave, or even paternity leave. I don't want fathers to be chained to their desk and away from their children either, hence my use of "parental leave", but you seem only concerned about mothers being around their children. Isn't that interesting? That coupled with your "the glorification of every other sexual special interest except the productive one", spreading the bigoted lie that non-straight people are unproductive to society and there's little ambiguity on what you think women's role in society is.
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Damn, you must be so incredibly miserable. I hope you find some happiness in your life at some point.
I don't get what's miserable or unhappy about criticizing the political incoherence of some people. You may disagree with them, but why the personal attacks?
> but why the personal attacks
He doesn't realize how this behaviour validates my point.
> gave it to him for free,
It's neither a gift nor free.
> There are the endless hints at porn addiction, wrapped as ideology.
... Eh? You presumably have _extremely_ weird tastes in porn. Like, this sounds more like projection on your part than a real thing, tbh.
that's fine, I like putting things on my laptop that I'm enthusiastic about like earth day or zig or whatever. People can like it or not. I suppose of my CEO told me to rip them off I would, otherwise it's harmless. I won't put political stickers on though. I keep religion and politics strictly away from my work life, and walk away if that's the direction a conversation turns. I'm sure there are people at the office who think I'm a die hard conservative, and other that are 100% sure I'm a far left commie, because I simply peace out on political discussions.
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I absolutely love this website.
I've been putting stickers on all of my laptops for decades. I get all my laptop stickers from @HackerStick3rs mainly and then cybersec conferences (like DEF CON, BSides, Saintcon, Nolacon) are my other main source of them.
Stickers are kinda like currency at hacker conferences and a great way to meet new people.
Some laptops clearly belong to the cheerful juniors celebrating their coding practices (git! npm! vim! Python!), and some are very political; once you filter those out, what remains are interesting examples of people expressing themselves.
I used to put stickers on my desktop PC and laptop when I was in my early 20s. Then I realised my laptop was kinda free advertising for whatever companies product I had stuck on the back.
Now it seems have come very "corporate cringe", similar to the 16 pieces of flair at Chotchkie's. It also looks a bit childish IMO.
I just want a funny sticker to cover the logo of my laptop's producer.
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 their tech stack.
As a JS developer, I once had a sticker in the npm font, but it said "left-pad". I liked that one.
Just a pretty one is fine too though. I had a cool one at some point that was the logo of a small local meetup with friendly organisers, and the logo was essentially a drawing of a local landmark. It fit perfectly over the OEM logo. I miss that one.
> As a JS developer, I once had a sticker in the npm font, but it said "left-pad". I liked that one.
I wouldn't even put this in the "somewhat amusing" category. This is really in the 16 pieces of allowed flair category as far as I am concerned.
> I wouldn't even put this in the "somewhat amusing" category. This is really in the 16 pieces of allowed flair category as far as I am concerned.
There you are, the perfect quote for you to print out and stick on your laptop!
Turns out you were just waiting for the right one all along. And you thought you just dropped in here to be grumpy. Oh, no, we have stickers here for everyone. =)
It isn't grumpiness. I am allowed to complain about cringe and slacktivism which is rife in the tech land, which is what laptop stickers are. It is a symptom of a bigger problem.
> It isn't grumpiness. I am allowed to complain
I was actually not sure which word to use before: "grumpy" or "complain". I went with the former, because somewhere above, you told somebody off for their innocent little left-pad sticker. This whole thread reads to me like some guy yelling about how lawns used to be greener and had fewer balls on them.
But that's okay, I think you are right, and of course you're allowed to do that. We all have our things that tick us off.
One of mine is, I recently realized, people who casually believe in astrology. You know, they're a libra, they tell me, and of course I would think astrology is stupid because I'm a candelabra with Jupiter ascending or whatever, and these are always sceptical all the time.
I got super annoyed when someone suggested to me that astrological signs were a great topic for small talk. I disagree. Babbling about astrology as if its tenets were true is a symptom of a bigger problem, a growing problem, and I will not take part in it.
> about cringe and slacktivism which is rife in the tech land, which is what laptop stickers are. It is a symptom of a bigger problem.
I understand what you're getting at. I'm not sure I agree fully, I'm more reminded of the stupid fad when I was in high school when all the kids put stickers on their backpacks, often political ones. I also happen to think these laptop stickers are often empty, cheap gestures resulting in ugly laptops.
But in the end, it's just people being people, expressing themselves, some of them trying to have a little fun or meaning or levity in their lives, whether we share it or not.
And if people like you and me show up and do nothing but complain about them, and I tell them they're stupid for thinking they "are" a "libra", and you tell them how their sticker isn't even funny, then at that point, we have not only not accomplished anything (I wouldn't even feel better myself), and it's entirely fitting to call us grumpy.and maybe even make a little fun of us.
A lot of things suck, and I'm sorry these stickers reminded you of some of them. I hope you can find something nicer to think about, and smile. :)
> I went with the former, because somewhere above, you told somebody off for their innocent little left-pad sticker.
I didn't tell anyone off. I honestly don't see what amusing about it. You stick it on the back of your laptop and do what? I used to forget the stickers were even there when I did it and found it very annoying to peel off later.
> And if people like you and me show up and do nothing but complain about them, and I tell them they're stupid for thinking they "are" a "libra", and you tell them how their sticker isn't even funny, then at that point, we have not only not accomplished anything (I wouldn't even feel better myself), and it's entirely fitting to call us grumpy.and maybe even make a little fun of us.
I've long accepted I am an arsehole. The opinion I originally said was pretty mild and as per usual people made it more of a controversy than it originally was.
Ah right, I'm making my boss happy with that one I suppose?
Well, glad I also had the local landmark icon on it then, to prove that I'm also a free thinker.
Then again, the laptop after that had an "I work with someone from Tulsa, Oklahoma" sticker, which I suppose I merely stuck on there to get the approval of my former coworker from Tulsa who made that sticker, probably hoping I would get a promotion out of it down the road.
We really are doomed as an industry.
You don't need my permission to do what you want. I am sorry I sound dismissive, but a lot of the so called humour is a bit passe IMO.
I didn't mean to sound rude to you.
Haha no worries, I'm just happy they're just innocent little stickers to me, rather than signs of impending doom.
