Thoughts on Feed

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Feed by M.T. Anderson is a powerful foresight into our technological future.  Although there were aspects I disliked about Feed, namely the language used, Anderson’s portrayal of a dystopian future in which humanity is worryingly reliant on technology is a compelling warning.  Although Feed was written in 2002, before social media became prevalent and technology was inescapable, it’s shocking how accurate aspects of Feed are to today’s society.

One aspect of the world Anderson paints in Feed that I found particularly troubling was the immense influence corporations had over every aspect of life.  In Feed, schools are owned and operated by corporations, and the feed, the technology that is directly wired into the brains of 73% of Americans, has the primary purpose of promoting consumerism.  When Violet’s feed malfunctions and she attempts to have the matter resolved with FeedTech, the corporation simply gives the apathetic reply that, “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” (p. 247).  It paints a troubling picture of how corporations value profit over human life, but it is, unfortunately, accurate to today’s world.  If a person is unable to pay for the medicine they desperately need to survive, they simply die.  The apathy shown by the corporations in Feed seems startling until you examine our real world closer and see that this is not an aspect of some far off, dystopian future, but is already happening today.

In Feed, Anderson does an excellent job of accurately portraying adolescence, but I never found the characters in Feed to be particularly likable.  Titus and his friends were simply uneducated and indifferent about the desperate circumstances they were facing, and while that certainly wasn’t their fault directly, they had unlimited resources through the feed that they could have utilized to better themselves and broaden their worldview.  Violet was the only character that was ever actively trying to increase her knowledge and fight the feed, and as a result, she was isolated from the rest of her peers.  Although this frustrated me greatly while reading Feed, I do feel that it’s a fair and accurate representation of adolescence.  Teenagers can be very vain, and if another teenager is different from the status quo in any way, they can easily be isolated.  This is especially prevalent with youth today.  If a person doesn’t have social media, they’re essentially cut off from their peers and are often ostracized.


Overall, Feed wasn’t my favorite book, but I can appreciate the accuracy of Anderson’s call to arms.  Our society is becoming increasingly addicted to technology, and if we aren’t careful, we could easily find ourselves in the dystopia presented in Feed.  It’s fascinating that Anderson’s predictions from 2002 ring so true to life today, and it will certainly be interesting to see how our society evolves as technology advances.

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