This book addresses the "sinister possibilities of corporate and media-dominated culture". Share your thoughts concerning today's "corporate and media-dominated" culture" and one tangible impact of this "condition" that you've personally witnessed in your own or other's lives.
Write one question and include one reading that will facilitate discussion with young adults.
46 comments:
This “condition” seems like a much exaggerated version of what is already happening today in our culture. No one is immune to the effects of advertising and is it impossible to be individual or unique when we all shop at the Gap and Target. As the saying goes, you are unique…just like everyone else. I stopped buying new clothes a couple of years ago when I joined this online group called Wardrobe Refashion. To join, you pledge that you’ll only buy used and either make or recycle everything you wear (with a few exceptions). While the idea is to save money and protest sweatshop labor, as well as to not dress exactly like everyone else, I do still find myself influenced heavily but what I’m seeing on TV, in magazines, online, and in store windows. I remake a lot of things I find to look like newer, trendier items that I see elsewhere. While we’re not at the level of corporations beaming ads directly into our brains, I think we’re getting closer – it’s a rare thing for most people in America to go more than a few hours without encountering a media influence. What’s scariest to me is that most people don’t seem to mind, if they notice at all.
Question: Titus and Violet had only been dating a couple of months before Violet’s health issues causes Titus to break up with her. Would the outcome of their relationship have been the same if they had been dating for a longer period of time? Why or why not?
Reading: “But the braggest thing about the fee, the thing that made it really big, is that it knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are. It can tell you how to get them, and help you make buying decisions that are hard.”
I watched the movie “The Corporation” for a speech class. One focus point was on how Disney movies shape young minds with the perspective of a white dominated American culture. In “Lady and the Tramp” it shows two Siamese cats with slanted eyes and large front teeth who craftily outwit the heroine dog, Lady, and make her take the blame for the trouble they have caused. Kids internalize these stereotypes and label others who do not look like themselves. My father is completely anti-Disney and for a time, we did not own a TV. Consequently, I wasn’t as hip as other kids, or up on the latest trends. Instead, I filled my time with reading books, nature hikes and playing violin. As a kid, I didn’t understand, but now I am grateful for his distrust of media. Check out this link for “The Corporation” http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=314
Calculate what you think would have happened if Titus didn’t delete Violet’s memory files?
Page 262-3, Titus and Violet have a conversation about Violet’s malfunctioning feed:
She goes, “You can join me. We can prepare. I have this dream that I’ll be able to learn to live without the feed. I wish they could just switch it off.” “Can’t they?” “Not dormant. Off. Completely. They can’t right now. It replaces too many basic functions. It’s tied in to everything.” She was looking at the ceiling. “One little things,” she said. “I caved in. The other day, Nina said she’d noticed all of the requiem masses I’d been listening to. She suggested some others. Here’s the hideous thing.” “What?” “I liked them. She figured it out. I’ve been sketched demographically. They can still predict things I like.” She sighed. “They’re really close to winning. I’m trying to resist, but they’re close to winning.” “Just…keep…” I didn’t know what to say. I said “Doing.”
Although the media has had an impact on society for decades, it is important to note that the impact of the media seems to have risen dramatically within the last few years. While reading this book, one cannot help, but to think about the ways in which the media has influenced each one of us. The media has begun to shape our beliefs. If not shape our beliefs, sway them at the least. The information that we use to form our beliefs comes in part from the media, regardless of how inaccurate or biased it may be. Unfortunately, everyone is dealing with the effects, the youth in particular. Young adolescents are the target of a majority of the ads that are put out. In particular, a large portion of advertisements are aimed at young girls. With a constant need to fit in, young girls are persuaded to change their beliefs in order to conform. As often seen, the physical result of this could be a young girl changing the type of clothing she wears or the hue of her skin. The media affects everyone, even those that shy away from it.
Compare the way in which Titus treated Violet in the beginning of the book to the way in which he treated her towards the end. Evaluate the reason for this change.
From Feed on page 47: “I don’t know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside of the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.”
RESPONSE:
Media domination is ubiquitous. My favorite ethnic bistro has succumbed to having a large-screen t.v. in the dining room. The owner said that she held out long enough and was not happy having this distraction. However, some of her patrons kept asking for it and even offered to buy it for her. Fortunately, half of the bistro has no visual access to this intrusion. I personally think that going out to eat should be to focus on my wonderful companions. I can’t imagine being on a date with someone, and his attention focused solely on the t.v. with a cursory nod and a ‘ah huh’. Not too romantic! (Good thing that I'm married and my husband shares my dismay.) Even my favorite little coffee shop has this intrusion. It is hard to have a conversation without your eyes drifting toward the flashing screen.
QUESTION:
We live in a society that values individuality and free will. However, with all of this cyber chip domination portrayed in 'Feed', what do you think about this dystopian society being made up of a herd of individuals?
READING:
Now that School™ is run by the corporations, it’s pretty brag, because it teaches us how the world can be used, like mainly how to use our feeds. Also, it’s good because that way we know that the big corps are made up of real human beings, and not just jerks out for money, because taking care of children, they care about America’s future. (p.90)
RESPONSE: Who can’t see the influence of the “corporate and media-dominated culture” we live in? There is no way around it. It is on the television, in magazines, and on websites that we frequently visit. Corporations and media have also combined to induce us to think about purchases during previews to movies!!
I do have to admit, however, that it has helped when birthdays and holidays come around. Advertising is the best way to find out what the kids want for gifts! It starts them thinking!
Yet advertising is not the only way corporations and media influence our lives. The sponsoring of events encourages people to invest in the political campaign, the medical research, or community events. How many of us have decided to donate after seeing a favorite actor or someone we admire donating to the cause? (This could be through time invested in the project not just money.)
I know my friend Jennifer, who is a doctor, has had a lot more donations of time and money since the projects she is involved in have had more media coverage and corporate sponsorship.
QUESTION: Titus and Violet have different views of the feed. Choose the side you feel most connected to and defend your reasons to have or not have the feed.
READING: “That’s one of the great things about the feed-that you can be supersmart without ever working. Everyone is supersmart now. “ (p 48)
Today we live in a world that is dominated by the media and large corporations. We are flashed hundreds of media messages from these corporations every single day. After viewing these messages over and over, we begin to internalize some of these messages unless we are careful, conscious consumers.
One of the messages that we are flashed every single day is the ideal body image. Through the media, we see the ideal female as being thin, tall, and beautiful. Not only do we see images of this ideal image each day, we are also exposed to the many products, procedures, and programs that can help us to attain this ideal body image. This ideal body image has contributed to the growing problem of eating disorders in young women and also young men. People are striving to achieve this ideal, yet unrealistic body image.
At the beginning of high school, one of my best friends suffered from anorexia. Although she did not like to talk about it very much, she would often express her desire to look like the girls in the magazines or in the movies. We would look through magazines, agonizing over how great this model looked in that dress. It seemed as though myself and all of my girlfriends were always trying to lose five pounds and then we would look perfect in our prom dresses. However, who says we didn’t already look great in our dresses? We were comparing ourselves to the models in the magazines and the celebrities we saw in the movies and on television. Not only would we strive to look like these women, we would buy the products that were supposed to help us achieve that. The sunless tanner that would give us the perfect glow, the face powder that would ensure our faces would not end up oily and shiny, the weight loss pills that would burn off those last few pounds. We are constantly bombarded by images of how we should be and then by the products that will make us that way.