Political messaging is good and important especially nowadays
Political messaging I am completely fed up with and I am sure I am not the only person fed up with it. I go out of my way now to make sure that I see almost none of it.
When I see overt political messaging outside of someone that works for a particular organisation or political party, I steer clear.
I've found that most people (doesn't matter what political persuasion) have a very poor understanding of what they are actually supporting if they understand it at all. Often they simply parroting what they've elsewhere.
Oddly enough I have a pretty good guess of your political affiliations from these comments.
How so? I agree with them. Political messaging is incredibly annoying, no matter which "side" is doing it.
why is it surprising that people feel like showing their own politics with stickers when the government they live under currently deports random people, blows up boats based on vague accusations, tries to reform the country with Project2025, ..., do i have to go on?
nice for you that you're able to ignore politics - you should maybe be aware that this is a privilege. lots of people would probably want to ignore politics, but instead they have to fear for their existence, dignity or way of life.
"but not everyone on HN is american", well, other countries also have their fair share of political issues. and if you don't see them as issues, then again, you're just showing your own privilege.
high-wage, male, (often times white) tech-workers wonder why people are upset. "i'm fine, what's the problem?"
Most of those people and organizations they represent switch themes every couple of years when the previous problem they worked on gets fully solved. It's incredibly obvious for those of us looking from the outside. They solved (and therefore abandoned) COVID by the middle of 2020, which is when they were forced to work on anti-black racism in the US. That one was resolved by the end of 2021, after which they focused on Ukraine. That one didn't stay long thanks to their incredible efficiency at solving complex problems, therefore they switched to Gaza. Having mostly solved that problem by now, they decided to focus on internal politics again. I wonder how long this will stick.
> why is it surprising that people feel like showing their own politics with stickers when the government they live under currently deports random people, blows up boats based on vague accusations, tries to reform the country with Project2025, ..., do i have to go on?
I am in my early-40s. I remember when Obama was droning people abroad based on iffy intel. I remember when George Bush/Dick Cheney started a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which killed possibly millions (I heard all sorts of different numbers).
If I put a sticker on my laptop, it doesn't stop any of that happening. It doesn't bring back the people that killed in those wars. All it is trying to do is signal to other people that you have the "right opinions". It is a form of slacktivism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism
> nice for you that you're able to ignore politics - you should maybe be aware that this is a privilege. lots of people would probably want to ignore politics, but instead they have to fear for their existence, dignity or way of life.
I am mature enough to understand that in the vast majority of circumstances I cannot affect in the outcome in any meaningful way.
Whether I ignore politics or not will have no effect on the outcome. I suggest you go back and watch old TV programs and documentaries. People were having the same discussions 20, 30 and some 50 years ago on the exact topics and making the same arguments, often they were word for word the same.
> "but not everyone on HN is american", well, other countries also have their fair share of political issues. and if you don't see them as issues, then again, you're just showing your own ignorance, privilege or both.
I choose to ignore the political issues in my country (the UK) as well. I can't do anything to solve the problems in the country.
>I choose to ignore the political issues in my country (the UK) as well. I can't do anything to solve the problems in the country.
Which ironically is the main reason why these things continue to go unchecked.
No it isn't. I cannot do anything meaningful about it.
I have written in the past to MPs (many times). I was either ignored, or I was told I didn't know what I was talking about even though I actually was working in a related area.
If I talk to my friends, they don't care. If I talk to my relatives, they don't care either or understand. If I talk about it on the internet, I am told I am wrong and I should shutup, even when I post direct evidence of something and back it up with references. This hasn't been just one thing either, it been many different things.
So I want you to tell me what am I supposed to do exactly?
if literally everyone around you is saying that you are wrong (Including your friends, even), then maybe it is time for some soul searching.
Even the most bonkers conspiracy theorists out there manage to find an audience.
> if literally everyone around you is saying that you are wrong (Including your friends, even), then maybe it is time for some soul searching.
No I said they don't listen to what I say or are likely to understand it. I am normally talking about technical things and how it interfaces with law e.g. OSA, encryption, right to repair etc.
Many people in my family are laymen and work manual jobs their only use of technology is Whatsapp, Facebook and Xbox Live. My brother is a welder, my father is a joiner. My best friend loads purfume onto a truck and cannot do basic algebra and skipped school at 14, my other two good friends while more educated are completely non technical. I normally get a link to amazon as a screenshot in whatsapp as they don't know how to copy and past from the address bar.
What usually happens is that I am proven right like about a year or two later and it is never mentioned again because I don't want to berate my family and friends. I've learned over time not to bother discussing these subjects with them because it is a waste of time. One of my friends got quite upset once when I was talking about how bitmap graphics worked.
Thanks though for taking the worst possible interpretation of what I said and not answering my question I asked and doing pretty much what I am complaining about. I really appreciate that :-S.
I want you to answer my original question. If people don't listen to you (MPs, and other people in power) and you can back up what you are saying with good evidence. What are you supposed to do?
Giving up just ensures that your voice and values certainly won’t be heard. But I guess it’s comfortable enough for you still so there is little reason to get active. Soon it won’t be so comfortable anymore also for you, by then it will be too late to speak up.
It’s laughable that you think nothing has changed in the last 50 years politically. Not so recently they were still putting people to death by the hundreds of thousands in my country and I’m sure as shit not gonna let it happen again, even if it’s a bit cringe for you to witness resistance to facism
> Giving up just ensures that your voice and values certainly won’t be heard.
It won't be heard anyway. It is a fiction that I as a fucking nobody can affect anything in any meaningful manner. It is a delusion that is sold to people so they believe that they have a voice.
The only thing I might be able to do is stop other people from wasting their time.
> But I guess it’s comfortable enough for you still so there is little reason to get active. Soon it won’t be so comfortable anymore also for you, by then it will be too late to speak up.
What you are doing is essentially a guilt trip. I don't want to spend possibly the rest of my life on a political project.
> It’s laughable that you think nothing has changed in the last 50 years politically.
No it isn't. Go back 40-50 years (1970s) and look at TV, docs, news reports etc. Many of the same issues are being discussed in pretty the same way word for word. I have read stuff about the Roman Empire where it seems people were making political arguments that sounded very similar to what is heard today. The human condition is constant throughout all of recorded history.
