Something that’s left me a little curious and confused for more than a little while now is the growing number of “in memory of [some dead person]” decals affixed to the back windows of people’s cars. I see them more and more in the area in which I live, and while I wouldn’ want to judge anybody’s individual way of grieving, I never quite grokked the idea; the practice seems completely foreign to me.

While I’d never do such a thing myself (personally, I think it’s kind of tacky, and not in a good kitschy way), anthropologically, the practice fascinates me. I’m curious about where it started, it’s geographic and cultural distribution, and the unspoken rules of decal ettiquette. Honestly, I’ve steered conversations with acquaintences from far-flung regions of the country toward discussions about their experiences with these things; the phenomenon just kind of grabs me.

Not surprisingly, I turned toward that font of all knowledge, the internet, for answers. Google searches for “car window memorials” (google even suggests this when you start typing “car windows…”) serves as a basic starting point, and provides plenty of sources for all your tacky decal needs, including Confederate Flags, jingoistic Calvins, and those little cartoon families* you see on the back of minivans.

Also present were posts from a few bloggers who also don’t get the practice and play it for comedy, as well as one particular piece that mostly gets to the heart of the issue; a Washington Post story from 2004 (unavailable on the WaPo site, but handily reposted in full elsewhere).

This article traces the source of the practice to rural NASCAR culture (they’re an outgrowth of 3 with angel wings Earnhardt stuff), with contributing sentiment from memorials to Iraq war dead (with an oblique connection to those makeshift “wooden crosses and soggy stuffed animals at intersections where accidents happened” memorial monuments**) and the ease and low cost of knocking out a custom decal by just about any sign store in the country. A lot of this, interestingly, comes from an interview with a decal shop owner/race car driver from the town where I reside; leading me to further assume I live in the epicenter of this practice, since these things are EVERYWHERE in Central Virginia.

It’s also tied in to the culture of the car; people identify with their cars, and see them as not just transportation tools, but extensions of themselves to be used for expression. This isn’t a new idea, either; bumper stickers, in one form or another, have been common since the 1930s, about the same time personal automobiles became common. The practice of memorializing dead loved ones on your car is clearly a logical extension of the motivation for some to post “If this van’s a’rockin…” on their Econoline, even if it comes from a different emotional place.

There’s still one or two things I haven’t been able to figure out; for any social ritual, there are going to be “rules”, stated or unstated, about the practice. I haven’t found any discussion of these. How long does one go about displaying this decal? Is there an accepted length? If not, and these are intended to be “permanent” memorials, what does one do when the car wears out? How many memorials is “too many”?

I don’t know if these are entirely worked out yet; I’ve seen stickers with very old death dates on very new cars; does one order a new decal upon purchasing a new vehicle? I suppose that in order to discover these social mores, I’ll have to engage in further study.

Can anybody point me toward any futher discussion of these things? I’m seriously curious.

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* – my favorite example of this was two “moms” and a dog displayed over a rainbow sticker on the back of a Subaru Forrester; I love the way it subverted the trope, while still remaining a cliche.

** – Besides these being tacky, they’re often unsafe; obscuring drivers’ eyelines on roadways that are already clearly accident magnets.