Quite young, impressionable, early adopters/zealots, with the fashion sense to match the stickers?

People who want to give the perception of being different?

'Obnoxious zealots' is probably a more common perception of these people

At work a lot of people have stickers on their laptops (myself included, but I don't put them on my personal one).

I've never _ever_ had anybody preach to me about some tech/event/company that they put a sticker of. My laptop is mine and I don't give a damn about what others think about it. I assume that this is the case of the vast majority of people who put stickers there.

This whole conversation reminds me of people complaining about vegans preaching.

what a weird thing to get hung up about

At face value, yes, but the obnoxious zealotry often has further implications. I mean, how much of the technology baked into your average web project these days is chosen out of fashion rather than utility? Definitely too much.

Almost all of it.