Symbolism and Stickers

Or "Etsy is cancer..."

Yeah, yeah, I know.

OK. It popped back into my head to do something about my laptop's Apple logo.

Yes, I know - but I've got a fair bit of experience with *nux and until the very recent slate of pre-shipped linux systems such as the ones from System 76, didn't want to dick around that much getting Linux working, and did not feel like going Microsoft was getting away from the suck either, and don't consider Android any less compromised from a privacy standpoint, in some ways, worse, than iPhones.

In short, I've been documenting the decline of Apple, and that their only saving grace is that so many of their competitors started off worse at almost any tier, but I still use one because my use case didn't make Windows any better at the time of purchase, and I run my gear into the ground.

Digression aside, the reason is simple. Not to look cool but to cover up the logo. Why? like the title says, symbolism.

Owen Benjamin also covered this, in explaining why he did the same thing, and in my case it boils down to - I may use the gear as a choice of which evils I'm willing to tolerate, but I don't have to accept the symbol, the bitten apple or fruit of knowledge, and present it to the world.

I haven't found one yet. I don't want snark or "I'm so clever" humor - yes, this is from a guy who used to have a "10 types of people" shirt - and on top of that I want something that is me, and a subtle indicator of my alliegances without immediately causing the SJW's about to swarm like zombies or pod people. Churchy iconography is also out. Yes, I'm Christian, but there are far too many churchians about. I want something that says "deplorable" without necessarily literally saying so.

So I did a search for laptop stickers, and since one of the first things that came up was an Etsy link...

Well, let's just say the categories in this screenshot should give you a clue...

Tumbler? And aren't cat and feminist stickers redundant? So between Etsy - which was just to toxic to show for snark, creepy cute, and tumblr, and Cafepress...

OK, funny once, but too snarky to wear as literal attitude while working.

They're still pimping that tired line?

Muh russia is going strong here.

I find this puzzling because "comrade" in this context is more of a "hello fellow Communist" term...

More "muh Russia" with a side of "small penis". So clever.

In all fairness, I actually hadn't seen to many of the above in the wild.

Anyone paying attention knows he's done a lot to point the finger at white people. But good luck explaining that to people paying more attention to what he says than what he does, or closely parsing what he says.

More bullshit and semantically empty feelgood.  This kind of empty - headed vacuousness of people who say stuff like "no-one is better than anyone else" (but Trump is evil). Note the "Science is Real" - a favorite bit of the "I fucking love science" crowd. Because ignoring the consequences of believing in TENS on human populations, the climate not behaving as models predict, climate scientists destroying their data to keep it out of the hands of skeptics, and that for all intents and purposes there are only two sexes, is "science."

Look, fempowerment!

Also, see "does what people do who aren't failures" - but most of us don't take pride in that unless we actually persisted and overcame some actual challenge.

Right. Tell that to some kids from Kentucky.

Maybe I'll figure out how to get a sticker of the Cryptofashion logo, or the image on Jon Del Arroz's "dragon energy" mugs. I really don't know.

The takeaway is this - it's not just the left. Oh, the left is awful, but as I alluded earlier, even the right-wing ones are cringey and not something I'd put on a work machine even as a bit of personalization. And there's something just wrong or creepy-"cute" about a lot of them.

So as of yet, nothing to cover the damn thing. Might have to nut up and do my own design work to create one but that's a lot of rust to knock off.