> Not so recently they were still putting people to death by the hundreds of thousands in my country and I’m sure as shit not gonna let it happen again, even if it’s a bit cringe for you to witness resistance to facism
I've heard this melodramatic nonsense my entire life. The Nazis and Fascists are gone, the few that remain are completely irrelevant. I was told George Bush was Hitler 2.0 back in the early 2000s. These days people talk about his bad paintings.
Go on then, What are they? Since you can read my mind.
Back in the day, a coworker would replace the "Intel Inside" on his computer with a sticker using a similar style that read "Evil Inside".
Ok. You got me on that one. Mainly because it is a statement of fact.
> It also looks a bit childish IMO.
God forbid people have a bit of fun in their lives.
If someone's idea "fun" is putting a sticker on your laptop, then they really need to get out of the house more often.
It's just some stickers on a piece of equipment, why are you making this so complicated?
The problem is that it isn't just stickers on a piece of equipment.
A lot of these laptop stickers are either tech stacks (which are usually a form of advertising for a corporation), quasi-political messaging or outward political messaging.
I've partially explain this in my OP and other replies under this subject, but I and many other see them as a warning sign of things that are much more worrisome. I am naturally suspicious of any "corporate fun stuff" which is what a lot of this has turned into. That was accurately portrayed for what it is in office space with the "16 pieces of flair". Anyone who calls this out as suspicious will have someone like yourself saying "what is the problem? just a sticker".
> The problem is that it isn't just stickers on a piece of equipment.
Ok, so you just want to make this complicated for no reason, gotcha.
Nope. You asked the question, I gave you a pretty clear and polite answer, which in retrospect you didn't deserve. It is fine if you don't agree, being a dick about it isn't.
If you aren't interested in my (or anyone elses) POV, don't bother asking the question in future.
Kind of like seeing a car with a bunch of bumper stickers? Nothing necessarily wrong with it, but you feel like you might want to keep the owner at a certain distance in order to keep your life simple and calm.
I have no brand loyalty, hero worship, religion, sports or team in particular, and my hobbies are my own. I have no problem sharing my opinions, but I didn't do stickers, posters, band shirts, or anything like that growing up and still don't. And I heavily agree with the office space reference. Plus, it feels distinctly un-corporate or business professional to allow company devices to be branded in such a way.
And with all of that being said, this hn article has me ruminating on what people are declaring with these things, and my takeaway is that it is a form of tribal expression. Whether it is a "I work with tech stacks" or media entertainment they prefer on their own time, it is a way to find like-minded people and share perhaps some whimsy or at the very least make their laptop distinguishable from the other thousand plus in their organization. Much like how all crossovers are nearly identical in a parking lot, so too are the numerous HP/Macs/what-have-you sitting on everyone's desk. Much like changing the wallpaper away from a corporate logo, if allowed, you're making that piece of equipment more "yours". Much like ricing your terminal.
If the company culture allows this and you see senior staff doing it, in a way it is in your favor to follow the trend - just to say, I see what's going on and I will join in to show my affiliation with this company's culture. It also gives you a chance to say "this is my tribe" and influence people, one way or another. And face it, a blank laptop lid is also a form of expression, whether you intend for it to be or not. So embrace it if allowed, rebel if it isn't allowed and see who follows suit or complains, or don't embrace it. It's a choice you make even if you do not play along.
And to be frank, in our current climate, politics is very important. One side uses their freedom of speech to suppress others and has more branding on their vehicles and toolboxes than a Lisa Frank notebook binder from the 80s. This as a form of intimidation, as well as expression. I think there should be more political stickers. For every "Don't Tread On Me" there should be a counter "We Will Tread Where There Is Inequality".
I know the argument, "there is no need for politics in the workplace", but companies are more political than any individual, as they contribute campaign fiances to both parties, thanks to Citizens United. If they don't want politics at work, they should take their work out of politics.
Edited to Add: Sticker Bombing has strong Punk roots. And few things are more punk than putting politics where corporations may not like it; directly in their face. Now, whether or not sticking bombing your laptop lid is still punk is debatable, but you cannot deny its roots.
There is a tribalism aspect to all of this.
I also get people want to personalise stuff. I drive an old 4x4 and modded it (nothing too crazy), and I am planning on getting an Armstrong MT-350 if I can find one. Each one will require me actually doing work on the vehicles.
> And to be frank, in our current climate, politics is very important.
I heard that 20 years ago when I was in my early 20s. Everyone claims it is of the upmost importance at <current time>. Even if it was, putting a sticker on a laptop isn't going to change it.
> Everyone claims it is of the upmost importance at <current time>.
That doesn't mean they are (or were) wrong.
Feigning urgency is a well known tactic to get people worked up and worried to spur them into action. It is a well known manipulation tactic.
Don’t be a square
Ok I will be a Rhombus instead.
[flagged]
It's funny awkward when you get fired and your laptop is covered in stickers
I'll submit mine later today to this comment, I'm a poser lol eg. I don't daily drive Rust but I like the crab and the Gopher
Kinkpad lol that's good
One time when I left a job and had some really rare stickers I bought an identical ThinkPad and swapped the entire upper half of the machines with each other.
I basically never applied a sticker to any laptop I owned until I got a Framework. Just hoarded them like a dragon sitting on his pile of sticker-gold.
Finally figured hey, I might have this laptop more than a single upgrade cycle... it's worth burning a weird sticker or two.
I still try and buck the trend a little--instead of advertising technologies or something, my general goal is that, at first glance, nobody would question anything or think it looks unlike any other developer laptop, but that anyone paying attention will instead be met with a fractal of confusion. E.g., one on there is a "STOP, DROP, AND ROLL" fire safety sticker. In Quebecois French. From a small town volunteer fire department.
I consider it sort of a personal art project and have fun trying to collect up the most "wait, what?" stickers I can.
Framework is the only laptop regarding which I've had someone ask "what brand is this?".
There's genuine interest (well, at least until they hear about the price) and I guess people intuitively understand that laptops don't really have to be replaced every now and then, it's just that mainstream offerings are built this way.
The other day I wrote a lengthy essay about all the pros and cons of the device from my perspective for one 18yo son of a friend, who insisted this would be his college laptop, because he's seen some YouTuber present it. I think he's decided already, so I focused on managing expectations.
On the topic of stickers--bought an iPad for an elderly relative and it came with some Apple logo stickers. I snagged them, figured it was a fair price to charge.