Question: Violet did not have a feed until she was seven years old. Titus had his feed from the day he was born. Analyze how life would be different for someone who did not have a feed in a world where nearly everyone else had one. What advantages and disadvantages would they face?
Reading: Pages 225-226. For an hour and a half today, I couldn’t move my leg. My toes were clenched. My knee was all locked up. I didn’t chat you. I didn’t want to worry you. You don’t talk much now. I went to a technician. By the time I waited, the leg started to work again.
Response to Question:
I found that I struggled with this question. As I typed and deleted and gathered thoughts in my head, I realized that I am every human being in this book that has never experienced life off the feed. I realized that I am not aware of the corporate and media-dominated culture in which we live. So, I did some research and came up with this website… www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html It shows internet, books, radio, movies, television, magazine, even theme parks and the corporations who control them. The Viacom Company alone controls nearly 50 television channels in the U.S. alone. Lets do some math. The Viacom Company has nearly 50 television channels, with say, 15 shows to a channel. That is 750 shows that the Viacom company controls and can use to send its messages, subliminal or not, to American viewers. That also means that they can say what they DO NOT want shown on their shows. Honestly, the thought of corporate and media domination hadn’t even crossed my mind until I looked into it. And that scares me. It makes me wonder what else I am sheltered from and am not aware of it.
Written Question:
Compare the applications used by humans provided by the feed to those applications provided by technology in our time. Can advances in technology go too far? Do you think the “feed” is realistic to expect in our future?
Quote:
Page 175 – “You toss something up in the air, and you expect it to come back down again.”
Page 232-3 – “I won’t remember you standing there bored by my bedside as I slur words, standing there waiting to feel like you’ve stayed long enough so that you’re a good person and you’re allowed to leave.”
Our society today is swamped with corporate and media-dominated advertising. What’s even scarier is the fact that even though “Feed” is a story based in science fiction, it portrays a future that could be possible for our society. It addresses the possibility of computer microchips being implanted into human brains as a way to make our lives easier and more efficient. This microchipping process is a practice that is currently being done to our pets. Every animal that is adopted from the humane society in Nebraska has a GPS microchip implanted just underneath its skin. This chip will keep the animals from becoming permanently lost. This practice is also being considered as a possibility for our children, in an attempt to reduce the numbers of missing and/or exploited children. I view the GPS microchip installations as the first step which could lead to the possibility of having RSS feeds installed into our brains. There’s a famous quote that ties into all of this, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it,” therefore, with this idea written down, it won’t be terribly long before we may see these kinds of computers being installed into human beings.
Evaluate the pros and cons of having the feed installed and provide an argument as to why you would or would not have the feed installed in yourself or someone who is close to you.
“We Americans,” he said, “are interested only in the consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they were produced, or what happens to them” – he pointed at his daughter – “what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away.” (290)
While reading Feed, I was finding chilling similarities between the Feed and Amazon.com and other commercial websites. This site recognizes me when I am on my home computer, emails me recommendations based on previous purchases, offers professional and amateur reviews for items, and tells me what everyone else bought along with a particular title. Do I think what they’re doing is sinister? No, but the technology is there to interpret the wants of each individual and could eventually be abused.
It seems like everything I do now involves media. I have a bad habit of watching TV, utilizing my computer, and texting on my phone at the same time. The multi-tasking capability of our brains is amazing. Therefore, if the media and corporations choose to control society with subliminal messages they have a variety of outlets to do so. It’s kind of scary to think about.
Discussion Question: Titus’s friends try to pressure him to go “in mal” many times throughout the book. Explore the relationship between the peer pressure placed on him and the constant commercial bombardment of the feed. What are the similarities and differences? What do you see is more harmful? Why?
Book Talk Quote: Violet was screaming, “Look at us! You don’t have the feed! You are feed! You’re feed! You’re being eaten! You’re raised for food! Look at what you’ve made for yourselves!” pg. 160
I am sure we do not know just how fed we are by the media regarding news stories and what the government wants us to know. It is disturbing to see both local and national news have a tendency to spin stories to ‘sell’ them more and bring in more viewers rather than remain objective. The internet allows for another way for larger corporations to try to control what we view, but with the large scope it is easier to get many viewpoints on one subject. One thing I have personally experienced with large corporations controlling things is actually being accused of being part of the corporation. We have some conspiracy theorist patrons at my library, and there is one in particular who is not shy in expressing his opinion that we are attempting to control the citizens by what we stock on the shelves. I know this is something many librarians struggle with, as budgets only stretch so far, so it was interesting to be included in a group who is accused of attempting to control information.
Question: If you had to create another chapter to add to the end of the story of “Feed”, what would happen?
Reading: “Everything we think and feel is taken in by the corporations, mainly by data ones like Feedlink and OnFeed and American Feedware, and they make a special profile, one that’s keyed just to you, and then they give it to their branch companies, or other companies buy them, and they can get to know what it is we need, so all you have to do is want something and there’s a chance it will be yours.”
I believe that we have already reached the "sinister possibilities of corporate and media-dominated culture". I was in class one day, when one of my professors asked me in front of our class what my dream was after obtaining my degree. I responded that it was to get a good and stable job, to get married, have kids, to be financially secure and live in a nice safe suburban neighborhood. It sounded perfectly reasonable to me. My professor nodded and said that my dreams were an example of dreams dominated by our culture. This makes me think of how those dreams have been inspired from our media-driven culture. We are supposed to have these dreams so that we don't change the way our culture is. And once we realize how our dreams are made for us, it is still hard to change them because we have had them so long.
Question: The culture in Feed is very media and corporation dominated. In what ways in our culture similar to theirs? In what ways are we different?
"I sat on the sofa. I looked at the fireplace. I had deleted all her memories."(200)
Response to Question:
In M.T. Anderson’s Feed, we see the characters instant messaging each other, sending each other web links, and getting consumer product information on anything and everything they come into contact with. For the entire novel, I couldn’t help but think that we were reading about Facebook installed into someone’s head. If you haven’t heard of the social networking powerhouse, Facebook lets you “interact” with all of your friends. You can know exactly what they are doing when they are doing it, you can chat them up any time of the day and night, and with the latest round of updates, you can get all of this information on a tidy screen called “News Feed.” I found the similarity to the title to be most fitting.
The wonderful/terrible thing about media and marketing is that if it doesn’t happen then the great cogs of capitalism don’t turn. How can a multibillion dollar company expect to make more money and buy out more competition if they can’t send their message to everyone within a three state radius? As was suggested earlier, when you look at the number of channels that Viacom owns, just imagine the message that corporate body could send out and how many millions of people it would affect.
Sample Question:
Look at the following list of characters from the novel. Assess each character’s dependence of the feed, rank each character 1-8 with 1 being least and 8 being most. Locate one example from the novel for each to show your rationale.
Violet, Titus, Quendy, Calista, Link, Titus’ father, Marty, Violet’s father
Passage:
P. 116
It smelled like the country. IT was a filet mignon farm, all of it, and the tissue spread for miles around the paths where we were walking. It was like these huge hedges of red all around us, with these beautiful marble patterns running through them. They had these tubes, they were bringing the tissue blood, and we could see the blood running around, up and down. It was really interesting. I like to see how things are made, and to understand where they come from.
