Car stickers have become a physically manifested emoticon of sorts for people to identify themselves in public. It’s inconspicuous nature and the fact that mostly only other like minded individuals will take note and actually be ‘in the know’ gives the sticker owner/wearer some of that semi-anonymous way to provide the world with an opinion status, similar to Facebook but comfortably out in public.
Certainly this does not apply to all stickers, as most fans of sports teams have never had a problem publicly displaying their affection for something in public before. However now much smaller groups of people are finding that same kind of team pride and publicly displaying their opinions on matters of a more personal nature to identify themselves to others in the same niche.
These can be simple, such as the OBX stickers that people sport to show that they have vacationed on the Outer Banks of North Carolina or more cryptic such as many arbitrary number and letter sequences or color symbols we see on some stickers. Sometimes it can be even more profound such as a stance on social issues like Religion, Politics, Gay Pride, etc.