One currently sits on my Framework over the Framework logo. The edge of the Framework gear sticks out in the bite in the apple and the sticker is thin enough the black framework logo shows clearly through the white of the apple.
On first glance, it looks like "trying to make a cheap laptop look expensive". On second it's looks like doing a really bad job of it. Anyone who actually knows the brand at all or asked about it will know the truth... it's making an expensive laptop look like a different expensive laptop.
So I guess it's not just the absurdity of the sticker, but how you use 'em.
Haha, I like this!
I haven't tried putting any on my Framework 12 yet, because the ABS has this sort of rough texture that's very soft and pleasant to touch but seems like it wouldn't hold stickers well long-term. I've been putting mine on retro machines instead, like on my 900MHz HITACHI (actually Acer OEM) PⅢ: https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/GWgVHXHaoAIPiB...
These days I also flatbed-scan any rare stickers before using them, to slake that FOMO “what if something better comes along and I regret using it now?” feeling.
You could also put a layer of vinyl on the laptop and then put the stickers on that. That way you can peel the whole thing off when you upgrade. I remembered reading about it on dev.to a few years back.
https://dev.to/graystevens/preserving-laptop-stickers-on-mac...
I really really like the feel of the textured ABS though :)
How are you liking the FW12 so far?
I've got the FW16 and have been very happy with it, but the portability isn't great given the size. No regrets given it was and always will spend 90% of its time on a desk.
I've been considering the FW12 as something more like a souped up tablet I could toss around the house, do some quick sketching on, etc.
There are things I dislike about it (placement of Airplane Mode key, if not its very existence), but I can still call it my favorite laptop ever. However I was already a big big fan of the 12" WUXGA form factor. Upgraded from a 51nb faux-ThinkPad X210.
I started writing up a longer-form review and hope to publish it in, idk, maybe a few months? Need to do some blog software resuscitation work.
Would love to see them!
On a previous HN (I think) discussion about stickers, one person scanned the lid of their old laptop, printed the whole thing as a sticker, applied it to their new laptop and then continued to put more stickers on top of that.
Leave the backing on the sticker, put it on the laptop with rubber cement.
I regularly see pallets of laptops turned in (either due to refreshes or end-of-employment stuff) for a major manufacturing / engineering (car) company. They are just as stickered, but with automotive nerdery. It's pretty neat.
And seeing just /how/ many laptops are that way it made me feel a lot less weird about putting stickers on "my" work laptop.
how many people do you think have both a SAAB SCANIA and VIM logo on their laptop. odds are i am 1 of 1
I have Alpina stickers on my monitor stand. I treat laptops like 1 an done for travel.
That work-related aspect is what I was thinking about too. I’m not sure what it looks like in various workplaces, but I’m always a bit curious around the policies they might have around putting lots of them on employer-owned laptops. I think in tough times when maybe it’s not easy to replace hardware, it can be annoying for an IT person to receive some where they have to peel them off and use Goo Gone on them.
I think of stickers as partly a theft deterrence mechanism. I expect a thief is more likely to steal a laptop with no stickers, because naively I assume the resale value is higher (no idea if that's actually true).
Losing developer productivity for a few days because a new laptop has to be provisioned, shipped and set up is also not cheap, so I feel there is some value to your employer in you making it slightly less likely for your laptop to be stolen at a conference or coffee shop.
I think of it as optimism/a power move, I'm here for the long run.
That's why I always have a clear case on my Macbook I cover with stickers. That way, I can take them with me when I leave, or take them off if I have a big meeting/presentation!
I have this recollection of some framed / shadowboxed clear case covers that were covered in stickers. Either the laptop was replaced and the new model didn't fit... or the cover was filled up and a new one was used.
A way to keep the memories of that the stickers represent.
Ever since Framework laptops arrived on the scene, I've been waiting for someone to create thicker bezels that piggyback onto the webcams' USB 2.0 interface via a USB 2.0 hub, to integrate a color eInk display facing outwards. Just for the infinite stickers.
Bonus points for integrating an outward-facing webcam dedicated to a continous background facial recognition daemon to change the stickers on the fly depending upon who is approaching while the laptop is running.
You can heat most of them and take off easily. If the IT transfers laptops to other people, they surely have a system for cleaning already.
A system for cleaning!
"You might want to give that a wipe."
Or a policy forbidding stickers.
If they’re turning the laptop in due to end-of-employment, what’s IT gonna do?
Dock some arbitrary cleaning fee from your final paycheque?
I always put stickers on work laptops specifically, in order to make mine recognizable among other identically looking laptops in the office.
But my stickers were always small, and usually lonely. A purple Emacs logo, a red Debian twirl, an orange lambda, stuff like that. Still was often enough to strike a conversation.
The team who handles hardware generally loves seeing the stickers people put on them.
This is why I've always wanted some sort of removable skin I can put my stickers on and be able to take them with me when I need to depart with my device
Wouldn't a piece of vinyl, of the type used for wrapping cars, or similar, work for this purpose?
I've typically put dbrand skins on my laptops just to protect them from scuffs, I hand my work ones back with the skin on and no one has ever cared, or perhaps even noticed; I choose subtle ones like the hex or Carbon patterns that look like they could just be the actual lid from the manufacturer.
I don't sticker up my laptops (as much as I've always wanted to), but if it was done on top of one of these vinyl skins, it should be relatively easy to remove (never tried).
There are clear cases for that exact use.
I too have wanted this. There are now laptop skin products that they claim are removable and re-attachable.
this one's mine https://i.imgur.com/22gSTuB.jpeg plenty of real estate left
Ha, what a throwback!
I remember this one with the Intel SSD sticker:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-320-ssd-300-gb/imag...
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_6571.JPEG
"The Intel SSD 320 is the much anticipated follow-up to the Intel X25-M, easily the most popular consumer SSD to date."
https://www.storagereview.com/review/intel-ssd-320-review-30...
Time flies, such a nice upgrade back in the day; now we take these things for granted.
[EDIT]
I just saw the fon.com sticker too… nostalgia hits hard.
I used that on a vacation in Madrid back when Starbucks was filled with people on their laptops, mostly white MacBooks.