Those of us who work with children face this every day. Granted my students are younger than the characters in this book, but the underlying theme plays out true to form. Corporations and the media put pressure on everyone to look and dress a certain way. Children believe everything they see and hear unless they have someone in their lives to help them see through the situation. However, many adults are not much better. Some parents seem to be competing for the best birthday parties and most extravagant vacations. As a result of this, some students choose friends and form relationships based on material possessions. I bothers me every day to watch the disparity between the “haves” like Titus and his friends and the “have nots” like Violet. Should it make a difference? No. Does it make a difference? Yes! Some students are shunned because their families cannot afford the Hannah Montana backpack, the Nike tennis shoes and such that the media tells children on a daily basis that they must to have to be cool.
I really not looking for Corporate America and the media to “see the light” any time soon. They are after the money and the ratings. Frankly, the scenario in this book worries me a little. Just how far will a society go? In my own little world, I just try to do what I can by making everyone feel welcome in the library and teaching a little media literacy along the way.
In the book, whether Violet received the care she needed was determined by her recent purchases. She was not considered to be a “reliable investment”. In this day and age this situation might transfer to health care. What criteria should be used to determine whether or not someone gets the health care they need? For example: there are 10 people in serious need of a heart transplant. When one becomes available, who should the recipient be and why? Defend your answer.
“It smelled like the country. It was a fillet mignon farm, all of it, and the tissue spread for miles around the paths where we were walking. It was like these huge hedges of red all around us, with these beautiful marble patterns running through them…. I like to see how things are made, and to understand where they come from.” p. 142 (I would use the whole paragraph.)
Knight---Feed Blog
I was meg upset that Violet was reduced to a vegetable once the implants stopped functioning. I thought that the story would end with teenagers becoming free of their entrapment. But, truly, if a culture is so deeply clamped to buy-buy-buy and chatting via your brain link, the plot could not continue another way. To play the devil's advocate, there are conveniences to think about: a GPS chip in your head means never getting lost; a quick call to Mom's implant means you never have to forget her birthday; the latest fashion (up to the second) means you are always on top socially at school. However, this means we stop thinking about our clean water, air and food. We become infected; skin ailments turn into badges of fashion and getting stoned no longer requires drugs. Many of my male students would love this future-I'm sure they couldn't see anything wrong with it. Twould only see the gaming possibilities, as they do today with X-Box, Game Boy Advance, and Wii. Many female students would love to be able to hear the best fashions, chat their friends 24-7 and would be mesmerized into buying the latest shoes, hair style, trendy clothing and make-up as they are today. However, I also know a few students who would not be able to afford the electronic electrocution of their freedom and they would be just fine with that. But, they would suffer the indifference, the teasing just as they do in 2009 for not being able to afford an i-Phone, MP3 player, Internet access or fast car. What ever happened to moderation in the future?
Whatever FEEDS your soul, I say!
While on a research mission about smaller learning communities, I witnessed two Dallas suburban high schools with Pepsi advertisements in the commons area, on their marquees and elsewhere. I learned that Pepsi sponsored their sports activities and gave scholarships in exchange for posting their product's name around. Though I understand the need for enough funding, I viewed it was educational prostitution. Students, staff and visitors alike had no choice but to see that label; they had no other beverage choice in the drink machines. When we asked some of the staff members about this, some shrugged saying "We just bring in our own [Coke] products and put it in the staff refrigerator."
Question: Violet's father says that Americans are only interested in the purchase of products, not how they are produced, not what happens to it all. How should this be monitored in the future and should it?
Reading: "My father's family didn't have the money to buy feeds for my dad and my uncle. The feeds were newer then, and they were more expensive. They were advertised with these silver see-through heads with the chip inside them. The heads would be spinning around at the mall, with the mouths of the heads calling your name."
In my former life as an editor of a local sports magazine, I felt the pressure and power of advertising.
As editor my job was to identify stories that readers would find interesting, or newsworthy. But the advertising folks, predictably, wanted stories in some cases about products that they felt would help them sell ads to those specific businesses.
Obviously, I did not want to write these stories that were not one of the top stories on the the local sports scene. However, the owner of the magazine "encouraged" the editorial and business side of the magazine to find some middle ground. In other words, write the damn article and get the ad contract in.
Question: When Violet goes into the hospital, the ending is what you might expect with her declining condition.
Create your own surprise ending. Base the new ending on some part of the story that makes it possible.
(p 171) Quote: The following exchange occurs while they are driving and right after a minor verbal squabble. It shows them connecting with each other:
She said, "Just drop. Drop and then catch us."
I was staring at the steering column, wondering what the hell she was talking about.
"She said, "I want to feel something. Lets feel vertigo together."
I dropped us.
When we stopped, suddenly both of us had sweat.
Response: My current area of expertise is with young children, as I have three under 6 years old, so I’ll focus on that age group. One afternoon, one of my kids’ friends was visiting and all four kids started spouting off quotes from a television show that none of them are allowed to watch. I asked them about it and all replied that they’d seen a commercial for the show on a children’s channel that boasts “no advertising.” (Evidently that means “outside of that channel’s own interests.") Now all of my kids recognize the character from the forbidden show, quote this character, and request merchandise featuring this character. All of this, without ever having seen the show.
While this may seem an inconsequential occurrence, it has become more and more common in our house. This may be a tad melodramatic, but marketers are slowly taking away my right as a parent to choose the things to which my children are exposed. I could remove the t.v. from our house, but the kids are still being inundated with these things in the form of backpacks and lunchboxes and t-shirts.
The most depressing part is the fact that the major corporation in question is Walt Disney, a company founded on the innocence of entertaining children.
Question: Even Violet couldn’t avoid “cataloging” by marketers. What do your purchases say about you?
Reading: She smiled and put her finger inside the collar of my shirt. “Listen,” she said. “What I’m doing, what I’ve been doing over the feed for the last two days is trying to create a customer profile that’s so screwed, no one can market to it. I’m not going to let them catalog me. I’m going to become invisible” (Anderson, 2002, p. 98).
Anderson, M. T. (2002). Feed.Cambridge, Mass: Candlewick, Press.
While reading this book I saw comparisons to many things that are going on today. There is the obvious link to the corporate controlled media that we are constantly bombarded with. The fact that a 2003 poll by revealed that 70% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 shows just how influential the media can be, and how easily we will latch on to what is fed to us without asking any questions. I also liked the comparisons to Amazon.com and Facebook when it comes to advertising that is geared towards your “thoughts.” The example I kept thinking of was when Google has a list of advertisement links that correspond with what you have searched for. One parallel that I found intriguing was how the feeds mirrored religion. They were implanted at a young age, just like most religious people grew up in their religion, not knowing anything else. The feed “knows” everything you need and hope for, like religion claims to. In the end the feed has destroyed America, which reminds me of the masses of people, many of them in congress none the less, that refuse to acknowledge global warming, claiming that only god can destroy the earth, not man. My favorite quote from the book was when Titus exclaimed “that’s one of the great things about the feed – that you can be supersmart without ever working.” Things like evolution and global warming are complex concepts to grasp, with religion, you can “know” how the earth came to be, and where it is headed, without putting forth any effort to actually understand what is actually going on.
