You know that chilling voice you hear whenever you think of the future? The one that says, “Society’s going downhill, the environment is toast, and technology is corruptive?” The one that you don’t want to listen to, because it’s too dark, too scary, too real?
Imagine that voice wrote a book.
It’s called Feed.
It’s definitely not the prettiest book on the shelf. A tattered copy probably resides at your neighborhood library, adorned with a faded 2000’s cover that immediately screams required reading. And sure, it was written twenty years ago, and none of your friends have heard of it, and the language is immediately confusing.
But once you dive in, get past the disorienting jargon and culture of a future America, there are eerily familiar aspects of life that contrast some major differences.
It isn’t the story or the characters that draw you in; it’s the setting. Written as a dystopian satire, every page is laced with horrifying prophecies of the future. Through the moral struggles of Titus and snippets from advertisements and news reportings, readers slowly come to understand a world where consumerism reigns under the guise of democracy. In this so-called “Nation of Dreams,” every desire can be purchased at the low, low price of America’s freedom. Corporations rule over the American people by taking advantage of their consumeristic society.
Citizens are pelted by personalized advertisements that appear through their feeds–computers installed inside the brain at birth–and are urged always to buy more. An underlying message of “Happiness can be bought!” and “Buy this to fit in!” weaves through the advertisements, though characters seldom realize it.
The longer you are immersed in the story, the more crystalline the images appear. Titus, the main character and narrator, is an average American teen, living life as he’s expected to: submerged in the feed, attending School™, hanging out on the moon. That is, until he meets Violet. Sheltered and educated by her father, Violet brings fresh ideas to the table: thoughts on the government, the feed, and large corporations dominant in America.
She had the feed installed late, and as such was skeptical of the technology’s effect on her. She shares her philosophical thoughts and concerns for the world at large with Titus, but it falls on deaf, unwilling ears. To give him credit where it’s due, he tries to understand, but it isn’t until much later that he really starts to think on Violet’s words.
“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.” -Titus
At the book’s finish, there is no resolution, no sequel. Only this one grim scene taken from one life, one perspective. The ending leaves behind a disturbed and contemplative state of mind, a time for reflection. It raises questions about our own time, where consumerism is very much present and technology ever evolving. Will we descend into a state of madness quite as hopeless as Feed? We can certainly hope not.
It is books like these that serve as a wake up call, creating a world that unsettles us because we see it as realistic. They charge us to step away from the tunnel vision of our everyday lives, and glimpse the broader picture that includes billions.