I think I still have a ThinkPad around somewhere with that SSD sticker on it. Upgrading from a spinning drive to the X25-M is still to this day the most effective upgrade I've ever had in a system, more effective than any 2-3 generations of laptop upgrades combined.
I definitely got one or more of those stickers with some Intel SATA SSDs... sadly those I think have been the ones I had the worst luck with. I think they were one of those series that had some really bad write amplification problem or something like that, due to I think some issue with their power-saving implementation.
And a Gunship sticker. After looking at some of these I wish there was an optional field people could add so others with overlapping interests could follow a blog/socialmedia/etc.
I was just telling my buddy the same thing. It was our first SSD in HS. Mine eventually died with double the guaranteed TBW.
I saw laptops like those on hackathons and always sort of assumed they were their personal machines. Kind of surprising to read here that some of those were apparently (company-owned) work laptops.
Startup culture?
When everybody is issued with a dull grey laptop, putting a few stickers on it is a nice way to know which one is yours when there's ten laptops on a meeting table and it can help users feels more responsible of their laptop.
The nastiest/dirtiest laptops I saw were always sticker less.
I work at a large (>50k employees) company that is in every way the opposite of a start-up. Plenty of people cover their work laptops in stickers. The hardware group that handles replacing old machines has a wall of fame for all the lids with cool stickers.
I used to work for medium/big tech companies (8,000 - 70,000 employees.)
I always had a sticker on my laptop - everybody had the same laptop (or maybe one of two models.) It was a reliable way to quickly identify mine in a big group at a meeting or conference.
Funnily enough, not having stickers for me was an equally (if not more) reliable way to identify my laptop at those types of companies.
Not necessarily startup culture, my current assignment (energy company) has a number of teams that all want to do some kind of personal identity and self-promo, so they have stickers made on occasion.
Unfortunately a lot of them are AI generated, which is weird given we have a number of designers in the teams too.
Not necessarily startup. You can see some laptops with defcon stickers, it used to be very common for infosec auditors to have work laptops full of stickers not that long ago. Although, it is bad practice for read team audits, and some large companies don't like this kind of shenanigans for internal audits, so that may explain why it is less frequent nowadays
My laptop at Amazon was also covered in stickers, although I shied away from the more politically charged ones.
My company is definitely not a startup, but my laptop has stickers from a corporate event from last year...cute little robots. No one complains.
You see this at quite large companies. FAANGs and such.
Not really, I work at a big and older company and they will even have stickers around the office(we only need to go to the office 4 or 5 times per year, but can go whenever we please) to put in the laptops.
Shameless plug for those who still need more stickers for their laptop:
ssh stickr.shopDo you publish the SSH key? Feels odd to order if I can't authenticate the connection.
We do: https://stickr.shop/sshkey
But of course we should also link there from the homepage! Thanks for the hint!
Ordering is really tempting just because its so fun lol. Great idea and execution.
I was so curious to see how the payment would work...I'm curious is there any way to make payment work without a browser? Is it impossible for any reason or just complex?
Well, it's certainly possible, as the guys over at terminal.shop let you enter payment information via SSH. :)
But on the one hand we don't want to handle credit card information _at all_. And then, stripe does not let you give them credit card data directly – at least in the default workflow.
(And we can offer alternative payment methods offered by stripe (e.g. Apple Pay, SEPA direct debit, …) much more naturally than what would be possible in the terminal.)
Is there any way to see a full list of what's in each pack?
What happens when my email address contains the letter q?
How did this get through QA?! For now the options seem to be pasting in your email containing "q" or typing a capital "Q" instead.
Have you seen the website? QA at stickr.shop stands for quality absence
Only one way to find out, mate
big fan of the windows pack
OK, that is awesome.
just ordered because it's via ssh. great work!
same here. newer saw such a fleshed-out ssh thingy. i just HAD to buy it. a bit weird to see this story on the frontpage now, just ordered tons of techy stickers from AliExpress two days ago...
i must say that the shopping experience on stickr.shop is way better than Ali, haha.
thats very cool
Uses colours I can't read (even with `env TERM=dumb …`)
Yeah, we currently just ignore your $TERM and and assume `xterm-256color` ;)
This is fucking awesome. I just ordered a pack, keep it up!
I got rid of all mine after getting disillusioned with every one of the causes they represented.
This is the main reason I've never gotten a tattoo - how I feel about whatever it is will almost certainly change.
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.
i like and agree with all of this, with one extra dimension: i've challenged myself throughout my life to view my (almost entirely stupid) tattoos as a memory reference for where i was at in my life at the time. rather than regret them (with one exception, which i've since blasted over with a solid black box as a different type of reminder), i can gauge my own growth against them and appreciate that while i'm still a huge idiot, i'm at least getting a little better day by day :) plus, my memory is pretty bad, so having a few material reminders of my past helps jog some good (and occasionally bad) memories that contribute subconsciously to who i've become as a person. thanks for posting this!
That's a great way to look at it, sort of like the idea of cutting notches in a door frame to keep track of your growth as a kid (not something my mom did, but I see it referenced a lot in movies and tv). It's good to remember where we came from, how we've evolved and recognizing that we are perhaps stronger for it.
Great rules, & appreciate your perspective.
I wonder what makes me so different:
If I carefully had a favorite thing of mine selected, and I woke up tomorrow with the tiniest tattoo of it, I would be so upset. I’d be bothered every time I saw it on my body, knowing it wouldn't rub off.
I bet your tattoo artist could help me learn something about myself there :)
Well, looking back on what I wrote, I should have also said this:
7. It's also okay to not have or want any tattoos
Self-expression can take many forms :)
Beautifully said!
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'm seeing a lot of cute animals, memes, video game stuff, what's with the fixation on being edgy. My gf has a bunch of animal tattoos, doesn't need to be complicated.
Do they _need_ to be edgy? They can just be fun, happy, or a representation/proxy of the person behind the computer
The edginess was, at the core of it, what made them fun in the first place
Because then it's just visual clutter, and in the case of tattoos, unnecessary pain, expense and health risk.
If I'm going to put a sticker on something it's going to read like a diff, what sets me apart from the mainstream culture, not all the different ways I conform to it.
>what sets me apart
Interesting. I’m happy with a fun niche, myself.
(But generally happier without stickers on expensive things.)
Tattoos, though—hard to imagine being THAT confident in anything ever.
