Feed

Feed (2002) is a cyberpunk, satirical, dystopian, young-adult novel by M. T. Anderson, focusing on issues such as corporate power, consumerism, information technology, data mining, and environmental decay, with a sometimes sardonic, sometimes somber tone. From the first-person perspective of a teenaged boy, the book takes place in a near-futuristic American culture completely dominated by advertising and corporate exploitation, corresponding to the enormous popularity of internetworking brain implants called feeds. Plot Context The novel portrays a near-future in which the feednet, a huge computer network (apparently an advanced form of the Internet), is directly connected to the brains of about 73% of American citizens by an implanted device called a feed. The feed allows people: to mentally access vast digital databases (individually called "sites"); to experience shareable virtual-reality phenomena (including entertainment programs, music, and even others' memories); to continually interact with intrusive corporations in a personal preference-based way; and to communicate telepathically on closed channels with others who also have feeds (a feature called m-chatting). In the book's setting, the natural environment is deteriorating, with natural clouds having been replaced by trademarked Clouds™, and many parents have their children custom-designed. The corporations responsible for the feed have immense power and even run the school system, which is now known as School™. Throughout the book, corporations appear to hold the true power in the United States, leading to the destruction of the environment and leaving the president virtually helpless as the Global Alliance, a coalition of other countries, begins contemplating war with the U.S.