Violet gets upset and leaves when she is made fun of for her educated comments on Coke. With all the knowledge available to them through the feed, why do you think everyone was so quick to jump on violet and her informed ideas?
As I was reading Feed, I couldn’t help but think of how much of the future in the book was already coming to pass through the form of Facebook. It is like the “feed” in the book is the updated version of Facebook only not in your head, which makes me wonder if the author wrote the book before or after the conception of FB. . . I would have to look that date up as I didn’t join until maybe two years ago.
And I will be first to admit how addicting it can be since it seems to fulfill the need to know what your friends are up to and gossip. Of course then those who are already using it encourage others to join and pretty soon it could become such an ingrained thing in society that it could almost become like the world in the book – Violet’s father succumbed to the pressure to have his daughter implanted with a feed so that she could be successful in the world. With the influence of large corporations and the media today it is almost impossible not to be encouraged to log onto the internet at some point in the day to be “fed” information.
Facebook isn’t the only website that has ads personally customized to an individual’s interests and demographics; just off the top of my head I can think of Google, Amazon, Myspace and Youtube who have the ability to track your interests and suggest other things that you should “purchase” or view. It just now occurred to me that this is actually kind of what libraries are moving towards with those “if you like this book, you might like this. . .” kind of features on their card catalog. Good or bad, media influences have permeated our lives in so many different ways that we don’t always realize where these messages come from or how they many have influenced our decisions.
Question:
Construct a theory as to how the story may have played out if Violet hadn’t experimented with pretending to be interested in buying random, unrelated products. How would this have affected Titus’s view on the world if they hadn’t conducted the experiment? What may have happened if she had purchased a select few or even all of the products?
pg. 226-227
“I realized that they had chatted me and that I had not responded. They found this funny. Risible. That a man would not have a feed. So they were chatting about me in my presence. Teasing me when I could not hear. Free to assess me as they would, right in front of me.
“I did not get the job.
“It was thus that I realized that my daughter would need the feed. She had to live in the world. I asked her if she wanted it. She was a little girl. Of course she said yes. “
For the most part, I can shrug off the perpetual corporate media bombardment – being perpetually broke can do that. However, I have noticed that it is an unavoidable and simply normal part of life. I remember a time when there were no cell phones. Then I remembered a time when they were so massive you could club a grizzly bear to death if you were being attacked.
Now, I find in nigh impossible to carry on a normal conversation with someone without them whipping out their phone and replying to someone’s text message that they just received. I know cell phones can be a convenient tool, but it seems like too many people are married to theirs. What really burns me is that commercials do their utmost to portray the normality of giving your 5th grader a cell phone and unlimited talk and texting because it’ll just prevent headaches later (like the headache of actually teaching responsibility?). What’s probably the worst part is that so many people feel the need to be constantly connected to their friends… and then constantly ignore them when they just don’t feel like talking/texting.
Question: We learn that Titus’s parents went to a conceptionarium so that he would have certain features, including some of the looks of an actor they both liked. If your parents had gone to a conceptionarium, what famous person might you have had the looks of and why? If you had your own children, which famous person/persons would you want them to have the looks of and why?
Reading: We were sitting side by side, with our legs swinging on the wall of the tower, and the Clouds™ were all turning pink in front of us. We could see all the miles of filet mignon from where we were sitting, and some places where the genetic coding had cone wrong and there, in the middle of the beef, the tissue had formed a horn or an eye or a heart blinking up at the sunset, which was this brag red, and which hit on all those miles of muscle and made it flex and quiver, with all these shudders running across the top of it… (144)
Wow! This book really made me stop to think where we are going as a society. We have people who live literally connected to the world twenty-four hours a day, unable to function without their Blackberry, iPod, or WIFI. To take it one step further and make the connection in your brain without a device that could be removed easily, or taken away to force you into down time I am sure there would be takers of that service right now.
I love the time I spend with myself, though there is not a lot of it. If I was unable to find that quiet solace where others could not intrude in my brain, I would go nuts and in this novel they go nuts without that constant barrage of information.
Then there is the whole question of who is sending the “feed”. Is it unbiased, obviously not in this book. Can there ever be one source that could be trusted to do all the evaluation and sorting of information and provide you with only pertinent data without a value judgment or ulterior motive? That is a really scary thought.
My eleven year old was looking for something to read while we were out the other afternoon and I only had "feed" with me so I let him start the book. In about an hour of time he had the first fifty pages read. This kid loves to read, but this was being consumed so fast I wondered what he thought. His question was why we don’t read things like this in school?
The further he read, the more he understood why this might not make it in a classroom. He said, “There are a lot of cuss words aren’t there?” I said yes, and then he asked why I let him read it. I told him that he hears those words everyday whether it is the kids at school, people out in the world, his older brother and yes, even his parents. I trusted that he understood some words are not meant to be used freely, but in writing those words only have power— if you the reader give them power.
I asked what he thought about the idea of a “feed”, he thought it would be great to be able to ask each other things anytime, day or night no matter how close or far apart we maybe from one another. He never questioned the source of the “feed”.
Question
In the book 'feed', by M.T. Anderson, there is a passage on page 119, it discusses the “fertilizing power of their thoughts”, after reading that passage, in your own words explain what has happened and how the American government is attempting to resolve the situation. What can you infer from the reading and evaluate the effectiveness of this message.
My Quote
Pg. 145
Violet is speaking—“She said, ‘Yeah. You know, I think death is shallower now. It used to be a hole you fell into and kept falling. Now it’s just blank.’”
1. Multi-national corporations have become more common, squeezing out local, small businesses. The media is 24/7, yet the news coverage is often superficial, especially what is on the television. Pre-schoolers can identify the famous “M” symbol for McDonalds and other corporate logos before they know their A,B,C’s. How many times have we seen these images by the time we grow up and what is the effect? Advertising works which is why we see and hear ads everywhere—billboards, magazines, television, radio, on-line, on the sides of buses, on the clothes of athletes, before and in movies, and on and on. How would children know what toys to ask for if they did not watch cartoons and see the ads? What is the message that teen girls get from reading "Seventeen" magazine; the greater part of the magazine is advertising. Adults are not immune to advertising. How much was spent on advertising for the presidential candidates last year alone? Unfortunately, some people do not look for information anywhere else, and they make their decisions solely based on ads—what to buy or who to vote for. Children need to be taught critical thinking skills, so they can make informed decisions. Everyone should have more than one source to help combat the constant bombardment.
We have seen the effect of advertising on our children and our friends. We lived in Germany for three years; my husband was in the military. We only received one American television station (courtesy of the military), and it did not have ads. We did not have children at the time, but our friends who did said it was great—their kids did not know what (toys) to put on their Christmas/birthday wish list. One of my daughters really struggled (struggles?) with having the ‘right’ name brand clothing. If asked, she would acknowledge that it was shallow, but she’d still conclude the conversation with the statement that she still wanted this name brand item. We have also gone back and forth in our house with cable/satellite television. For most of the last 19 years that we have been raising children, we have not had cable or satellite TV. Our children think they are missing out on a lot, but we are better able to avoid certain negative influences (attitudes, shows and ads) without it. Finally, when I was growing up, they still had cigarette advertising. We used to play tag where you could say a cigarette brand name (e.g. Marlboro) and you’d be ‘safe’ for a few second until the person who was ‘it’ took off after someone else. I do not know if my kids could even name one brand of cigarette, let alone however many my friends and I would say in one game of tag.