My first tattoos were each done years apart. I printed a version out, put it in my wallet, and saw it every time I made a purchase. If I still loved it just as much a year later, I booked an appointment.
Later tattoos are essentially private works of art, put together collaboratively with an artist. These are for ME, and no one at work will ever see any of them (or any of my other tattoos).
Each tattoo has some significance for me, but I won't judge others who just like a thing and get a thing. Tattoos are as varied as the reasons people have for getting them. Mine aren't edgy, but they also aren't visible to strangers.
I don't mind sharing, but the point remains, they're for the person wearing them. Enjoy them, in public, or in private. They're yours to do with as you wish.
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.
Getting scars on purpose is a quite questionable decision.
Avoid making memories. Keep your brain pristine.
You're right, you just can't make memories without injecting ink into your skin.
Your brain should be smooth and round like a polished marble
> Getting scars on purpose is a quite questionable decision.
Interesting. Why?
Isn't it a common and longstanding cultural practice, even among indigenous peoples? Intuitively, I'd say body modification is based on the desire to shape one's own body, something we usually embrace in fitness culture and medicine, for example.
I don't have any tattoos or scars, but I can't think of anything that would make them questionable.
Perhaps some of the objection arises from a confusion between body modification and self-harm?
Just because something has been done for a long time doesn't mean it's good. We also shouldn't confuse self-mutilation with healthy activities like exercising simply because both "shape one's own body".
> Just because something has been done for a long time doesn't mean it's good.
This is true, although it is a good start, right? If a cultural practice has survived for many generations, this alone already indicates that the practice might be compatible with human society, morals, sustainability, etc.
> We also shouldn't confuse self-mutilation with healthy activities like exercising simply because both "shape one's own body".
True! We should indeed not confuse self-mutilation with healthy activities just because they share some similarities.
But would you classify scars or tattoos motivated by aesthetics as self-mutilation? What about piercings, such as holes for earrings or laser hair removal?
I believe that is an interesting and unusual position. Do you have an argument in favor of your (so far implicit) take?
> If a cultural practice has survived for many generations, this alone already indicates that the practice might be compatible with human society, morals, sustainability
Does it? This sounds like a disingenuous take that doesn't even pretend to bother with reality.
> But would you classify scars or tattoos motivated by aesthetics as self-mutilation?
Disingenuous question - the person you're replying to called you out for very obvious collating of body mutilation and fitness/medicine.
Are you an AI btw?
Tattoos are self-mutilation the same way that taxes are theft. This is the worst argument in the world [1]
-[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...
I was talking about scars. I wasn't the one who said tattoos are scars.
Wait until you hear about intentional scarification
Or you could just keep a journal and not, literally, wear your past on your sleeve.
Why not both?
A journal can be lost and/or destroyed quite easily.
Whereas you skin is always there. And if it's not, then you have much bigger scars.
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...
> Some people on this website even declare that they wear a chastity device on their laptop stickers:
Where do you see that on this photo?
I made a kinky interpretation and apparently I'm wrong.
The white label with the "Haltungsform" is a standard label used in the German meat industry, showing under what conditions animal was kept before being slaughtered. 1 is the worst, and 5 is the best: https://haltungsform.de/en/
In this one, it says "Käfighaltung" under 2. Which means "caged keeping". So I assumed it's a kinky reference to a chastity cage. Maybe too much of a jump I know but I'm not a native German speaker and all the times I heard about a cage in German, it was in a kinky context.
Now that you asked and I looked at the source, apparently it's part of a working environment themed sticker set: https://www.threads.com/@unterwegselektrisch/post/DD34uR6uJG...
It's embarrassingly wrong but very funny too :)
Freud would have a field day with you.
For sure, that's what I thought as well!
The stickers are the chastity device.
I'm not sure that's a sticker.
This applies to literally any action. One day you may regret playing it safe.
This is a good argument against getting them on impulse, or cheaply. Find a good artist whose work you can appreciate, pay them well, and you keep some art that will be with you forever.
Often the laptop is replaced before the feelings change. Each laptop lid becomes a time machine showing who you were at the time.
What about the appreciation of nature?
this is why i only get stupid tattoos, or just cover up the ones i regret with big black boxes.
I would like to know which stickers they were. Maybe I would recreate a few for irony. There are plenty of candidates for irony, from Enron to crypto. There are also those companies that it is hard to be excited about - I mean a Microsoft sticker would mark you out as a rebel.
Oddly, the only stickers I have on my computers are the Intel ones that come ready applied. Younger me would have gone in for stickers but younger me had pen and paper with no laptop. That said, back then it was school bags that got decorated, albeit with fabric patches and badges rather than stickers. Here was how you showed allegiance to music bands and football teams. I didn't do that though since I was not one of the cool kids.
One sticker set I would like consists of morally dubious companies such as defence corporations and failed companies from things such as crypto, mixed up with USAID psyops such as 'Free Tibet'. However I can't be bothered to put in the work. That is why stickers that are ready made succeed, it is minimal effort.
Younger me was surprised at how much stickers cost. When I was working in a bicycle shop we had Oakley sunglasses for sale, and the product was cool. In period people would buy Oakley stickers from us to put them in the back of their car. I expected these to be freebie promotional items but no, they cost a fortune and could not be just given away.
What stickers did you used to have? I'm always fascinated with how people change their mind.
I used to have Pokemon stickers on my laptop.
I still do, but I used to, too.
Stickers are like statues of people, or streets named after people. They don't age well. Nothing and nobody is absolutely right, all the time or in hindsight.
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.
True. Make a unique design, not a mashup of 25 JS frameworks and a corporate-sponsored programming language.
I have a similar project to this one, and for some time I felt exactly the same. It's not so active anymore anyways, but yea the big tech logos have at least a bitter taste to them.
This one is really cool.
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/20250221_00333...
I love the sticker bomb aesthetic on the others, but there needs to be more like this. Anyone got any other examples?
Is this one actually a sticker at all, or some sort of etching?
I had the same thought. Zooming in, it sort of looks like ink to me, so I lean toward sticker or at least drawing, but not entirely sure.
An etching would be seriously cool but I'd be super worried about breaking something
I once (legally) bought a second hand laptop with a big anti-theft sticker on it. The sticker warned that removing it would leave a big "STOLEN!" mark, which it did. I covered it up with a new sticker.
