Family Feud: Stick-Figure Stickers Spark a Backlash
When stick-figure families became common, those looking to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack in carpool lanes got creative. Families of bright and happy flip-flops, palm trees, smiley faces and snowmen popped up on rear windows. A quick poll revealed a recent surge of friends and family members whose stick-figure families hinted of masculine appeal in the form of “Star Wars” and zombie decals. Even tech geeks are showing their true colors with a family in my neck of the woods using Mac apples in differing sizes to represent family members.
Like with any craze, there is often backlash. There is increasingly graphic opposition to stick-figure families popping up on cars.
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Just last night I pulled in behind a car on the highway with a graphic of a masked chain-saw-wielding madman chasing a family of stick figures with wording that read, “Nobody cares about your stick-figure family.” Online search revealed decals depicting other stick-figure families being bombed by fighter jets or their heads being blown off by gun-wielding stick-figure children. It only goes downhill from there.
While we could simply chalk this up to a harmless car-personalization debate, given our country’s recent violent episodes, joking about such violence through car decals seems distasteful — at best — to me.
What do you think? Are displays of violent stick-figure family protests an innocuous outlet or something more vile and repulsive? Tell us in the comment section below.
