During the month of June I took a classic American road trip through the UK and Ireland. I drank a lot of Guinness, whisky and cider, drove on the other side of the road and left a trail of Autostraddle stickers along the way. Stickering might seem straightforward but there are lessons to learn sooner rather than later. Here are some lessons I learned.
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20 Tips On Effective Stickering
1. Don’t just sticker your destinations. Sticker the journey.
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2. Bathrooms are your friend.
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3. Gross bathrooms are your best friend.
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4. Just because a stickering location doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t mean you should ignore it. 
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5. Don’t be afraid to sticker the classics. 
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6. Aim for humorous contrast. 
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7. It is impossible to sticker a moving bicycle cab. 
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8. Sometimes you find places that are too good to be true. 
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9. There are some places you just can’t sticker. Hold these places in your heart 
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10. Target potential new fans. 
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11. Don’t forget to target your current fans. 
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12. It’s okay to be a copy-cat. 
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13. Sexy stickering is effective sticker. 
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14. Never permanently sticker the inside of a B&B no matter how hilarious the decor.
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15. If someone agrees to pose with your sticker, they’re going to want to know what the sticker is for.
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16. Traffic signs are okay to sticker as long as it doesn’t obstruct safety and the sign makes little to no sense.
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17. Occasionally leave a man behind for someone else.
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18. Sometimes it’s okay to sticker a tree. Sometimes it isn’t. This is one of life’s hard choices.
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19. Repeat stickering is totally acceptable.
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20. Sometimes a sticker just isn’t enough.
If you feel left out you can always get yourself some stickers at the Autostraddle store!
Forget the stickers. J.K. Rowling has a new book coming out (#11)? Where the hell have I been?
It isn’t anything like Harry Potter, and the plot sounds a bit suspect to me. But, I mean… it’s fucking J.K. Rowling, she could probably turn any shit plot line into the best book ever, maybe? *shrugs*
looks like the trip was a great time! loved the pics :)
This is such a cool idea, and I love the pictures! I kind of want to take a road trip just so I can put autostraddle stickers everywhere.
well… now i know what i’m doing during my 2 week eastern european adventure in a few weeks… hope i can get the stickers in time…
russia might be a bit less forgiving about it should i get caught with some “queer propaganda” tho… perhaps?
I was a bit more west than you, but I did see “Against Transphobia” stickers in Ljubljana, Prague, and Budapest!
INSPIRATION! I will homosexualise alllll the places on my next roadtrip
homosexualizing is my life’s work.
Kindred spirits
I turned my best friend bisexual by pointing out how great girls were and we even dated for a while… do I get a prize?
Fantastic! Looks like you had a grand old time!
Well yes. Yes I did.
I’m sure it was a gay old time.
#15 – Heck yeah fellow unnamed fruit themed electronic store workers! Especially ones with accents!
Also: kudos for keeping their face and name out so they don’t get fired.
This is amaze-vajayjays. I want stickers.
“YOU POO YOU” would be equally appropriate for #3.
I am super sad that I haven’t seen any stickers around Dublin, although if I had I would have probably gotten too excited and would have jumped up and down and pointed. If that had happened – Pro: any cute gayelles in the vicinity would have known I was queer Con: They probably wouldn’t have been attracted to a crazy redhead jumping up and down. Sigh.
Crazy jumping redheads are just my kind of girl.
Seconded.
Aw thanks you guys. Unfortunately in Dublin redheads are not much of a rarity.
I live in Dublin and still think redheads are too rare :D
My Harry Potter geekiness is rushing back to me after seeing JK Rowling’s name and those old telephone booths! Laneia did you try to dial 62442? LOL ^^
Oops! I meant LIZZ, not Laneia my bad. I’m like Horace Slughorn saying ‘Rupert’ (and other bunch of names) instead of Ronald Weasley!
How about giving our surroundings and other people’s property the respect that we, ourselves, are seeking?
Yeah, first thing I thought of when I saw most of these pictures were the low-wage employees who’ll have to remove them and scrub the glue off afterwards, which is a pain in the ass. Unless the AS stickers are the kind who come off easily and don’t leave a sticky mess behind, that’s really not cool to make their shitty job even shittier.
Spray painting trees is fun. I used the ‘but the bark will grow back’ excuse. hahah little do they know…..
aw you were in belfast. i would have tried to stalk you if i’d known. missed opportunity. :P
Good work Lizz! I really really hope someone will comment on this post because they saw one of these stickers and came on AS.
Wow, cool idea. looks like a really fun trip. will you write about it?
It made me strangely happy to see Aer Lingus stickered. Who am I to question this feeling of joy? :)
I just feel bad for the bored traveler who sits there next, and as people said above, the person who has to scrape it off. maybe the inside of the folddown tray or under the bathroom’s toilet seat would be better so it won’t make a flight unpleasant, might not damage the screen while some body scrapes it off, it might not need to be scraped off, and it has a clever reveal, thus making one more likely to to look up the sticker’s origins positively. (Not that airlines have the time to research, but could you get in trouble for this?)
stickering is really awesome, a lot of these were cute, your trip looks fun, lizz!
I walk past Cumming Street almost every day and the name still makes me snigger (on the inside). I’ll look out for your handywork tonight!
Liz! I walk near Cumming Street almost every day too and I saw the sticker a couple of nights ago!! I couldn’t believe it because it was before I saw this post and I wondered who the hell did it! It was very exciting to see though!
Right, instead of being sad that I’m probably the only person in my town to read AS every time something like brunch comes up, I’m just going to buy stickers and put them in the bathrooms in all the cool pubs. I will make brunch happen one day dammit.
Confession 486: I took down any sticker that was inside private property or might have to be scrapped off a nice mural by an employee. I’m also just holding that sticker to the aer lingus screen. Many many many of my stickers just ended up on street posts and telephone booths.