Part 1 – Moon

Your Face is Not An Organ (Part 1.1)

Anderson’s Feed opens with a group of young adults on their way to the Moon. The novel quickly establishes a few basic elements that will prevail throughout the text. The youths are bored despite what, to the reader, might seem like an incredible adventure. This was a last minute thing to do on a Friday night, the youths just looking for fun but it turning out to have ‘completely sucked’. The group are so bored they are playing with live wires and slamming their chairs into each other for fun, showing an inconsideration of the other passengers. On arrival they are subjected to a barrage of ideas and advertisements on their feed. The feed is an implanted technology that creates a virtual world where the user can access entertainment, shopping, chatting and information. Owned by large corporations, the feed observes users and makes suggestions based on their location and behaviour. As the group arrive on the Moon, the feed instantly begins to fill their mind with suggestions for bars, parties and experiences.

Titus, the protagonist and the narrator, is lonely and secretly looking for more, hoping to meet a girl. He is uninterested in playing around on the flight and desires that they be told by the flight staff to stop so he can get some sleep, he would not tell his friends himself for fear of not conforming. However the staff are impressed by his friend Link’s purchase amount and thus won’t criticise the behaviour. This foreshadows the privilege of wealth in Feed.

Your Face is Not An Organ Quotes (Part 1.1)

We went to the Moon to have fun, but the Moon turned out to completely suck. Part 1.1

We flew up and our feeds were burbling all sorts of things about where to stay and what to eat. Part 1.1

The waitress came by and Link stopped and smiled at her and she was like, What a nice young man.
That was because he purchased like a slop-bucket of cologne from the duty-free. Part 1.1

Impact (Part 1.2)

The group consists of the boys, Titus, Link and Marty, and the girls, Calista, Loga and Quendy. Upon arriving at the Moon, the group’s individual feeds fill them with suggestions to the point they find it hard to walk or talk. The group head out to a bar and Titus reveals he used to date Loga but they had an argument. Marty, the physical one, is showing off with gymnastics in the reduced gravity. Link, the leader, is bouncing off the girls. Titus is slightly jealous. The group struggles to get in to parties which is unusual because although the group members may not be good looking, they are wealthy and usually have no problems being accepted. They note they are getting some lesions, like an open scar or wound, which everyone is getting these days but don’t question the infirmity and will later accentuate them when it becomes trendy to do so. It is revealed that the wounds are a result of environmental damage and are a sign of the troubled times.

Titus notices someone watching them, Violet, and thinks she is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Titus notes that Violet is watching their stupid mucking around but on a deeper level, Violet will observe their lifestyle and come to question the stupidity of blindly following the feed and societal norms.

The chapter ends with fragments of the feed advertising trends and music. This interruption to the reader mirrors the intrusion of the feed on the characters’ lives.

Impact Quotes (Part 1.2)

I was trying to talk to Link, but I couldn’t because I was getting bannered so hard, and I kept blinking and trying to walk forward with my carry-on. I can’t hardly remember any of it. I just remember that everything in the banners looked goldy and sparkling, but as we walked down to the luggage, all the air vents were streaked with black. Part 1.2

I tried to concentrate on all the stimulus, and the fun, all of it. Part 1.2

Even with his impact helmet on, Link stood out. He’s much taller than anyone else, because he’s part of a secret patriotic experiment. Part 1.2

She was the most beautiful girl, like, ever. She was watching our stupidity. Part 1.2

Juice (Part 1.3)

Titus follows Violet and observes her, seeing her as different from the group. She is travelling alone and seems to be experiencing things for her own pleasure. She has a mouthful of juice and lets it float near her face in the zero gravity bar. Although she does this out of curiosity, this being her first trip to the Moon, Titus finds it intriguing.

Juice Quotes (Part 1.3)

I shifted. I watched the juice. For her own amusement, she was letting it go, gentle and sexy. Part 1.3

The Nose Grid (Part 1.4)

The group meets Violet and instantly notices there are differences between its members and her. Violet gives a detailed compliment about Quendy’s lesion, explaining that it frames her face and doesn’t cross imaginary grid lines that refrain the beauty of the face. The seemingly thoughtful comment has the group in stunned silence. Violet then helps Quendy with her hair to showcase the lesion and frame her face. Calista is put out as she is usually the centre of attention but Violet’s helping nature has elevated Quendy and made her feel better about herself.

More advertisements are presented to the reader in a feed-like way, showing the intrusive and shallow nature of the feed. The advertisements include one for The Rumble Spot, a club that the others will later attend with ill-fated consequences.

The Nose Grid Quotes (Part 1.4)

Link and I were chatting about the girl, like I was going, She is meg youch, and he was going, What the hell’s she wearing?, and I was going, Wool. Part 1.4

Quendy came back from the bathroom and said, ‘Omigod! Like big thanks to everyone for not telling me that my lesion is like meg completely spreading.’ Part 1.4

We were all just kind of staring at her like she was an alien. She smiled. We kept staring at her. (The group watch Violet) Part 1.4

She and the girls spent the rest of the hour fixing Quendy’s hair to like showcase the lesion. Usually, Quendy is just like a kind of broken, little economy model of Calista, and she knows that, and feels real bad about it. But when this girl helped her, it wasn’t like that. Quendy was the center of everyone for a long time. Part 1.4

The Moon is in the House of Boring (Part 1.5)

A parody of the astrological expression ‘the Moon is in the house of …’, the chapter’s title, shows the discontent of the group. It shows how despite all the group members have, they still struggle to find fulfilment, and seek fun shopping at a mall. Quickly bored, they return to the hotel and see some protesters on the way declaring that they would be better off dead than to have a chip in their head. The presence of protesters shows that not all things are perfect in this world. This along with the dissatisfaction that the group experiences when it is not engaged with something new and exciting reveals the cracks in the utopian ideal.

The group head to The Rumble Spot. The name of the club suggests some sort of violence, likened to earlier in the zero gravity when the group members chose to slam into each other. Later it will be revealed that the parents attend parties where they are strangulated. This need for violence or intense action is a symptom of trying to feel something in a blurred world where everything comes so easily. Titus spends the time there chatting to Violet, he worries about his lack of intelligence as he simply relies on the feed for facts. She seems uncomfortable and reveals that she has not been to the Moon before. Titus lists some places he has been but says Mars is dumb which seems shallow to Violet, who could never afford a trip there.

At the club, a man approaches the group, the hacker, who touches a metal rod to the group member’s heads and interferes with their feed much like a virus would infiltrate a computer. They repeatedly broadcast the hacker’s message on their feeds and are incapacitated by the hack, repeating ‘We enter a time of calamity!’, with many in the group becoming infected. Loga avoids infection, having avoided the man due to thinking of him as creepy. The police show up and stun the hacker and turn off the group’s feeds.

The Moon is in the House of Boring Quotes (Part 1.5)

Quendy bought some shoes, but the minute she walked out of the store she didn’t like them anymore. Marty couldn’t think of anything he wanted, so he ordered this really null shirt. He said it was so null it was like ordering nothing. Part 1.5

They were protesting all these things, some of them even were protesting the feed. They were like shouting, ‘Chip in my head? I’m better off dead! Chip in my head? I’m better off dead!’ Loga rolled her eyes and was like, ‘Omigod.’ Part 1.5

The old man reached out and, with a metal handle, touched me on the neck. Suddenly, I could feel myself broadcasting. I was broadcasting across the scatterfeed, going, helplessly, We enter a time of calamity! We enter a time of calamity! I couldn’t stop. And he had touched Violet now, and Link, and Marty, and from all of them, it was coming, We enter a time of calamity! We enter a time of calamity! Part 1.5