Feed Portfolio
Literature Circle
Feed By M.T. Anderson
Week 1: Media Guru (Moon)
Week 2: Connector (Eden)
Week 3: Quote Master (Utopia)
Week4: Discussion Director (Slumberland)
Media Guru
Part 1: Moon
In the book Feed by M.T. Anderson, all the citizen in this kind of universe has a chip that they call a feed, implemented in their brain that can access knowledge, message, music, TV shows and many other things that in our time, would have to use separate devices and would require physical movement rather than everything just happening mentally like in the book. Since the feed is in their mind, I think that the feed looks like an animatronic eye because the feed accesses basically everything and eyes are the way you can see/ experience the real world. This is why I chose these images of a robotic eye that represents what I think the feeds are embedded in their minds to look like.
Because of the feeds, the government has turned all the citizens into a mindless, illiterate group of people that will do anything the government wants without question since the feed has made them less knowledgeable. Although the citizens don't know this, the government has turned them into some sort of clueless puppets and controls their minds, feelings, and what they do, through the feeds. The public is almost hypnotized with all of the new gadgets and technology that has been given to them, that they don't even think for themselves like they think they are doing. This is why I chose the image of a puppeteer and its puppet; the hands symbolize the government and the person represent the people in this world. Also, the gif that shows the eye passing through a bunch of technology and the phase "Almost Human" symbolizes how in general they are human but the way they act, being controlled by their feeds makes them in a sense "not human" because the feeds are the things that controls their every move, not on their own will.
"The Moon is in the House of Boring." This is the last chapter of the part , when an old man enters the club yelling " We enter a time of calamity!" and stats to touch people necks, including Titus, Violet, Marty, Link, Quendy, and Calista's, with a metal rod. The the police shows up, knocks the old man down then proceeds to turn off the people's feeds who have been touched by the assumed virus and shuts them down.
Connector
Part Two: Eden
- When Loga, Calista and Quwendy were discussing the T.V. show Oh?Wow!Thing! it reminded me of the T.V show The Bachelor/Bachelorette. It reminded me of this show because Loga said "Jackie is sitting on the front of the boat? And he holds his hand up, and he's going...he's going...omigod, he goes, 'Organelle, I always loved you from when we first went sailing.'" This reminded me of this show because of this dramatic scenes when the guy is professing his love for the girl on a romantic date. Also all three girls were crying over this part in the T.V. show and fangirling about it, this reminded me of the T.V. viewers of The Bachelor/Bachelorette because their viewers are very intense and emotional about the show.
- In the last chapter when Marty,Link,Titus, Calista, Quendy, and Violet got their feeds back, they acted as if they were on drugs. When they got their feeds back, they acted as if they were on an emotional high; extremely happy and in some kind of la la land. When their feeds were turned off, they were bored and "depressed" without their feeds; almost like a withdraw affect.
- When Violet explained to Titus that she could write, he was very shocker that anyone could write at all especially in a "dead language." This is like in this generation if we see someone using a flip phone. Flip phones to us are something very old that no one uses since we evolved to iPhones and other technologies. So if we see someone using a flip phone, it is shocking, like when Titus saw that Violet could write, which is some kind of ancient thing in that universe.
- When Titus was examining the hospital rooms, he noticed that there was a painting of a boat on a lake on one of the walls. Titus said that there wasn't anything interesting about the painting because nothing was happening or nothing seemed as if something already happened. In this generation, teens and kids have a short attention span because of all the technological advancements that happened. People today don't take that time to think, reflect, and appreciate something that doesn't move. All people do is look at their screens so it makes things seem boring compared to things like our phones, computer, television, and radio.
Quote Master
Part Three: Utopia
1. When Violet and Titus went into Farm Country, Violet asked Titus how he would like to die. Violet is starting to bring out parts of Titus that wasn't there in the beginning. For example, in this quote he sound more intelligent and he started to show more of what he is feeling and his thoughts.
"I thought for a while. Then I said, "I'd like to have this like, this intense pleasure in every one of my senses, all of them so full up that they just burst me open, and the feed like going a mile a second, so that it's like every channel is just jammed with excitement, and it's going faster and faster and better and better, until just-BAM! That's it, I guess. I'd like to die from some kind of sense overload" (Page 145).
Titus explains to Violet that he wants to die by having himself being overwhelmed by different kinds of emotions that are just rushing through him. This shows how Titus wants to feel something so powerful that it could kill him and how he is being to show and express his feelings unlike in the beginning of the book where he wouldn't put that much thought into anything. The feed thinks and feels for the person it is implanted in, so Titus isn't that familiar with feeling intense amounts of emotions but it is still there in him, just being hidden by what the feed is programming into them. Therefore with this quote, Titus is expressing the real kinds of emotions he wants to feel and has thought of feeling but with the feed dehumanizing them he couldn't, and is now bring back to his his senses with wanting to die like that, as if the last thing he wants to experience in the world is to feel.
2. Violet invited Titus over to her house and introduced him to her dad. His dad compared to Titus' dad and everyone else in the book, except for Violet, sound more literate and intelligent since he doesn't have the feed.
