Loss of Identity

By Ally Dunlap -
In Feed by M.T. Anderson, there is a clear loss of identity in the characters and society as a whole. The advertisements that tell them what to like and what is the newest style causes there to be no diversity. Everyone likes the same things and acts the same way. Anderson writes, "There's nothing but feed telling you, this is the music you heard. This is the music you missed. This is what is new. Listen" (Anderson 5). I think this is a very important aspect of the novel because this is something that is becoming a huge problem especially among adolescents. Adolescents see advertisements on television and social media. Most adolescents all have one or more source of technology and the media is constantly feeding information of things that are most popular and accepted right in society.
The bad side of this is that some times things that are unsafe are advertised as popular. For example, a few years ago when juul became popular, everybody wanted one just to say they had one. This is something that I was reminded of while reading Feed because it is interesting to see how Anderson wrote about this same problem and basically predicted a lot of what is happening now with technology. Anderson writes, "...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" (48). Individualism is completely lost when there are ads constantly telling you what to like. As discussed in class today, my reaction to this book was fear because this is something that could easily become a reality because of how much technology is advancing. Not only that but also how much of an influence technology has on adolescents.

Comments

  1. Anna GilfillanOctober 31, 2019 at 10:43 AM

    I agree with you. The characters lose who they are because of the feed that they have in their head. The feed takes over their lives and without it they are useless. They can not think for themselves, which resembles a lot of our society today. Adolescents now can not be without their cell phones for more than about three minutes. Most adolescents got a cell phone when they were around age 10, and that is close to when Violet chose to get the feed. There are so many similarities between this novel and our world today. Do you think that this is where our society is headed? Or do you think we are already there? (minus the feed being in our brains)

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  2. Carter McGillNovember 1, 2019 at 1:28 PM

    Ally,

    One thing that stood out to be in this book is how almost everyone has a loss of identity because everyone is the exact same. No one has their own real personality, and I love how you touch on this subject while connecting it back to how it affects adolescents. I think it has always been a problem that adolescents need to be apart of the group or a clique to make them feel accepted in society. It has only gotten worse through time, and it's at an all time high as we speak. I think Anderson does a marvelous job of showing his readers that if your like everyone else or let people run your life you're never going to be special. He gives a inspiring message that says be yourself and step away from society, which could be applied to everyone not just adolescents.

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