2. Compare and contrast the teens in the book, "Feed", with teens of today. How are they similar? How are they different?
3. “…Organelle asked Jackie whether she had meg hips and he was like, “Since you ask, we both could work out more,” and she was like, “You shithead, you should’ve lied,” and so all the guys were saying, no way, if she asked him this complete question he should answer it, and the girls were like, if you ever insult how I look then you’re completely shallow, and we were like, but she asked, and they were like, omigod, you don’t get it, and Link said if they really didn’t want to know how they looked, then how come they asked so much…” p. 75
I thought this book was incredibly sad. The feed decided what was popular and the people were constantly encouraged to buy certain things. The girls all had the same hairstyle, because that is what the feed told them was cool. The feed cut out the opportunity for individuality.
Having the feed made life convenient for everyone. Having the ability to chat with your friends and family instantly, no matter where you are would be nice. But, the feed was also contributing to the decline of civilization. No one had to remember anything or have knowledge of anything, because they could instantly look it up on the feed. There was no point to learn anything or have any life experience.
I have seen something like this when two teenage girls were sitting right next to each other and they were texting back and forth. This was not an exact example of corporate and media-dominated culture, but it does show how dependant on technology our culture has become. An example of how corporate and media-dominated our culture has become is iPods. Almost every teenager has one, and an off-brand MP3 player is not considered as good.
Question: Discuss Titus’ and Violet’s different views of the feed. Which do you agree with?
Reading: She laughed. “Yeah. Both of them. I’m fine. But they say they have to find some way to make adjustments. Something happened when the guy hacked. Most people, the hack just jammed them for a while. Somehow it affected mine more. Something’s still wrong.” Pg. 74
To me, mass media is a sort of necessary evil. It is necessary in this day and age because it helps its consumers to keep their proverbial finger on the pulse of the world around them – or so many of them tell themselves – and while I don’t think it’s inherently evil, I think it becomes so because of the people who turn its wheels and their collective inability to keep their stories straight. That goes for more than simply the news media; it also goes for media outlets that cover all sorts of aspects of culture, and at the end of the day it leaves a lot of media consumers – those who aren’t yet able to cut through the BS of it all – even more lost than they may have been to start with. Young adults are unquestionably the group most susceptible to this – Anderson clearly understands that.
QUESTION: Imagine that you had a personalized ‘feed’ of your own, tracking your interests and providing select related advertising designed specifically to entice you and pique those interests. Does having your own ‘feed’ sound appealing to you, and what sorts of suggestions do you think it would provide?
READING: (P. 27): It’s dance. It’s dance, dance, dance. That’s fun. Fun’s fun, and fun’s what you can have. There’s nothing to stop you from fun. Do you see the bodies? Can you smell the beat? Then you’ll come and roar with us. Come and throw your boots at superstars. Come thrash in the cool until your head opens up, and you see the veins of the people you love bright as branches against the sky, and burnt in your brain will be the fun, all of the fun, and the lights, and the Doppler fade of screaming you heard at the Rumble Spot. The Rumble Spot.
The Rumble Spot: an ocean of chaos in the Sea of Tranquility.”
My nephew was kind of a ‘late bloomer’. He didn’t start speaking, other than the usual momma-daddy stuff, until he was about 4 years old. When he finally did decide to open up talk to us, he added “dot com” after everything he said. For example, one day he said to me “Auntie-dot-com, wet’s go McDonald’s-dot-com. Fwench fwies-dot-com!” His dad and mom, my brother and his wife, work a lot. He is a paramedic/firefighter and she is a police officer in Kansas City. My nephew, Alex, and his sister spend most of their day at day care. On the days when my brother and his wife are off duty, they rarely have the energy, sadly, for anything more taxing than a day on the couch in front of the television. So, unfortunately, my niece and nephew are heavily influenced by Sponge Bob Squarepants and his corporate sponsors. They have everything a kid could ask for, a Wii, ipods, great bikes, all the coolest clothes and toys. My brother and I grew up in a financially constrained environment. I think that’s why he defines his success by how much “Stuff” he collects.
Whether I agree or disagree with my brother’s lifestyle, I cannot argue with the fact that the philosophy of “Stuff™” dominates our culture. The corporate machine penetrates and dictates our lives subtly, completely, and inescapably. Humans want. We want power, success and money for the sake of self-actualization, or greed. As we evolve as a culture, the line between need and want evaporates. So, the question is; where do we draw the line? What are we willing to sacrifice, as a species, for the sake of consumption; art, philosophy, literature, education? Is that our decision to make, or have we already relinquished the right to choose?
As a parent, it’s difficult for me not to overindulge my children. There is so much pressure, at a very young age, to have the coolest, newest, best-est, useless-est junk. I want my children to achieve academically, but I also want them to fit in, to be included in the “popular” group. Does that mean that I am exploiting my children? Maybe. Maybe my children are an extension of my ego. Maybe I am judged, in my community, by the success of my children. Maybe the success of my children is judged by how much they have, not how much they know. Honestly, I would much rather see my children sitting at the “geek’s” lunch table; still, I can’t deny that I feel kind of proud when my kids are the first to get the newest “Thing™.” I can’t deny that I envy those soccer moms because they all have a Blackberry™, they carry Coach™ bags, and get their teeth Zoom™ whitened.
Question:
Violet and her father seem to be part of a dying group of academics. They appreciate art and knowledge. Do you believe that art is a dying? What is art? What would the world be like without it?
Reading (90-91):
Violet and Titus are discussing Violet’s issue with her feed.
“Do you remember one day when we were on the moon, the doctors took me out to talk to me alone? Then I came back and found you, and took you up to the air loss garden? The doctors, they were talking to me about this. They said that it would probably stabilize. It hasn’t yet.”
“Holy shit.”
“They say it will probably be fine.”
“Holy shit.”
She patted me on the chest. “Calm,” she said. “The rose will bloom ere long.”
Wow! Media. I am not sure how I would feel about having banners flash through my head every five seconds. I think it would give me a headache and be annoying, as it so often did to Titus. It reminded me, exactly, of surfing the web; when there are pop-ups everywhere and you can find answers to anything in seconds, except the computer in “Feed” was in the heads of everyone. My thoughts about our media dominated culture are not exactly positive. The corporate and media-dominated culture in “Feed” is not my ideal paradise. I do not like the way everyone is in everyone else’s business. People were capable of tapping into ones private thoughts. The media (computer inside your head) knew everything you were thinking about and tried to sell you something every five seconds.
I believe that our technology is working quickly toward these “feeds”. For instance, I was listening to a news program on the radio tell about how there are debates about billboards that can detect your personality being put up in some places. How it works is, the billboard picks up what radio station you are listening to, then changes it ad to show something you may be interested in buying. I also do not like the way that celebrities and people in power are usually portrayed negatively in the media. They are people too, just like us, and they make mistakes too. I believe that because of the media, it is more difficult for celebrities and politicians to overcome issues they may have (like alcohol, or even just a death in the family) because they are constantly being reminded of their problems. How can they overcome obstacles when they are constantly being shot down for a mistake they made or reminded everyday of a tragedy in the family?
