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One of the results of my attentiveness to fads, manias, and advertising tropes is a recurring desire to jump on bandwagon and enjoy a little piece of the trend myself. It's not a desire born of camaraderie, though. Quite the opposite. For example, once I realized the Gen X'ers have a better chance of expressing their individuality by not getting a tattoo, I wanted to get one like this almost immediately.
I didn't, for any number of reasons. It's a good joke, but a painful and expensive one, and it might be hard to find an inker who'd go along with it. I don't know – there are plenty of art majors who just like to draw, and do tats because the money is good, not because they care about the "culture". Regardless, the idea stuck with me. Maybe that will be my present to myself the day I go into the nursing home; make myself feel young again. One of the most uselessly prevalent sights on the roads of 2009 is the euro oval sticker. Most frequently these are tacked onto Volvos to declare someone's love of dachshunds, that they've been to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, that the driver is capable of running 26.2 miles (which makes driving places a little wasteful, doesn't it?), etc. etc. The clearly authoritative website Sticker Cafe provides this insight into the history of euro ovals: In 1969 the United Nations got together to create an easier way to identify the origins of different vehicles traveling in Europe and elsewhere, since so many license plates used overseas looked the same no matter what country you were from. With that in mind they came up with the idea of adding a sticker to your vehicle with a country code so officials could identify your point of origin. I haven't read the UN Conventions on Road Traffic of 1969 in full, but a hunch and a word search reveal no official opinions on dachshunds. Does that mean all of the oval stickers across America are pointless? Well, no. They have a purpose; whether it's the intended purpose is frankly irrelevant. People love their dogs and their vacations and their accomplishments, and nothing is going to change that. However, the heedless willingness of people to adopt every new trend never fails to impress me. So much so that I want in. With my own custom oval sticker, that expresses just what I feel. It's important for me to put it out there, whether people appreciate it or not. I mean... nobody really understands marathoners, either, right? I'm sure I subscribe to some perfectly ludicrous things of my own; I'm not perfect. But if there's a trend adopted by enough people for a long enough time, rest assured: someone out there is mocking you. Adopt those fads with a bit of caution. |
