My laptop hasn't had stickers since a CTO asked why mine didn't have any stickers like the ones on the laptops of his cool cloud team. Personally I've found laptop stickers bad taste since then.
It has become less fun since it has become common. My most recent laptop doesn't have stickers but I might apply some from my sizable collection before it becomes secondary laptop in 1-2 years.
You can still "hipster it" and only use actually cool stickers. Community open source projects, hackerspaces, good conferences, EFF and similar organizations, weird funny stuff.
The problem is that a lot of that has been ruined by corporate cringe and "weird funny stuff" is no longer weird and funny, especially when you have a bunch of influencers trying to either monetise it, sanitise it and/or attach their personal brand to it.
e.g. One of the biggest people that does Debian content, does a bunch of absolute cringe behaviour associated with them where I almost want to die of second hand embarrassment.
From my POV (old?, never on social mass media), you live in a strange world if some influencer has any... influence on your opinion of Debian. I see little to no monetization of "the good stuff".
They don't have any influence about what I think of Debian. What happens though is people outside will associate their (unbearably cringe in this case) behaviour with you, whether you like it or not.
I'm a long-time Debian user and I have no idea who you're talking about. How much weight do they actually carry? Who is this influencer you're talking about?
I try to avoid stickers from tech products which seem to be the common thing to do. Instead almost all of my stickers are from my friend's art projects.
Cue the scene from Office Space where Jennifer Anniston's waitress character is required to have a minimum of 7 pieces of flair on her uniform, per corporate franchise policy. And that movie is from the 90s!
My work laptop has a company sticker on it. If I'm at a customer's office I'd like everyone to know I don't work for them. TSA also has this really neat trick where my laptop has gotten "lost" several times going through security. I have to describe the laptop in order to get it back. If I don't have an identifying sticker it's basically impossbile to uniquely identify it
Our CTO: If you add stickers to your laptop you need to keep it for four years, rather than two.
We sell back our laptop to the company we get them from, they refurb them and give us a nice discount on the new model. Most vinyl stickers leave a mark on MacBooks that can't come off, hurting the resell value a lot. Some have protecting covers on their laptop and the stickers go on that instead.
You are hanging out with the wrong crowd, if you can't get stickers the CTO would disapprove of. Visit a local squat, there are probably some which directly address the CTO job title. X-lube comes with collectible stickers too.
Yeah, that's the one problem I'd have with stickers.
I'm personally not interested, but I also would never make fun of people expressing themselves.
On the other hand... mandatory fun, mandatory self-expression, any anything that takes something very personal and turns it into official or unofficial company policy makes me sick. I'm glad it's not too common here in Germany.
It's like HR forcing you to listen to punk songs because the company wants to promote a rebellious spirit as long as it's compatible with "disruption". It's also a bit like being asked "why are you so quiet" by someone who said everything worthwhile 5 minutes after getting out of bed but never stopped yapping.
To me stickers on laptops are as tasteless and kitschy as tattoos. I would never get a tattoo for the same reason I would never put a sticker on my laptop.
Besides nobody gives a shit about your stupid political opinions or the software stack you use.
Personally I keep one Linux sticker on my laptop, less about expression and more a conversation starter. It's something that 99% of people won't notice but for the 1% that notices it's a nice conversation starter when everyone is bored (ie waiting at the airport)
When I next have a working laptop (I currently use a desktop and a phone), I'll probably stick on a Linux sticker and something from Discworld (probably the "Anthill Inside" sticker, intended for that purpose).
When I next have a working laptop (I currently use a desktop and a phone), I'll probably stick on a Linux sticker and something from Discworld (probably the "Anthill Inside" sticker, made for that purpose).
I had equipped the family with identical corporate-refurb laptops - when you have any of 4 laptops in a family room, it was a way of not getting my laptop taken by my kids to school one day...
Back in the office days, it was also a way to identify a corporate laptop among a sea of identical models.
Also, like I don't wear branded clothing, I like to cover the device brand.
Back when I worked at Apple no one had stickers on their laptops (gasp, who would dare!). But everyone had identical MacBook Pros, and when we had meetings, they would go in the center of the table and then everyone would have trouble telling them apart. So I got a couple of gold star stickers like you give to children for my laptop.
I've always tried to apply "The Internet gives a fuck about what you don't like" when it comes to commenting, but it's also helpful to remember it's not just the Internet.
Well, nobody cares about you're views about stickers and tattoos, but you still commented. Compared to you though, nobody here called you a retard; maybe that says something about how people are here or how you tend to use inflammatory language when it's not needed.
I care! I dunno if I agree with him about all tattoos (surely some are tasteful even if it's a minority), but stickers are definitely all tasteless and kitschy.
Left of center types have worked for decades on being ignored while right of center types are going through something of a resurgance right now after being rightfully relegated to the thrash heap of history and tend to feel persecuted if someone disagrees with them. For those right of center types freedom of speech seems to cut only in one way and it, unsurprisingly, evokes more disagreement. It must suck to be right of center.
Of course, that's another thing. The site is full of "down with the system" types which are, for some reason, oblivious to the irony of their values being aligned with the corporate values of businesses that have a valuation of trillions.
that's fine, I like putting things on my laptop that I'm enthusiastic about like earth day or zig or whatever. People can like it or not. I suppose of my CEO told me to rip them off I would, otherwise it's harmless. I won't put political stickers on though. I keep religion and politics strictly away from my work life, and walk away if that's the direction a conversation turns. I'm sure there are people at the office who think I'm a die hard conservative, and other that are 100% sure I'm a far left commie, because I simply peace out on political discussions.
You can still "hipster it" and only use actually cool stickers. Community open source projects, hackerspaces, good conferences, EFF and similar organizations, weird funny stuff.
Good:
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/1762135251053-...
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_9222-1.jpe...
"Employee of the month":
https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_20200717_2...