Feed: Utopia

After having left the moon, Titus and his friends do not want to remember the experiences they went through for the last few days. They are discharged from the hospital and go out to Earth with their feeds completely working so they do not feel out of place anymore. The group of teenagers go out and do crazy things like go in 'mal' just to feel like they are alive and do things that are the popular thing to do. Titus is in a tight spot because he is surrounded by people who conform to society and follow all of the fads. A great example of this was the lesions that people were getting on their bodies. The lesions were occurring because the environment was less able to sustain human life because of the detrimental effects of all the damage done by man. Once the famous people from "Oh? Wow! Thing!" got the lesions, people started to think it was really cool so if they didn't already have them, they would go get some made without any second thoughts as to why people had those lesions in the first place.
This section had the largest part of the plot; especially most of which has to do with Titus and Violet getting to know each other and their dating. Titus was in a tough place because he was stuck in between his friends which were conformist and his girlfriend which was a nonconformist. Titus wanted to fit in with the group he hung out with as it is human nature to fit in with a group but oddly enough, he was attracted to Violet because she was different from everybody. He was always jumping from one of their sides to another and at the end of the section it did not work out for him. They were at a party and wanted to have a good time but then Violet started to criticize Quendy's lesions and bring stuff up that both parties did not agree on. Then when she could not move because she had problems with her brain because of the feed and passed out, all of Titus' friends were unmoved and wanted her to leave instead of trying to help. Titus was the only one that helped her out and had some compassion for Violet to get help but could not imagine his friends acting in such a crude manner. Thus, Titus was faced with a dilemma as to what he chose to be: conformist or nonconformist.
Another part of the section that stood out to me was the way the consumerist and political systems were manipulating the people. The president could say whatever he wanted to say about other countries or people and then later another announcement would come on talking about how the whole nation misinterpreted the president and his curse words actually meant something nice. Then the companies were trying so hard to figure the consumers out so that they could get them hooked on buying something. That is the very reason Violet did not get to receive help to fix her feed because when she went shopping with Titus and looked at a lot of weird things and did not buy any of it, they could not figure her out so she was not an asset or something they cared to help because it was not going to benefit them in any way. What was amazing to me is that the companies are already trying to do something similar to this on the internet. According to what we search, look at, listen to, and buy the search engines like google are formulating our persona and through the use of mathematics try to figure out what we would like or would possibly buy. It is kind of scary how things are already so similar to the story although it seems far fetched.

Feed: Eden

I don't particularly know why this section is titled Eden but it takes place once Titus and his crew have become hospitalized for getting the transmission to the feed about the demise of society. They do not have connection to the feed at this point because that man messed it up. While stuck in the hospital for that period of time they do things to pass the time like mess with the medical supplies and make games out of them. Even though the whole group of people did not enjoy their time on the moon they seemed to have a better time in the hospital. The difference between this section and the rest of them is that they were much shorter. It was probably due to the fact that they were not exposed to the feed and could only be exposed to what they were surrounded by and not the feed. The fad-following girls really missed the feed. They pretty much depended on it for every decision they made. A prime example is on page 52 when Loga went to visit them and she went into the bathroom to change her hairstyle because popular hairdo was different and then the girls did the same thing because they saw that it was the current style. They relied so much on the way that the feed told them to dress and cut their hair that their disconnection from the feed was much worse.
The part that stood out to me the most was the attachment to electrical devices that many people have. They feel as if they are not connected to the world if they do not get on the internet or have their phone right beside them. It may be that we are so dependent on these things to keep up with people instead of having an actual conversation or encounter with them. I have personally seen how our minds grow accustomed so quickly to the things we do and then there is a greater need for them that it is almost impossible to not have it. Sadly, many people are like Calista and Quendy who do not try to be their own person but follow whatever the feed tells them is the popular thing to do. Supposedly this society is even more focused on the concept of individualism and being yourself, independent but this quality of following the trending topics is displaying quite the opposite in the practice.

Feed: Moon

The first setting in Feed was the Moon. This futuristic American society seemed to be very far fetched with their travels to the moon and other planets. The main character Titus has his group of friends with which he hangs out with and they all seem to be entranced with the idea of being on the moon until they come to the conclusion that it sucks. Calista, Loga, Quendy, Marty, Link and Titus were all on a quest to get to all of the parties and do a whole bunch of crazy stuff just like most teenagers. All of them have this feed that is like a receiver in their brains that works to connect with others as well as for the propaganda of companies trying to sell their merchandise. While at one of these parties, Titus comes across this girl that seems to be different than all of the rest. She stood out to him for wearing a wool dress-an uncommon material for clothes in those days- and that she was looking at them in such a condescending way. He became intrigued with her and her differences from everyone else. The end of this section was when another person that was different was at a club with them and he touched them and transmitted the phrase "We enter a time of calamity!" and ended up on many of  their feeds.
Although this book is set for the future, it could very easily be paralleled to our life in America today. Many people have social networking sites and are smartphones which means that for the most part they stay connected to the 'feed' which allows them to speak to anyone. For this service to remain free, there has to be businesses that will pay these social networks to put ads on their website because of the myriad of people that can potentially see that ad and want to buy some of their stuff. So we too are bombarded with propaganda of many sorts so that we would want to purchase more and more. It is mind boggling to think that so many people are becoming very dependent on them and pretty much live off of them. I think this is a new trend because of the technology. In the other reading selections there was never a strong dependence to something that was not necessary. I remember someone saying one time that back in the day there was no technology and the people were able to finish everything they had to do for the day. Now that we have technology, supposedly to save time and do things quicker, we don't seem to find the time in the day to finish what we have to do. This is so true because we try to do so many things in one day because of how quick we can accomplish them but end up not having time for all that we had planned. It is amazing how times have changed.