Feed A

"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. I mean, they do these demographic studies that divide everyone up into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you're supposedly like."

Now this got my attention. It is a dead on description of our current state. And the bluntness of Anderson's words makes it horrifying. It is a well known fact that corporations do all these studies and have massive piles of data on different demographics. It literally transforms human personalities into data tables. The human personality; graphed. If we the public had access to all of these data collections, we would probably be able to find our personality perfectly described. In fact, there have been times were my digital web feed has directly targeted my personality, and much to my shame, was on target. When looking up songs on iTunes, a little bar pops up with recommendations "just for you" based on what you have listened to/ purchased. I found myself liking every song they offered me (although not enough to purchase their ridiculously overpriced $1.29 per-song tracks). Also, when shopping online, most stores have a "you may also like" bar under each item you look at. Of course, I liked almost everything in that section. After reading Feed, this is something that deeply disturbed me because I realize that I fit in perfectly and seamlessly with data collections of some specific "personality type". My sense of individuality evaporated right before my eyes.

Another passage that really got at me was:

"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. So the corps make everything more simple. And it goes on and on."

This is a dangerous thing because we are losing the depths and layers of personality, emotion, desire and other qualities that define us as human. Instead, we are becoming like machines, our interests pre-programed to be simple, consistent, and most importantly, predictable. It's as though the corporations have created some kind of super function to plug in our personality dynamics, and get an output of every product that we would crave. This allows corporations to market things in simple, easy ways that would make a certain product appeal to everyone universally. We are being trained to become the ultimate consumers, and I'd say we're pretty much there already. Think about it: as a nation we spend billions of dollars a year on God knows what things that are completely unnecessary and not conducive to our survival nor add any meaning to our lives, and we are not consciously aware that we are being grouped and studied so that over time we may become even better consumers. Of course, even if we do become aware, and attempt to make a change, the next shiny new and improved product will effectively draw our attention away.

Take Titus for example. Violet makes Titus feel intellectually inferior. She is the revealer figure in his life, and at times that makes him feel uneasy. In the midst of it, his parents announce to him that they will be buying him an upcar because of all that he's been through with the hacker. This is his reaction:

"I was hugging them, and I was like holy shit, by tomorrow I would be driving to pick up Violet in my own goddamn upcar, and suddenly, suddenly, I didn't feel so stupid anymore."

Finding out he was getting a new shiny thing was enough to boost his confidence, as if the upcar was an extension of his very being. By making an object so personal, corporations are successfully making us believe that without their products we would not be complete. In terms of digital gadgets, I think the big success is allowing people to experience something that is not. Without digital gadgets, we would have to face ourselves, were as with them we can create a reality that is tailored to satisfy us. And of course, should we not know what we want at any given moment, we will be assisted, and told what we want with the ever so helpful "recommendations".

Welcome to Life™.