“As I approached the steep green hillside towards the center of Aldrich Park, the sun nearing the end of that day’s performance, I felt adrenaline welling up inside me. Spreading from my hands to my legs to my now chattering teeth, I was surprisingly anxious. On a chilly February evening, I prepared with a crowd of other hopeful runners to sprint for a sticker smaller than my hand. I had never been particularly fond of stickers throughout my life before Petr. To me, stickers had been mere decorations to be placed on a water flask or laptop. So, when I discovered that there was a complex sticker-obsessed culture, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Amongst all the work and data collected, one idea from a community member reverberated:

I think that Petrs [droppers] value all stickers while runners (myself included) sometimes forget what these stickers mean in terms of its importance to the community. I wholeheartedly believe the experience is worth it because it is something unique to UCI and is something that you probably won’t see anywhere else.

While this story is certainly about stickers, it could not exist without the thousands of involved students across UC Irvine’s campus. When my shoes hit the muddy grass, then the pavement, then the grass again, they were certainly not alone. Indeed, my stride was engaged in shared rhythm with at least a hundred other students. Transforming spaces on campus as they wish; the Petr sticker community has mastered the art of spontaneous spatial occupations. Drop sites cultivate interactions between members to discuss sticker trades or to talk to old and new friends. Petr can be anywhere, or nowhere, within minutes. Intimacy and shared excitement drive the collection, trade, and gifting of Petr in a continued process of making meaning at UC Irvine. To trace these ties of passion, consumption, and adrenaline to stickers, though, one must first consider how a single image grew into a campus-wide phenomenon.”

Continue reading: https://medium.com/@sncalderon45/no-cost-place-or-time-the-uc-irvine-petr-sticker-community-4a7fc3ba2646