"I am filled with astonishment at the regularity of your features and the handsome generosity you have shown my daughter. The two of you are close, which gladdens the heart, as close as twin wings torn off the same butterfly" (Page 136).
Violet's dad is happy that Violet has met someone that is making Violet happy and with respect, that they seem to fit perfectly together. Because of him being so overjoyed that Violet has found someone that treats her well, it seems that Violet may be getting teased or judged because she is more intelligent than everyone else and is different since she chooses not to rely on her feed. Titus's friends do make fun of Violet sometimes for rebelling and not following the trends like everyone else and through Violet's dad's own experience, has gotten teased for not even having the feed, which makes sense that he is glad that Violet has found someone like Titus , someone who doesn't care if she's different.
3. Titus had been experiencing bad dreams that involved a riot, environmental declines, animal cruelty, and the last part of his nightmare was seeing a boy with bruises all over his face being hit in the head with a gun. Titus then wakes up calls Violet and makes a conclusion that it was probably just a corporation.
Later that night, I had nightmares. Someone was poking my head with a broom handle. They tried to put it like in my ear. They said 'Whispering makes a narrow place narrower'" (Page 151).
The quote means that if you keep your thoughts and knowledge hidden, it will make you even more narrow minded since the portion of the brain that you use is just a small part of it whereas the mind is actually very vast, full of resources, so while keeping your voice hidden, you're keeping it hidden in your thoughts which is already only a small part of your mind, making it "narrower." The nightmare that Titus experienced was of a riot which is where people express their opinions and fight for what they believe is right, the complete opposite of what the quote is implying. The voice in his head is trying to get Titus to open up to start thinking more and to fight for what is right, not to continue doing what he is doing already, that includes following the trends, and hiding behind the feed which makes him oblivious to the truth about the world because of him not looking beyond of what the feed is doing to them (making him narrow minded).
Discusion Director
Part Four: Slumberland
- How do you feel about how Titus was treating Violet towards the end when he was distancing himself from her when she really needed him? Why was he separating himself?
We thought that Titus was treating Violet very poorly and with no respect since he would always ignore her texts, act coldly to her, lies to her, and kept himself away from her. He was her boyfriend and she was going through a stage where she needed him the most, her feed function was decreasing everyday to the point where sometimes she can't talk, move, or even think, and Titus isn't even talking to Violet and if he is, then it would be very brief, stiff, and almost forceful. Titus lacked the sentiment that he should have shown Violet, and was separating himself because he didn't know what to do or how to show real emotions. In their world, the feed basically thinks for you so when put in this situation where a person close to him is dying, it's a new scenario for him and didn't know how to act because he thinks that nothing bad happens in their society since they have the feed controlling the way they think and feel.
- When Violet messaged Titus about all the things she wanted to do with her life and sent him a bucket list, do you think that she already knew she was going to die?
Before Violet sent the bucket list to Titus, she had already experienced malfunctions where she couldn't move some body parts and her and her father were asking for free repairs for Violet from FeedTech. Violet is a smart girl and she could have connected the dots that is isn't just a malfunction and without the repairs, knew that she wouldn't be getting any better. Violet went on a rant to Titus that she had yet to experience things and so created the bucket list which was more like her plan for every moment in her life. Usually when people create a bucket list, saying that they still want to experience more things, means that they know that they won't have that much time left to live.
- When Violet's dad had an outburst and was screaming at Titus, was it justified or could he have handled the situation better and accepted Titus' apologies?
We thought that Violet's dad screaming at Titus was justified because he already knew in the back of his head that his daughter was going to die, and to make it worse, Titus had broken Violet's heart and made her apologize to him for being sick and making him feel guilty about this whole situation. Violet's dad was just feeling an overload of emotions from watching his daughter slowly die right in front of him to having Titus show up, believing that he is one of the main reasons for her dying because he took Violet to the night club and made her heartbroken, making the situation worse. During this scenario, any dad who loved his daughter would be doing the same thing, both feeling sad and angry, just wanting his daughter to live.
- How was Violet's dad's life different since he didn't have the feed?
Violet's dad's life was different from everyone else's life because it was harder to get jobs since he doesn't have the feed, learning was harder since everyone else in the class could just use the feed, couldn't see models that were being projected through the feed which was also another disadvantage when learning, has to do things/get things on his own, and can think and feel on his own.
- What do you think of what Violet's dad said, It was thus that I realized that my daughter would need the feed. She had to live in the world? How has the feed impacted their lives?
- Why has the author decided to use the phrase Everything must go 5 times in the end, in different places, while getting smaller and smaller?
We came up with two meanings that Everything must go could have meant. Number 1 is that it is about consumption that everything literally must go, for example when you're in a store that's having a sale where everything is 50% off with the slogan of Everything must go! Stores would do this to earn a lot of money in a span of a couple of days, or how companies always want their products to be gone, where everyone is wearing or using their products, and can start suppling their store with new merchandise. Number 2 is that it means that all of our humanity must go. Because of the feed, people are being ruled over by big corporations and the government that they have been dehumanized in a way that they don't have the control over themselves like they think they do. The repetition and the placement of the phrase was to draw us closer to it and to look deeper upon it, knowing that it has a double meaning, and puts us to the test to figure out what it is by having to really think about it.