车贴让高速路更有人情味

Bumper Stickers Make Highways More Social

翻译：张心茹

审校：许楠

“You know how it is when you’re driving behind a car and you notice the bumper sticker, and you think to yourself ‘Oh, it’s that kind of person’ or, ‘Why would somebody put that on their car?’”

Walter Goettlich, a sociology graduate student at the University of Kansas.

“I was coming back from a vacation with my family…and I was behind a car and the bumper sticker on the car was almost illegible, the type was really tiny and it said, ‘When this baby hits 88 miles an hour, you’re going to see some serious s**t.’”

“当你尾随前车行驶时看到车贴的时候有什么感觉？你会暗自思忖，‘这是一个怎样的司机’，或者‘他/她为什么要在爱车贴上这样的贴纸？’”，堪萨斯大学社会学研究生Walter Goettlich说。

“当时我与全家一起，正在假日归途中，我在一辆车后行驶，那辆车的车贴难以辨认，字体很小，上面写道‘当这辆宝贝车冲到时速88英里时，你会遇到大麻烦’ ”

This was Goettlich’s AHA! moment. As you may guessed, the bumper sticker was a reference to the movie Back to the Future. It’s moments like this, on the highway, driving at speed, that can seem so solitary, but in fact there are opportunities to connect—and with perfect strangers. [Walter Goettlich, Interstate Interstitials]

“That’s’ what I’m trying to get at…the way that we think about the world, based on how we read what other people put on their cars.”

这是Goettlich遇到的奇葩时刻。正如你所料，车贴上的话出自电影《Back to the Future》。就像这般，当你在公路上疾驶时，看起来无比孤独，但实际上又有许多与他人，尤其是陌生人交流的机会。[Walter Goettlich, Interstate Interstitials]

“这正是我所想暗示的-人们看待世界的方式取决于他们如何解读别人贴在车上的话”，Goettlich说。

To sample the kinds of messages being sent on our roads, Goettlich drove more than 10,000 miles on interstate highways throughout the eastern United States. He says one major variety of bumper sticker refers to things nearly everyone knows about—an election, a church, a social issue. But other bumper stickers may require an observer to access what Goettlich calls “outside resources.” For example, the bumper sticker that says, “The Dude Abides” might drive some people to do a quick Google search. But a few viewers may feel an instant bond, being fans of the movie The Big Lebowski.

为了对路上的各种信息进行采样，Goettlich在美国东部的公路上行驶了10000多英里，足迹横跨数州。他说大部分车贴是众所周知的内容，比如大选、教堂、以及一些社会话题。而另一些车贴则需要观者具备Goettlich所谓的“外部信息””，例如，有一个帖纸上写了“The Dude Abides”，可能让很多人看到后谷歌它的意思，但了解的人立马可以意识到这是电影《谋杀绿脚趾》的粉丝。

“So, the kinds of stickers I tend to like are the ones that don’t make sense to me, because what they do is they challenge my preconceived notions of the world.”

Another type of care sticker is a response to other stickers. For example, you know those window stickers of stick families? Some even include a stick dog or a stick cat? “And then I saw recently another example which was ‘making my family,’ and it was what were clearly male and female stick figures having sex.”

And then there are the ones that say, “My son beat up your honor student.”

So, when you’re on the road, check the messages sent by other cars around you. You might just connect, in a way you never expected. And without even bending a fender.

“所以我喜欢那些对我来说内容陌生的车贴，因为它们与我对世界的本来认知发生了碰撞。”

“还有些贴纸的内容是对其他贴纸的回应，比如，你见过贴着火柴人系列的车贴吗？里面甚至还有火柴狗和火柴猫？，另外,我最近还看到一个: “我们在组建家庭”，上画两个火柴人的贴纸形象正在啪啪啪。还有一个贴纸写着“我儿子能碾压你的学霸学生”。

所以行驶时，不要忘了看看周围的司机传递的信息，你们会被一种意想不到的方式连系起来——在无需防备的情况下。

—Emily Schwing