The central symbol of Feed is the feed itself. This technology, implanted in the characters’ heads shortly after they’re born, allows the characters to communicate electronically with each other. The feed also allows them to see a constant stream of advertisements for products—everything from sweater vests to cars. Finally, the feed gives the characters constant access to information and entertainment from around the world, meaning that they never have to work hard to find stimulation. The feed is, one might say, M.T. Anderson’s idea of what the internet will be like in the future, but the feed is also a symbol for corporate control. In the future, Anderson suggests, corporations will exercise so much power over their customers that they’ll actually be able to control what their customers are thinking at any given time, using propagandistic advertising techniques to “nudge” them into buying certain products or going to certain places. The feed is, in short, a frightening symbol for the way that people are increasingly trained to think in the same way and desire the same products.
Feed Quotes in Feed
But 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 is not the will of the American people, the people of this great nation, to believe the allegations that were made by these corporate “watch” organizations, which are not the majority of the American people, I repeat not, and aren't its will. It is our duty as Americans, and as a nation dedicated to freedom and free commerce, to stand behind our fellow Americans and not cast . . . things at them. Stones, for example. The first stone. By this I mean that we shouldn’t think that there are any truth to the rumors that the lesions are the result of any activity of American industry.
I feel like we're the only two of us who like remember the, like, the thing.
People want to forget.
You can't blame them.
What I've been doing over the feed for the last two days, is trying to create a customer profile that's so screwed, no one can market to it. I'm not going to let them catalog me. I'm going to become invisible.
And we are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu.
What we wish for, is ours.
Violet was screaming, "Look at us! You don't hate the feed! You are feed! You're feed! You're being eaten! You're raised for food! Look at what you've made yourselves!" She pointed at Quendy, and went, "She’s a monster! A monster!"
14. I want to get older.
15. I want to see the years pass.
16. Sometime, I want to wear a cardigan and have a golden retriever named … I don’t know.
You are such a shithead. You don't know what happened to me this morning. And the news. Titus—this morning . . I can't believe in the middle of all this, you went and got malfunctioned. You are such an asshole and a shithead.
I went to the kitchen to get a drink of water. I filled a glass. I looked at the window over the sink.
I deleted everything she had sent me.
It was like I kept buying these things to be cool, but cool was always flying just ahead of me, and I could never exactly catch up to it.
I felt like I'd been running toward it for a long time.
"It's about this meg normal guy, who doesn't think about anything until one wacky day, when he meets a dissident with a heart of gold." I said, "Set against the backdrop of America in its final days, it's the high-spirited story of their love together, it's laugh-out-loud funny, really heartwarming, and a visual feast." I picked up her hand and held it to my lips. I whispered to her fingers. "Together, the two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love. They learn to resist the feed. Rated PG-13. For language," I whispered, "and mild sexual situations."
I sat in her room, by her side, and she stared at the ceiling. I held her hand. On a screen, her heart was barely beating.
I could see my face, crying, in her blank eye.
Feed Symbol Timeline in Feed
