Land grant university towns in the American west should be studied for all kinds of reasons. But right now I’d love an old fashioned long form magazine essay on Bumper Sticker culture.
The Subaru plastered in stickers was a fun punchline when I was a kid. You’d chuckle at slogans like “if you aren’t outraged you aren’t paying attention” because you agreed.
If only people were paying attention you’d smugly nod. I use the word smug because in 2006 South Park pointed out the problem with being too smug about having the right opinions is that it alienates people.
And now here we are in 2024 everyone is paying attention. And everyone is outraged. And it sucks. All of this paying attention making us outraged doesn’t seem improve the situation in the slightest.
And everyone is smug as hell being very assured that they have the right opinion even though we appear to have about thousand different ways to prove to yourself that your outrage is justified and it’s the other team isn’t paying attention.