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A student in a green sweater holds their laptop, decorated in stickers, close to their chest.
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Self-expression behind the screen: Exploring the laptop stickers of TMU students 

By Saif-Ullah Khan and Khadijah Ghauri 

Whether they’re sitting on the outdoor benches on Gould Street or at a desk in the library, a student on their laptop can be found in almost any corner of Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) busy campus. With this device being an unofficial prerequisite for university life, many students take to decorating their laptops in order to personalize the technology they spend so much of their time using. 

While some stickers simply decorate the owner’s device, many are tied to their unique experiences and identities. 

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A survey conducted by the University of Utah on the use of bumper stickers on cars revealed that most students choose to put stickers on laptops, water bottles and notebooks instead of their vehicles. 

The survey shared that in a world governed by technology, “many want to make their devices more human and personal” and that for students, “technology is the ideal canvas.”

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For Joey McCormick, a third-year collaborative nursing student, their favourite sticker acts as a reminder of one of their closest friends. The yellow cartoon figure, sitting close to the bottom right exterior corner of their laptop, is a representation of their friend Sarah, an animation student at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont. 

“She’s been drawing it since we were in high school together and we’ve been friends that long,” says McCormick. “We both moved out here from B.C. to come to school, so I like seeing it, and it reminds me of her.”

McCormick shares that the unique look their laptop has goes beyond having an aesthetic use but acts as a practical one as well. In the event that their laptop is stolen, they believe the stickers would allow them to better identify and recover the device. 

“I have lost my laptop before but I got it back because it was so personalized.”

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With various cartoon characters dancing across her laptop, first-year RTA new media student Sarah Lee has held onto her stickers since high school. 

“I have these Kirby stickers from my friend and she also gave me these Hello Kitty stickers in grade 10,” says Lee. “I’ve just had them ever since.”

Lee says she used to have an obsession with stickers and now owns an entire stack of them. She decorated her laptop in an effort to “go through” them and put them to use. 

Hidden under a messy collage of stickers, a beaten-up graffiti design reading M-Town Mafia in white, green and black lettering hides on the bottom left corner of a laptop. The owner, first-year graphic communications management (GCM) student Aly Shendy, proudly showcases the design which pays homage to his community back home.

“It also resembles a music group that I’m at, producing and making music for,” shares Shendy. “We [create] music for the biggest people in the region.” 

Maadi Town Mafia, or ‘M-Town’ for short, is a record label and production house founded in the Maadi neighbourhood of Cairo, Egypt where Shendy is from. 

Shendy says there is intention behind how his stickers are curated and displayed, despite also representing how “messy” his brain is. To him, each sticker that adorns the back of his computer embodies who he is as a person. 

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First-year Image Arts photography media arts student Kieran Lee sits at the border of two photoshoots in the Image Arts Centre with his device in-lap. His favourite sticker takes him back to a former photography gig he worked on for his friends, capturing a hackathon event in grade 12. 

“It’s a big coding event, and I just got to be their photographer. It was literally a 12-hour event. You go from 12 a.m. all the way to 12 p.m.,” shares Lee. “I just got to go around, running around, taking photos of all the events. It was pretty fun. It was really fun, actually. It was a very memorable event.” 

The other stickers on his device represent some of his interests, such as the Japanese cartoon character Gudetama, an anthropomorphic egg.  

“I kind of just put my stickers on and some people will be like, ‘Oh I know those characters’ or ‘I really like Gudetama too,’” says Lee. “I wouldn’t say these stickers have that much significance but they’re more so just [things] I like.”

Sitting at a bake sale table for the Organization of Latin American Students at TMU, second-year computer engineering student Antonio Souza reflects on his stickers as a collection of his unique experiences. 

“I want to say that the astronaut one is my favourite because my mom gave it to me,” shares Souza. “When I was younger, I had a dream to be an astronaut and then she gave that to me.”

To Souza, his stickers allow for conversations to be prompted around the different student groups, companies and organization logos that are littered across his device. His laptop is home to stickers from the Toronto Metropolitan Aerial Vehicle group and the shipping company DHL, which he says often prompts curiosity from people viewing his device. 

“I get to share a little bit of my experience with other people and I get to learn from other people throughout these stickers as well.” 

A research study published in the Journal of Research in Personality found that people are able to form reasonably accurate impressions of others by looking at their laptop stickers. People are able to better understand how extroverted and open-minded a person is based on how they decorate their laptop.  

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Acting as a canvas to showcase both her work and the designs that inspire her, the laptop of third-year GCM student Alexandra Tiongson feels like something out of a Pinterest board. Her favourite piece, which she designed for a school project, reads “2-HR Commuter Life” and reflects on her experience commuting from the Streetsville area in Mississauga, Ont. 

“It most resembles my design style—that’s why I’m most proud of that,” shares Tiongson. “I guess [the stickers] kind of represent my design style too–my inspiration for how I design my [work].”

Tiongson hopes to pursue more design work in the future, specifically in t-shirt design and experimenting with different fabrics. 

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On the wooden steps of the first floor at the Sheldon & Tracy Levy Student Learning Centre (SLC), high above tables of various vendors offering stickers and other small decorative products, second-year performance production student Marisa Minio sits with her Macbook, one that communicates her various interests in different books, TV shows and video games.

“Most of my stickers I just get from Etsy or any of these shops here in the SLC,” shares Minio. “Some people, when they see certain stickers, they’ll ask about it and then we get to talking about it.”

“Whatever video game or book that I’m reading, I get stickers based off of them. Just to display them, to show other people that these are my interests.”

According to the Journal of Popular Culture, “cultural products” such as stickers make a useful vehicle for starting conversations as they allow groups of people being acquainted to easily share a common interest. 

Sitting at a weathered bench on Gould Street while in conversation with a friend, third-year fashion student Martina Blunno balances her laptop on her knees while enjoying the chance to study outdoors. 

Blunno’s sticker collection has recently made its debut on her new device, following a decision she made to start using the stickers she’s collected over the years after having not used them. 

Many of her pieces come from different spaces in Toronto’s fashion and arts scene, such as a zombified Hello Kitty from a local pop-up event and a tattoo design-turned-sticker from local artist @potion_envy

“This is my first time that I’ve actually put stickers on something,” shares Blunno. “I’m someone who really hoards stickers and I’ve been hoarding them for years. A week ago, I was like, ‘You know what? Why don’t I actually put them on my computer?’”

“It was a new laptop. I was like, ‘You know what, this is really my laptop I want to make it look cute.’” 

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