Nobody can escape the media. The more technology we develop the less private our lives become.
Question:
Think about Violet’s decision to “fight the feed”. If you were in her position, what would be the strategy you would use to accomplish defeating the feed? Would you be successful? Why or why not?
“Images of Coke falling in rivulets down chiseled mountainsides;” Page 27
Response:
I will never again make a purchase from Amazon.com without thinking about The Feed. Like “Nina”, Amazon makes suggestions for additional items I might find of interest as I search. With every click of the mouse, information is being collected about me. Of course, it’s not just on Amazon. Petsmart and grocery stores offer cards for special discounts, while at the same time tracking every purchase I make.
But can we really complain that corporations collect information and use it for marketing? We are a consumerist society. Corporate America is giving us exactly what we want. I’m not saying I agree with that philosophy, and I hope we never become a society that has disposable tables and air factories, and whose schools are run by corporations. But like Violet’s father who decided to get her the feed because she would need it to live in their world, we many times justify the things we buy for the same reason. After all, if everyone else has it, then I must need it too. My husband and I have frequently commented on the amount of “stuff” we own. Then, inevitably, we buy more. How quickly we forget.
Question:
At one point Violet felt like they were at the end of civilization. She believed that “The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.” Analyze what you think she meant by that statement and if you agree with her. Can you think of a situation in today’s society, or your personal life, that might compare to what she was describing?
Booktalk:
And the feed was pouring in on us now, all of it, all of the feednet, and we could feel all of our favorites, and there were our files, and our m-chatlines. It came down on us like water. It came down like frickin’ spring rains, and we were dancing in it.
I am one of those old fuddy-duddies who think we should all unplug. When I deem my children to have spent an excess of time in front of the TV or computer, I tell them to find something else to do- “anything without a plug or battery.” It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the convenience of my cell phone and laptop: I use them every day and would be lost without them. But I mourn the loss of creativity born of boredom. When I was a kid we’d get so bored in the summer we would invent games, the same way Titus, Violet and the others invented the dart game and The Struggle of the Dying Warrior. If they’d had the feed they wouldn’t have become bored enough to create their fun. In the same way, 21st century kids have the internet and the Cartoon Network 24/7. Why bother to create your own fun when fun has already been designed for you by the television studios or video game makers? I worry about the effect this passivity is having on our society. Will we lose the drive to forge our own way, or simply ease into the habit of following the herd?
Question: Analyze the titles given to the four sections of the book. What is the significance of each of them? Could the the section titles “Eden” and “Utopia” be switched? Support your answer.
Quote; pg 279: “It was like I kept buying these things to be cool, but cool was always flying just ahead of me and I could never exactly catch up to it.
I felt like I’d been running toward it for a long time.”
The advent of the Internet back in 1995 has made it possible for corporations to reach the average consumer both quickly and persistently. In the past, people could change channels during a commercial break or ignore billboards as they drove by. Today, corporations have infiltrated American society more than ever before with advertising through the Internet. Just like in Feed, many marketers are tailoring their message based on individual interests or past purchasing behavior. For example, when I log into Facebook, not only is it a space to network with friends, but it is also an advertising machine. I believe that based on my interests/activities listed in my profile, Facebook tries to guesstimate the goods I may purchase. Since I hike, scrapbook, and collect owls, they try to target products based on these characteristics that constantly tick on the right side of the screen. Scarily, when I posted on my “wall” that I was pregnant, Facebook started marketing all sorts of baby and parenting products to me. In addition to social networking sites, it is almost impossible to manage email. Everywhere you go, there are mailing lists to sign up for, and advertisements, coupons, and deals constantly flood my inbox—sometimes when I do not even provide my email information. Information is not private, and that is the most important thing to remember. If you are online, you are subject to the corporate machine.
On a different note, corporations have also helped to shape the identities of many Americans, especially young adults. In a Communications class that I took last semester, my very wise professor, Dr. Leonard spent a lot of time talking about the influence of media, corporations, and pop culture on society. She used one example that resonated strongly with me. Her thirteen-year-old niece was not sure which group she wanted to be a part of at school. There are the preppy kids (Abercrombie and Fitch), sporty kids (Nike, Adidas), skater kids (Pacific Sun wear), and Goth and Emo kids (Hot Topic). Her niece decided to subscribe to the Emo identity. My teacher said that she feels companies manufacture prefabricated identities that teens can just purchase and embody. I agree with her, and I think it is scary that corporations can exercise so much control over not only the purchases we make, but also larger life choices such as identity. Unfortunately, corporations often do not promote individuality but rather compliance and assimilation. The implications of moving in this direction indicate that a fictitious story like Feed may indeed become the new reality in the not-so distant future.
My reading:
“I don’t know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.”
My question:
Some people believe that an increasingly computer-mediated culture is eroding traditional written and spoken language. Where is this evident in the book? Explain some of the ways in which the technology of the “feed” is preferred over traditional language. Evaluate the effect of the “feed” on human communication for both Titus and his friends and society at large. Which way of communication is better? Why?
In today’s “corporate and media-dominated culture”, it is nearly impossible not to be affected. As we live in our culture, we are constantly receiving feed from our media outlets: advertising, television, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and the like. To believe that we are in no way impacted by the media would be absurd because with constant interaction with media outlets, messages are being poured into us, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. It is interesting to weigh just how powerful corporations and media-outlets in our society are because if they are as powerful as we give them credit to be, then how do we know that they aren’t abusing the power? Much like Violet inquires in the book, are there things that we are don’t know about that are going on in the world that are purposely being withheld from our knowledge? Are we as a culture and society so dependent on the media that it is our only source of input and we have loss the ability to find out for ourselves? Could it be that our method of finding information out relies on one source? Even though we have many different media outlets, are there sources any different? I think its important to learn to think for ourselves. We have the ability to weigh the information we are given and to try to discover truth for ourselves.
I find it interesting to listen to the politics we receive from our media-outlets. If a person listened to only one media station, I believe the person would receive a skewed image of American politics. It is interesting how different situations are interpreted, and which ones are more prominently reported based on what you are watching. Furthermore, I find it interesting to hear from friends that are in the military or friends of friends that work in Washington, D.C. and to hear their views on the issues we receive solely from media. Once again, I believe it is up to us to discern truth and opinion and not be completely dependent on our source of “feed”.
Question:
Suppose you are living in the time period this book occurs without a feed at your current age. Unaware of the possible side affects installing a feed could have, choose whether or not you would decide to have a feed installed. Defend your answer.
Reading:
Pg. 48
But the braggest thing about the feed, the thing that made it really big, is that it knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are. It can tell you how to get them, and help you make buying decisions that are hard. Everything we think and feel is taken in by the corporations, mainly by data ones like Feedlink and OnFeed and American Feedware, and they make a special profile, one that’s keyed just to you, and then they give it to their branch companies, or other companies buy them, and they can get to know what it is we need, so all you have to do is want something and there’s a chance it will be yours.
