Homework #12 Feed A, My Own Comfy Bubble

Trying to come up with something that has not been said in class has been really difficult for me. There are small things in the book that I realized we as teenagers don't constantly do, yet overall I can see the parallels between Feed and our daily lives. Not all teenagers necessarily talk like "omigod, I like, totally have to get that!" I often categorize girls who talk like that as the girly-girls. A parallel that was found in class is Weatherbee & Crotch being Abercrombie & Fitch.

The topic that I really like, -which was already discussed in class- is how the families all believe they are in their own little bubbles. For Titus and his friends, all of them can control the sun and climate in their own little comfortable bubbles. I can see why M.T. Anderson was mocking people in the world today, and how some people may feel like what goes on in our own little bubbles stays in our little bubbles, and that no one can feel what we feel. I can admit that I disagreed with this in Mr. Manley's class, because we all feel the same feelings at different moments in time. Yet I do look at my family as being fairly unique, and I am rather defensive towards my family. There is that saying especially used at summer camp, movies, and guidance counseling: "what goes on here, stays here" even if people don't really mean it.

One thing that I didn't hear in class, is the connection between getting "weasel-faced" (page 33) to what some may call "shit-faced". They also say "in the mal" which I think is referring to drugs. Even though there is a point in the book where it seems like they are burning or shocking themselves. Overall I feel like they are talking about doing drugs.

I cannot think of something specifically like the Feed that is literally in our brains. I have heard the connection between the Feed, and the Bluetooth. Or those people that walk around with the things in their ears screaming when you aren't sure if they are talking to themselves or an actual person. I thought m-chat was like IM on the computer. I felt like there were several things the Feed could be, like IM, the computer, cell phones, the ipod touch.. Yet I could not figure out if it was supposed to be specifically one thing. Like how when they all ended up in the hospital on page 55 where the dad says "Oh. Shit. Yeah, I forgot. No m-chat. Just talking". I wasn't really sure what this would be like in real life. Sometimes I text my mom or my brother when we are all in the same household, because we all have different rooms or we are all in different parts of the house. Also, like Jace was saying and I was thinking, sometimes we do stand next to each other and text when talking about someone that we are with when we don't want them to hear. I can admit that Yasmin J and I do that a lot when we want to say something about someone else that we don't want them to hear about. This is like one of the pages where the girls are talking about Violet through the feeds but don't want her to hear them.

In Feed, they trademarked Clouds^TM and School^TM. Mostly, we don't do things like this. Yet I remember hearing about how Paris Hilton wanted to trademark "that's hot", and how stupid I thought that was.

The book Feed and the book Be More Chill, seem very similar to me. They both have computers installed into their brains to help them get what they want. Be More Chill isn't a connection with other people though, it is a computer in your brain trying to help you get what you want in life (like how to be cool). Also, in Be More Chill at the end of the book the main character learns how to destroy the chip and get it out of his head. There is also the series by Scott Westerfield (The Uglies, The Pretties, The Specials, and The Extras) which is based around this futuristic world where everyone has rings that are like cell phones, and where you can get this operation to make your face symmetric; in the book they pick the side of their face that they like best, and they all get operations to make their faces better looking. There is also this series by Nora Roberts that I am reading, the "In Death" series, set in the future. While M.T. Anderson's book is supposed to be an allegory for today, some of his ideas are also found in the other books that I have listed.

When everyone is in the hospital and they feel stranded reminds me of the blackout. It was really different with the lights off, refrigerators not working, and phone lines down. Lots of people were worried about loved ones and hoping that everyone was okay. We all felt strangely isolated and concerned during the blackout, at least speaking for myself. Violet fights the Feed, and she dies from it. Thinking of computers, and cell phones.. etc, I don't understand how fighting technology would generally make oneself die.