Feed is one of my favorite frequently overlooked Young Adult Dystopian fiction books. I think of Feed as in the same genre as The Hunger Games, The Giver and Divergent but there are many things that set it apart from these more famous dystopian novels. One of the most common plots of a dystopian Y.A. novel involves a character who is a part of a seemingly utopian world but later discovers the ugly truths about that world and decides to do something about it.
In the case of Jonas from The Giver, he flees his community with baby Gabriel to save him from being euthanized. In The Hunger Games and Divergent both female heroines become a part of a revolution, throwing their worlds into turmoil and hopefully positive change. Feed does not contain this plot. Nothing radically changes about the world, and we are unsure whether or not the main character changes much himself. In my opinion, this makes Feed more realistic than many other dystopian novels. So many Y.A. dystopian novels feature a teenage character who takes on challenges many adults couldn't handle. Titus, the main character of Feed, reads like a teenager. He is selfish, easily entertained, social, obsession-obsessed and curious but never too curious. He is not a radical warrior. He is a boy.
Feed takes place far in the future in America. In the world of Feed many people have "feeds" installed in their brains at birth, which allow them to communicate telepathically, purchase items on the feed (very similar to purchasing items online), play games, watch shows, and record and play back memories they have. Through the feed, advertisements are marketed and buzzed into people's brains. These ads are constant, even during dreams. For example, when Titus and his friends walk by a store, ads are buzzed into their brains about what they should buy.
Titus explains that the feeds were originally marketed as the ultimate learning tool. With the feed, a user has access to any information he desires. He can look anything up at any moment. Eventually, though, the feed has become a way to buy. In Titus' school, more time is spent on shopping and decorating their rooms than on history or science because they already have access to all they need to know about everything.
This unlimited access to information does not make everyone eloquent geniuses. Titus and his friends speak in slang with words like "unit", "null", "skip" and "meg." Adults don't talk much differently. Much of Feed, which is narrated by Titus, is written in long run-on sentences and he often struggles to talk about how he means. The book is conversational- it is how Titus would talk to his friends, but without the video, pictures and ads they usually use to communicate. These are such a big part of the world that speech is not as valuable anymore.
The world of Feed may seem disturbing to us, but Titus is completely comfortable in it. He is a part of the feed, having it since birth, and never really questions it.
At the start of the novel, Titus and his friends go to the moon for spring break. They are "tapped" or hacked by a radical at a night club, and Titus meets Violet. Violet catches Titus' eye. She is wearing an old-fashioned wool dress and she is all by herself. Violet hasn't had the feed her whole life. She had it installed as a young girl after convincing her parents. Violet and Titus begin dating and Violet tries to show Titus the problems with the world around them. She thinks Titus is different than the rest of his friends. He is more curious, she thinks. Titus goes along with what Violet tells him, but after a while she becomes a bore. No one wants to brought down all the time.
Halfway through Feed, Violet reveals to Titus that she is sick. Her feedware is malfunctioning. She is losing function in her brain and she doesn't know if it can be fixed. Titus tries to be there for her, but he struggles to look for what to say. Violet isn't fun anymore. She's serious and negative and she wants Titus to store her memories as she begins to lose them. Titus panics and stops seeing or communicating with her. We as an audience want him to rise up, to fight back against the world around him that entertains others into submission, and be there for Violet when she needs him. We want Titus to be a good person.
One of the things I love most about Feed is the way its characters belong to its world. It makes you imagine what you would be like if you lived in a world where your every whim could be catered to in an instant, where your head would never be silent, where you are never alone or bored. How different would you be from Titus? How different are you from Titus now?
The world of Feed is unnervingly close to our world. We have a constant stream of advertisements everywhere we go. Entertainment is always a click away. We think we have gained so much from the technology advancements of today, but have we really? There are many things we are losing as well. Feed looks at a future in which technology has advanced, but many things have been lost and makes an argument to be fearful about a direction in which we may be headed.