Response:
The feed, which is what the book Feed is named after, reminds me a lot of the new website Twitter. This website is a way for people to constantly keep in touch with each other. People use their cell phones and update their status on the website and then their friends and followers can use their phones or their computer to check. The big deal about Twitter is that it is sort of Blackberry orientated. It is meant for use with a Blackberry and through the phone you are in constant connection with everyone. This is just like the feed’s purpose in the book; it is a way for people to keep connected with people and the world. Twitter is not quite as corporate centered and does not have the advertisements like the feed does. It is more centered around celebrities and groups or people that people are fans of. But, in my opinion it is just the start, and the next step would be something like the feed which is permanently attached to the body. It is like constant wireless access and Bluetooth headsets all rolled into one! At the beginning of the book I thought the feed was a good idea and I almost wanted one until half way... and by the end I was completely antifeed! It almost makes me question things today, such as how a celebrity break up is more important in the news then a natural disaster. And how we can have websites, news, and TV channels completely devoted to the rich and famous and more people watch those channels then a CNN or other news channel. It is scary and fascinating at the same time, both in the book and the potential real life setting!
Question:
Create your own customer profile for the feed corporations. Think of 3 of your favorite stores, TV shows, books, songs or artists, movies, and anything else you think that should be added to the feed. Also, think propose a way you could contradict and confuse the feed.
Reading:
“It smelled like the country. It was a filet mignon farm, all of it, and the tissue spread for miles around the paths where we were walking. It was like these huge hedges of red all around us, with these beautiful marble patterns running through them… It was really interesting. I like to see how things are made, and to understand where they come from.” (142)
Can I just say that this part made me laugh out loud! I really want Titus to be real so I can take him and show him where filet mignon really comes from!
Response:“Feed” would be a great catalyst for discussion of this “condition” as it starts to get its readers thinking critically about purchases they make and news that they read.
As has been mentioned, Facebook, Amazon, Google and other sites are already collecting information on us similar to the “feed” which makes one wonder if the world in this book may not be too far off from reality.
I think one issue for many people that’s eluded to in the book is that in order to find information and news that is not being presented through the potential bias of multi-million dollar corporations you have to go out of your way to find those alternative resources. Similar to the “feed,” why would you spend time shopping around for those different sources, when you can find all the news that everyone else is talking about from the most popular news sources?
As much as I like to think that I am one of those that goes out of my way to find balanced information, I usually always resort back to checking the news through mainstream media. I can also see instances of corporate marketing domination playing a factor in my own life in little things like being skeptical of a salon that I’ve heard good recommendations for but, because it doesn’t have a Web site where I can view their service menu, see photos of their salon and make an appointment online, a small part of me (the one that’s almost always connected to the Internet) feels like this place might not be legit.
Violet being the one person that opens up Titus’s eyes to a different world reminds me of when my sister took me to a Rilo Kiley show about seven years ago. They were a relatively unknown band (and still are today by most people’s standards) but seeing them opened my eyes to a whole world of independent music, which is now largely what makes up my iTunes collection. Sometimes it just takes that one person to show you that there’s more out there then just what you see on “the feed” or what you hear on Top 40 radio. It would be great if we librarians could be that one person for even just one youth.
Question/Activity:Write a short synopsis predicting what Titus’s life is like five years later than the book’s ending. Which experiences from the book contributed to the person he is today and the society that he’s living in?
Reading: “Everything we’ve grown up with -- the stories on the feed, the games, all of that -- it’s all streamlining our personalities so we’re easier to sell to. … They try to figure out who you are, and to make you conform to one of their types for easy marketing. It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple” (Anderson, p. 97).
Anderson, M.T. (2002). Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
As a mother of three children I see my children being affected by the media constantly, particularly through television. For example, six months ago we decided to get cable. We were tied of bad reception and wanted to have more options. We got a lot more options! At first we had way too many channels. When we whittled them down our children were sure they could not live without some of the channels that we had deemed unnecessary. (They wanted to keep the back-up channels for the cartoons they watch so that when their main choice was not available they could go to the channel that runs all Sponge Bob all the time!) They were also exposed to products they would not otherwise know about. They sing the commercials like it is a hit song. Then they are asking to go and do some of the things they saw. Prior to acquiring cable our kids would not even know how much fun they were missing out on by not going to the hottest game store in town or not having a TV in their room etc. As a parent part of my job is to help them become responsible individuals that make thoughtful decisions in life based on their own ideas and beliefs. In this book the control of your life was centered on consuming and the characters were told what to buy and think by outside influences deciding it for them.
Compare Violet’s frustrations, failure, and ultimate rejection for help with her ‘Feed’ replacement with a current system of automation and rejection in our society. (For example, if someone needs help paying their mortgage and they are shuffled from one source to another, perhaps automated calling systems, and continually rejected and redirected until it is too late and they must foreclose on their home.)
We’re sorry Violet Durn. Unfortunately FeedTech and other investors reviewed your purchasing history , and we don’t feel that you would be a reliable investment at this time…Sorry I’m afraid you’ll just have to work with your feed the way it is.
“Of course, everyone is like, da da da, evil corporations, oh they’re so bad, we all say that, and we all know they control everything. I mean, it’s not great, because who knows what evil shit they’re up to. Everyone feels bad about that. But they’re the only way to get all this stuff, and it’s no good getting pissy about it, because they’re like still going to control everything whether you like it or not. Plus, they keep like everyone in the world employed, so it’s not like we could do without them” (Anderson, 2002, p. 48-49).
This quotation could have been spoken by a teen right now. In fact, it could probably be spoken by numerous adults. There aren’t many in the country today who feel big corporations are the answer, or that they have the population’s best interests in mind. How many times have you heard someone say they “hate Wal-Mart for pushing small town drug stores, convenience stores, etc. out of business” but still see that same person shopping there on Saturday? Why? Because the prices are so low and you can get everything in one place! As Titus said, people realize that corporations are harming the country, but are unwilling to really do anything about it.
The last part of the quote points to the fact that corporations keep a lot of people employed. In this economy that is very powerful. In fact, just today the news that the Credit Card Reform bill passed the House is very distressing to Sioux Falls, which relies on four major credit card companies for a large percentage their jobs. Although credit card regulations may help the consumer in the long run, people in the Sioux Falls area are reluctant to put any restrictions on these corporations that may cause them to lose their jobs.
Q). How important is the use of narrative slang in the book? Would your perception of Titus, Violet, Marty, Link, etc. be different if they didn’t speak in slang? How would the book be different if it was written in third person?
Anderson, M.T. (2002). Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
There is no question that we currently live in a society whose culture, in part, is corporate and media driven. While I do agree with free enterprise and everyone is entitled to make a buck, it seems like you can’t turn around without running into someone who is trying to sell you something, or an advertisement that is right in your face. Whatever happened to the simple TV ads like the one with the guy and the girl and the freeze dried coffee? Now, it seems like every time I turn the TV on there is a commercial of some pharmaceutical company trying to sell their drugs as if they’re the greatest thing ever.
Then there are those radio ads that play two advertisements for the same business back to back. I hear that ARBY’s commercial so frequently, I can’t help but think about nothing but ARBY’s. Or better yet, there are TV shows that are hour long commercials. We call them infomercials. Sadly enough, there are also those advertisers that entice the younger crowd in a negative way. Does anyone remember how the tobacco industry was targeting minors? That was well documented.