Ripoff of https://devlids.com
Choose taste, choose the original!
Ripoff is a strong accusation. You can't own ideas. I do think devlids has better execution, but it has more time (revisions) behind it. Personally, I think "devlids" limits the concept too much. I want to see lids from writers, artists, musicians, etc. Categorized so I can see how different kinds of creatives flair their laptops.
Devlids-creator here. I'm happy that there are more like these!
The focus was intentional when I created the project, otherwise there would have been just too much material for me to sift thru. I mainly used Twitter back then, and I wanted to "curate" it all myself.
What I really love about the Stickertop-Page is the self-upload-feature, which I never had the time/motivation to do. And it being open to all stickered machines, not only tech-based.
This one [1] is quite tasteful. I looked at it for a good minute.
thanks for the shoutout ingomaro :3 I don't mind, I think folks should send it to both sites!
There are laptops with a display on the outside to display stickers.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrINRHeNDQA
This tech looks like it would be annoying to other people in a cafe/workplace/etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drVhn0hLiI&t=40s
What I think would be ideal with current tech is non-backlit e-ink color. Maybe displaying a static image that usually doesn't change while at a location.
You could use e-ink display changes when switching between modes, for example:
* corporate in-office staid, or internal team flair;
* trade conference switch to promoting company brands, rather than internal flairs;
* corporate in-office using it to indicate when you're in focus mode or on a call and less interruptible (actually, you could maybe use the LEDs for on-call mode, a rare instance when you might want the more attention than e-ink);
* traveling with work laptop, but at a cafe or lounge, and want to signal social sensibilities for meeting people personally.
> could use e-ink
E-ink is getting affordable. A 7.5" display for stickers would probably add under $100 to the price of a laptop.[1] Not many colors, but supposedly good saturation.
I used to put stickers on my work laptop. Then one day I upgraded my laptop, which meant handing over my old one with stickers.
Which meant scrubbing it (there's no reason I'll let whoever receives it to scrub it for me)
Which was an absolute pain.
I don't put stickers on my laptops anymore.
I had good success using isopropyl alcohol as a solvent and a drill with a plastic brush attachment, using less than 300 rpm.
Some choice stickers (McMurdo Station and South Pole Station stickers) have inhabited 3 of my laptops already.
Same (French polar institute and Kerguelen in my case) and I use double-sided tape to place them so I can remove them in the future.
A real McMurdo sticker does seem incredibly cool!
The funny thing is I'm at McMurdo now but they don't seem to have any at the store at the moment
Are those heat insulating by chance?
I never put on stickers (except the Stain Javelin) on my laptop. It may be just me, but if feels messy to me.
There's a big difference between the materials that's used for the sticker itself (paper, plastic) and the glue they used. By now I have a good feeling about the "removability" of a sticker once i have it in my hand.
I sandwich them between my phone and a clear case now. Don't even have to take the stickum protector part off, so when you get a new phone, you can take your favorite stickers easily. Disadvantage: you get like 2 stickers total.
I buy a hard case, then put the stickers on that. Then I can pop it off if I need to be in a more "professional" environment or if I want to upgrade/sell it.
For me it was having to replace my MacBook's screen and loosing all the stickers in the process that made me realize I would loose any sticker used on a Laptop eventually.
did you manage to clean it up? Sometimes stickers leave permanent discoloration of the case, especially on aluminium Macbooks
Some pen test teams use laptop stickers as an excellent resource for proper social engineering.
Some cyber companies explicitly prohibit stickers on company laptops.
>Some pen test teams use laptop stickers as an excellent resource for proper social engineering.
How?
Not the OP, but I have heard something similar from a sec conf before. Gist being if a laptop has stickers like this, then the chances of the owner being an engineer is significantly higher, so pentest teams / malicious actors can better focus their efforts on those individuals, and have a higher chance of gaining access to internal systems than if they targeted random folks in public.
Doesn't help as well that arguably the kind of stickers a laptop displays tends to hint at who's a sysadmin or not, etc.
That sounds like info you would already have by taking a look at LinkedIn or am I missing something?
You're missing something, but that's sorta the point. The idea of what a full-stack developer or back-end engineer or hacker (or whatever term we want to bandy about) looks like is largely based on stereotyping and a bit of myth. You can't tell what someone does for a living just by looking at them all of the time, but you can some of the time, so it's easy to play on that by dressing the part because we humans can be easily tricked into trusting our own information by default. If you cosplay as a network engineer, it's pretty likely that's what most people will think you do.
Say you're red teaming, and you are on-site looking to gain access to the server closet of a business. Some initial setup about you being there comes into play, but once there, it's up to you to look like you belong there, when some unwitting person with access to the server closet will lead you to it, then leave you to do your thing on the pleasant notion that you'll have the "problem" fixed by the end of the day. This is an ultra-simple scenario used as an example, but looking the part sometimes means having some stickers on your laptop that tell people you're really into a specific language or tool chain, or that you've been in the SOC trenches long enough to know what a lot of those inside jokes mean. Details often sell the lie.
The classic clipboard and high-vis hack.
[dead]
I thought you could just measure the length of their beard.
Well, the _corporate_ stickers are a major giveaway, of course; if you have 15 AWS-related stickers it is highly likely that you work at Amazon, say, and it may not necessarily be wise to make it clear that your laptop is an Amazon corporate laptop, in public.
Beyond that, you could _maybe_ use it to identify a person's interests for social engineering purposes, but that feels a lot more tenuous.
Many of the stickers display political affiliation.
How would pen testers leverage this?
Stickers themselves can be fun and quirky, but I for the life of me can't figure out why people would put such extremely divisive and workplace-unnecessary messaging on their MAIN WORK DEVICE as many of these have.
The kind of lack to integrate to a team having your pride flags, literal death threats to perceived enemies, furries, loli anime, etc on a thing you intend to bring to the workplace to do all your work on isn't good for your career and sure as hell won't not be noticed by people whose responsibility is to judge risk and liabilities for example.
Tech stacks, not party flags.
Well, for a start, you don't know that these are MAIN WORK DEVICEs. Some of them may be personal devices seen at cons and so on.
