Multi-Genre "Feed"

What would show up on MY Feed?

Books.

Coffee. Dessert.

Music.

Movies. College.
Travel.

(-That pretty much somes up mainly what would be on my Feed.)

Okay, now enough about me. (I'm boring/not the "normal" consumer.) I mean, really, the subjects above are seriously the only things that would show up in my Feed (if I had one, that is), not including the random commercials (and their well-loved theme-songs) that always seem to pop up. Like:

"One day, one night,

Buying is alright!
That sign defines
That we are all blind!
Get your new Feed!

Set yourself free!

National American Super Shopping Spree!"

-Good god. Gag me with a big, shiny, silver spoon while you're at it. Please

No, but really. I mean, the average american could easily be depicted as this:

-Hott. Cause we all want to look like that, right? (Don't you just love it when people's beer-bellies hang out of their shirt? I do.) Um, can I have a WTF with a side of fries? Please and thank you.

Moving on. So I was talking about the Feed and consumerism before that annoying song came into my head, and--

-Newsflash-

Just in! A live report has just come in from Housten, Texas. Apparently a 37-year-old man was trapped under some rubble after a Mall-Wart [tragically] collapsed due to an un-expected earthquake caused by [level 7] hurricane that came in-land this afternoon [at about 4:56 PM]. The man was [according to recent weighing from doctors] about 582 lbs. when he came to the store. [Panicked] the man, trapped in isle 14 [the salami isle], and ended up trying to eat his way out in a desparate attempt to save himself. -The man now weighs 615 lbs. and is on his way to the emergency room. Back to you Dave!...

-Am I the only one that gets annoyed when you're watching something and that happens? --One of the many reasons I avoid news channels (and most TV networks) in general. Too annoying, too weird. I'd much rather remain ignorant about all the dumb shit the people around me do. Plus, the stuff the newscasters say doesn't even really make sense half the time.

Okay. As I was saying earlier, we, as Americans, have too many options. Too much food, too many products, and too much waste. I mean think of all of it.

(-Are we really "lovin' it"?)

(-Okay, just because "President" Bush okayed it, doesn't mean that it's true. IN FACT: because he told us (after 9/11) that shopping would somehow fix the economy, that should've been everyone's cue to put their headphones in, crank their music up real loud, and hope that his stupidity wouldn't infect the rest of us. --Unfortunately, it did.)


" 'Hey, badboy!-- Wanna try these hot jeans out for size? [*/Shows pair of jeans talking to a thirteen-year-old boy/*] All the girlies will be screaming your name when they see you walking in the hallways wearing Bad-boy (TM) jeans

[*/ Boy contemplates his options carefully/*] [*/Shows quick clips of previous pairs of jeans he wore in the past that just weren't good enough/*]

[*/Boy pictures a bunch of babelicious girls staring at him in the halls, and winking, and giving him their phone numbers, as he struts his new Bad-boy (TM) jeans/*]

[*/Boy nods his head approvingly/*]

"Now you're getting the picture! [*/Says the talking Bad-boy (TM) jeans/*]

Bad-boy (TM)... Now in convenient clothing stores everywhere. [*/ Says deep-voiced narrator guy/*]

"You gotta have 'em!" [*/Says thirteen-year-old boy, with a group of girls around him./*]

-Lame, I know. But a lot of commercials are lame like that. It's times like that, where a commercial is just so stupid and cheesy and unoriginal, that I don't know if I should cry (from agony) or scream (from frustration).

-Amen. Consumerism in a nutshell.

Reflection-

Okay, so I know I didn't really talk about myself and consumerism, so much as I did just talking about consumerism's affect of America -as a whole. It wasn't an intentional thing, it just kind of happened. (-And no, I'm not changing it.) Because, as I've been pacing back and forth on the wooden floor of my kitchen, trying to find where I fit in the American consumeristic society, the more I see myself pulling away from that. I don't see much of myself in those ads, and pictures, and commercials. -I mean, I see myself making fun of the (ridiculous) advertisements constantly flashing by; but I don't see myself as one of those 'average, American, people'. So, maybe I fail when it comes to the whole point of this project, seeing as that kind of was the point of this whole thing (showing/telling how I contribute and am affected by consumerism). But I can't tell you about something that I, myself, fail to see.

-Perhaps you can see it and I can't. Who knows.