And it’s not just the advertisers. The media controls the news information that we have access to. Although I do feel that our media outlets in the free world give us as much as possible, there are those parts of the world that have very restricted access to news.
A prime example is Arab television. My brother is a Commander in the Military, and he spent some time in the Middle East six years ago. He said that the local new stations would outright lie to the people and leave critical parts of a news story out. Not only that, their internet was restricted to the point where it wasn’t the World Wide Web but more like the Iraq wide web. Most of the information they had access to was only what the local government wanted them to know. That doesn’t seem quite right.
Question: Titus and Violet are the main characters in the book. Titus is the one who seems to be pretty comfortable with his feed, and Violet represents the needy and less fortunate. Make a prediction of what may have happened at the end of the book if their roles were reversed. Do you think the outcome would be the same? Do you think someone else would have survived?
Reading: We went into the store, and immediately our feeds were all completely Bebrekkar & Karl. We were bannered with all this crazy high-tech fun stuff they sold there. Then a guy walked up to us and said could he help us. I didn’t know. But Violet was like, “Sure, do you have those big searchlights? I mean the really strong ones?” (pg. 98)
We have lived in a media dominated culture for some time now; however with the invention of the internet, the media’s presence has engulfed our culture. Just as with the “feed” in the book, there is now a generation of people who do not know what life was like before the internet. Information, gaming, shopping, and communication are all just a keystroke away. We are able to disseminate messages, whether they are true or not in mere seconds. Just last month there was a text message about a gang initiation that was to occur at Wal-Mart that swept from coast to coast in minutes! Supposedly, the gang’s recruits were going to shoot women that went to Wal-mart on a particular evening. Come to find out this was a hoax, but the message about how much we depend on our multimedia communication lines and how fast news travels now-a-days was loud and clear. I have not researched this but, I have a sneaking suspicion that Wal-Mart’s sales for this particular day may have plummeted. Could this message have been disseminated by someone from the Target Corporation? Or someone wronged by a salesperson at Wal-Mart? A simple text message can affect a multi-million dollar corporation. That is how powerful our media and media devices have become.
Question: Imagine that Titus could have saved Violet’s life by giving her his “feed,” but he could never have the “feed” reinstalled. Do you think that Titus would’ve donated his “feed” to Violet, why or why not? Describe Titus’ characteristics or examples from the story that support this decision.
Reading: “It’s more now, it’s not so much about the educational stuff but more regarding the fact that everything that goes on, goes on on the feed.” (48)
There are many intellectuals who believe that it is acceptable to let others make decisions for you. Be it a government choosing what is right for its people, or a church deciding right and wrong. In fact, in many small issues, such as traffic laws or table manners, we lose no significant control of our lives by allowing the judgment of others to dominate our choices. The problem that arises is one of priorities and agendas. Members of a religion allow the church to set down moral codes because they understand the motivations behind the decisions, as well as what is important to the spiritual leader(s). Socialists believe that the government is the only fair institution that can balance power, avoiding caste levels of wealth. In fact, if they could be convinced that a corporation can be trusted to keep the well-being of its customers a higher priority than profits, many intellectuals would even elect to participate in something as pervasive as the feed. However, you will have to pry my free will from my cold dead hands.
Since summer is but a few weeks from our grasp, our high school has felt the need to remind students of a dress code that is rarely enforced. Shorts that used to make Dukes of Hazard, a formerly popular television show, have invaded our halls. When asked why they choose to send a message that is not consistent with their own morals, a few students said that it was the only style of shorts available on the shelves at the clothing stores. One girl didn’t understand the lewd suggestions she was broadcasting until it was spelled out to her. She asked for her mother to bring her a change of clothes after the conversation. Now there are students who would wear the bare minimum to avoid public indecency laws to lure potential mates, but most of these girls simply don’t think about their appearance, blindly following the magazines and store shelves. With teenagers watching shows like Gossip Girl, it’s a wonder they still recognize the definition of “decency.” While I am no paragon of fashion, generally choosing function over form, I am at least aware enough to dodge the onslaught of media fashion-dictators. Personally, if people want to look like promiscuous slobs, that’s their choice, as long as they are informed enough to make that choice. Henry David Thoreau once said, “Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new.” There are times I think I was born about fifty years too late.
Reading: When you have the feed all your life, you’re brought up not to think about things. Like them never telling you that it’s a republic and not a democracy. It’s something that makes me angry, what people don’t know about these days. Because of the feed, we’re raising a nation of idiots. Ignorant, self-centered idiots (113).
Question: In Feed, citizens are displayed images from a corporation that suggest which purchases to make. Citizens also rely on the feed to give them information when needed, rather than remembering or learning anything for themselves. What are the dangers of getting all of your decision-making information from one source?
About a month ago, I traveled to Europe for the third time since 2000. I have spent time in France, England, Wales, Belgium, Germany, Holland and Spain during these trips. All of these nations are considered to be part of the western world, but one of the most shocking cultural shifts that I experience each time I travel is the imbalance of consumption between the United States and the rest of the world. Everywhere you turn, there are reminders that the buy more, buy bigger attitude that we have adopted in this country is not practiced everywhere.
For example, while staying at a hotel in Ghent, Belgium on my last trip, I made frequent trips to a grocery store for food. I work at a local grocery store in Omaha, and the supermarket in Ghent was approximately 1/15th the size of the store that I help manage. Their entire store could fit in the produce department of mine. Forget about one hundred different types of cereal; the twenty major brands are all that they carry. The things that Americans take for granted, are unneeded luxuries to many of the Europeans that I have encountered. I drive a 2005 Honda Civic, while someone my age in Holland would ride a bike to work and school and the bar. My parents own a 10,000 square foot house, while the sizes of homes in Europe are often slightly bigger than my second apartment. Reminders surface as you walk down the cobblestone streets of a modernized medieval town and realize that not everyone buys into American dream of unbridled consumerism.
When I think back to this most recent trip, one of the most freeing parts of the experience was going ten days without checking my cell phone. As it is not set up for international service, my cell phone was utterly useless for the duration of the trip. I have not felt that free since I was sixteen and I received my first phone in a red wrapped box for Christmas. However, if you think I am about to get on my high horse, realize that the first thing I did when I landed in Houston was turn that baby on. How many calls had I missed, and how many text messages had I not received? These were pressing questions to which I had to know the answer. Although I envy the European way, living here often makes it impossible to stray too far from the norm. In this society, like it or not, materialism marks status. So I will continue to buy a new outfit for every wedding or family event that I go to this summer. After I pay off my iPod, I do plan on buying a new MacBook because I want a laptop to go along with my iMac desktop. Oh, and I already have plans for some hybrid car a few years down the road. I feel pathetic to admit that I may relate more to Titus than Violet. Time will tell if I can reverse my feed.
Question: In the book Feed by M.T. Anderson, each character is bombarded by advertisements that are tailored to their own profile. Design a portfolio of the kinds of products that would be featured on your feed. What do these products say about you as a consumer? More importantly, what do they leave out about you as an individual?
Reading: “But the braggest thing about the feed, the thing that made it really big, is that it knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are. It can tell you how to get them, and help you make buying decisions that are hard.”
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