In one survey, CarMax Inc. found that the number one reason people display bumper stickers, decals, or magnets on their cars is to make a statement about themselves, their values, and their interests.
Of the respondents who had not displayed a sticker, nearly a quarter said it was simply because they hadn't found one that represented them.
And it's not just big companies that are capitalizing on the demand. Since bumper stickers are so deeply personalized, individual designers have found success as well.
For example, one that made the rounds around Brooklyn said, "Keep Honking! I'm Listening to Alice Coltrane's 1971 Meteoric Sensation 'Universal Consciousness.'"
As it gained popularity all over the United States, it turned out that the creator was Los Angeles-based artist Christopher DeLoach.
DeLoach told GQ that he first came up with the idea for the bumper sticker while listening to Alice Coltrane’s rendition of "Going Home" (which appears not on Universal Consciousness but on 1973’s Lord of Lords). That same day, he happened upon the classic vintage bumper sticker, "Keep Honking, I'm Listening to Jazz" and decided that message could be improved.
DeLoach estimates that he gave away the first 300 or so to friends and friends of friends, but in a few months, he found himself selling several hundred a week. "I was mailing them out in these large manila envelopes, which I had never foreseen myself doing," he said.
DeLoach has sold around 8,000 bumper stickers so far: still a fairly niche phenomenon, but enough to help him financially.
The stickers, which retail for $7 each, have paid for his studio over the past year and allowed him to subsidize the cost of investing in a restaurant he opened in Mexico a few years ago.
However, bold statements aren't always universally accepted. University of Cincinnati researchers found that political polarization is seeping into bumper stickers as well.
UC College of Arts and Sciences Assistant Professors Rachel Torres and Ben Farrer said people who watched a driving simulation in which the motorist ahead of them cut them off in traffic were more likely to honk if the offending vehicle had a political bumper sticker, particularly one for the party they did not support.