Maybe I'm not understanding the point of this project, because when I think of "media influence on our lives", I think of people watching TV or browsing on the internet and then some completely random ad pops up and they want to buy it. So they do. (-This kind of reminds me the story my mom would tell me about some old (dead) relative in my family -my great aunt? I think- who would always call and order things she clearly didn't need from one of those infomercials. You know, the ones that say, "Call now, and we'll throw in an extra (blah, blah, blah), which comes complete with the set! Only $19.99 -plus shipping and rebate! Call now!) -See, that, I don't see myself in that. At all. A commercial comes on and I will flip through channels until I get to one that isn't showing a commercial, or sports. (-No offense to any sports fans or anything, but I have never understood why people enjoy watching these televised sports for hours on end.) I make fun of ads in my head all of the time, I hate stupid advertisements (-at least try and be creative), and I'm the kind of person that goes to the mall and doesn't buy anything.

-If I want something, I buy it. Plain and simple. I don't buy it because of some corporate owner told me to -I bought it because it was there and it interested me, and it was probably coffee or an interesting looking book.

As you can see in the images above (at the wayyyyy top), I listed my main categories of interest. My train of thought for that was, that the Feed automatically markets stuff to you based on your interests and on stuff you've bought in the past, so that it can make a consumer profile of you. My, evidently, seems fairly simple. Coffee, movies, books, music, college, dessert, and travel. I figured my Feed (if I had one) would probably show me lots of pictures and ads on the different countries and cities I want to visit (i.e. Italy, Japan, Seattle, etc...), hoping that I will pay to go see them, and buy stuff while I'm there. (-But, really, I obviously wouldn't want to go there just to buy stuff.) I really like traveling. -I've actually already been to Seattle; last year, with the Band. It was awesome. Which brings me to the other topic, of college (-because I really want to go to the U of W in Seattle sometime, even if it's only for a year (that was my random train of thought)). Obviously I'd get tons of data on the different colleges I'm looking at, trying to help me decide which one to go to, and figure out the pros and cons of all of them.

-As for dessert, it's food, meaning it's good, and it's advertised all the time. So, I guess maybe advertisement/consumerism does affect me, in the sense where it helps me decide what it is I want to eat. But matters of the stomach are a bit different, I think.

Anyways. About the book "Feed" (by M.T. Anderson, of course), I think the moral of the story is that, obviously, technology and consumerism (which seem to go hand-in-hand in the story, as well as in today's world) are taking over everything. The big-box companies own everything -yes, even the fucking sky, which I had no idea was even possible until I read the story. Nothing lives, no one thinks for themself, and everything is dying, essentially. You implant an unnatural thing into someone's mind (-or, you become too absorbed and reliant on technology, which is also unnatural, mind you, even if our society promotes it as "normal"), then unnatural things should be expected as a result. -If we as people become too reliant on technology, so much to the point where we need it to think for us, then don't we automatically just stop progressing as a society, as well as a race?

-In fact, I'm quite sure that that would result in us going backwards, in a sense. And that would suck.

And we'd end up becoming like the people in story "Feed" -without their Feed, they were nothing. They were empty shells, with empty thoughts, and unable to use the power of imagination to, possibly, help them see past their nose. Just a thought, you know, that there's a whole other world out there that they will never know of, nor understand -where technology is irrelevent and can easily be done without. I, personally, found it kind of sad (and really pathetic) how Titus was just staring at the picture of the boat, and was unable to see deeper into than the fact that it was 'just a boat'. He couldn't see that it was art (in a way), and that it may have been made with more in mind than, 'I'm going to make a boat.'

--Oh yeah, and Titus ordered all of those pants, in the end, because they were Bad-boy (TM) jeans. Aha. (-That probably only seemed funny to me because it's 1 in the morning and I've been staring at a screen for a couple hours, straight, now.) No, but seriously. I think he ordered them in an attempt to try and spite the Feed after he (sort of) realized what it was doing to people. -It was the opposite of what Violet did; she bought nothing, while he bought everything. And I think he was hoping that he could somehow confuse, or scramble, the Feed by trying to overload the system.

And, as for "everything must go..." It seems almost self-explanatory. Humans have fucked everything up, and are only spiraling downwards at this point (in the story). And the only way to get anywhere would be to start over; start anew. Meaning, obviously, that 'everything must go' for that process to begin...

I hope I did my multi-genre essay correctly.. (-It's my first time doing something like that, obviously.) And hopefully I answered most of the questions and such. -I know that it wasn't that funny this time, but, I tried. One can't be funny all of the time, right? Cause if they were, they wouldn't be funny.

--Also, there were supposed to be a couple of random videos I took on here, but due to some technical difficulties (story of my life) I'm not able to post them.. I'll try to load them again tomorrow. So, stay tuned, just in case. Otherwise..

Peace.

P.S. I hate technology with a passion...especially right now since the fonts aren't working right..