That said, I'm not _that_ worried about people noticing that the scary gay has a rainbow sticker on his laptop. If someone at work has an issue with me being gay, well, they'll probably have that issue with me regardless of what is on my laptop, and that is very much their problem. You can't spend your whole life pandering to bigots.
>Well, for a start, you don't know
It's a reasonable assumption and surely true for a lot of cases, the stickers have a history of signaling tech stacks and other actually professional things and people are more attached to these customized devices which strengthens my that point. Don't be arrogant.
>You can't spend your whole life pandering
Don't be arrogant again. Obviously with that kind of language you have more chance of being the source of problems than solutions.
>issue with me being gay
Don't try to slide. Supporting extremely politicized movements is not in any way comparable to just _being_ oneself. The kind of language "if you don't support my extreme signaling you're against me and human rights and and and ..." is truly a scourge against intellectual society today.
> Don’t be arrogant
I mean, you’re the one getting pissy over laptop stickers.
Fundamentally, life is too short to worry about bigots being offended by rainbow stickers.
Thanks for the reminder to put a pride flag on my new work computer. Can't for the life of me figure out why it'd be divisive though.
Also, why do you assume these aren't people's personal computers? Many people surely own computers personally, and of course people can express themselves on personal property.
Your sex life shouldn't be intertwined with your work life.
Do you say the same about someone who has a picture of their spouse next to their computer?
They're talking about having a pride flag on their laptop, not having sex at work.
I’m struggling to understand how you’ve put pride flags and death threats in the same category of “extremely divisive”.
I see others have asked the same question, but you don’t seem to have the courage to respond.
What’s divisive about a pride flag?
It's all in the same direction. The kind of ignorance a question like "What’s divisive about a pride flag?", even if sincere really highlights this. There are a lot of people and thoughts in the world, and there is a lot of effort trying to forcefully suppress some to then trying to make other things appear "non-divisive". This hegemony that is in effect in a lot of places has way too much similarity to authoritarian regimes where there is no visible criticism of Dear Leader, because if any is spotted, off to the gulag you go. See, Dear Leader is loved by everyone!
In the end, people that tend to say things like "kill/punch/etc [group]" just because of their own inhumanity and need to say such things because they feel some groups are "fine as targets", while trying at their best to put said labels on anyone they disagree with (with almost no one actually truly belonging under those labels!), tend to be the same crowd that go in the direction of the less extreme political signaling. This is why the common solution of just banning stickers altogether is the norm when a solution is put in place. Sadly legit relevant signaling like showing one's knowledge of specific technologies with stickers suffers as collateral damage, but is not comparable to the damage of losing team spirit in a team that could otherwise pool their resources and knowledge on a task they CAN work together with.
And I say this as someone who has been in a leadership position in teams where I knew there was a lot of potential for such things to ruin everything. If I didn't witness things being kept professional in said teams, especially in one of them, I wouldn't have believed it could ever even have worked as well as it did, and it did so well. Better than other parts of the company even, given there was genuine effort put in to stay kosher and people ended up being more mindful of each other.
>but you don’t seem to have the courage to respond.
What? I wrote my comment literally yesterday lol. Now looking at the replies, most of them either don't seem to have much sincerity to them or have little chance of furthering anyone's understanding if engaged. I've learnt that it's better to minimize time wasted on trolls when there's little benefit to arguing with them even for the public representation when I can instead use my time working on my projects.
I struggle to believe you don't understand what they mean. There is many a homophobe in the world. GP isn't saying homophobia is good, simply that espousing a pro-LGBT viewpoint may upset people. Maybe they deserve to be upset, but that doesn't change that it may become your problem.
> simply that espousing a pro-LGBT viewpoint may upset people.
Y'know, I'm pretty much fine with upsetting bigots. I'd assume that people inclined to be upset by a scary pride flag are also upset by my _existence_, so, y'know, I don't see a strong reason to moderate my stickers to protect the delicate feelings of idiots. If they're a homophobe they'll have a problem with me _anyway_.
I think that normalising LGBT and its symbols was a necessary step towards acceptance. If it's still a controversial idea to some, it's on them.
Sincere or not, the obvious should be stated here that distain for extremely politicized gender movements has little to do with outstanding opinions for said actual sexualities. I've personally voted for (several!) gay political candidates and attended a gay wedding, among other similar things.
The current day form of the lgbt(...) movement has done more damage to their representation than the natural, mostly not strong but dismissive opinions of the common folk could ever have. The screaming intentional ignorance of criticism of its increasingly radical extensions and effects sometimes makes me think we're not just living in the world of Idiocracy, but in the version of the world that comes after it ...
People can become upset for a great variety of reasons. I think it's better to accept to some extent that it happens than to design your life around not upsetting anyone.
In the same breath/sentence as “death threats”? You think that’s remotely the same?
What's wrong with a pride flag? People commonly display their hetero marriages etc. at workplaces too. If either of those cause division in a workplace, that's a matter for HR or legal to resolve (if it is indeed a disruption).
Anyway it's unclear which of these are brought into offices.
[flagged]
Showing a pride flag at work isn't bringing an issue (just like having a photo of a husband and wife on a desk is not). Someone else having a problem with that and causing a disruption over it, is sowing discord and bringing an issue to work.
I'm stealing this thread because I wanted to describe my feelings, it's not related to laptops or work
When I lived in Russia I respected the rare people I saw wearing lgbt flags/pins. Because it's really a statement, it's a middle finger to the government. People knew the police can waste their time or even jail them.
Now that I live in a european country and I see more people wearing lgbt stuff, I don't feel such respect. I'm a little puzzled what's the point, you are wearing it in a country where you can hold hands, where government protects people from discrimination... It's not that you shouldn't do it, I just don't understand. Is it like a friend-or-foe id system?
Worst of all (now I'm switching from people to companies) when a company post a pride flag it feels 100% insincere. Because I know companies are motivated by profit so they only do things which don't hurt profit, they don't hold any principles.
ask them
sounds like a reasonable approach
Crazy trying to equate having a picture of one's spouse or children to having a logo of an increasingly extreme politicized movement.
>Someone else having a problem with that is sowing discord
Listen to yourself man
I for the life of me can’t figure out why anyone would post such an extremely divisive comment.
Because on HN, people are allowed to express things you disagree with.
Here's a good talk that gives some advice on how to make good stickers yourself:
https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2023-57194-from_c3stoc_with_love_...
