I created an Instagram account for the character, Titus. I consider this character to be extremely shallow, despite what Violet Durn sees in him. He may be slightly different from his friends, because he uses metaphor occasionally, but I believe most of the attraction to be wishful thinking from Violet, which only escalates as her illness worsens. So, for Titus’ Instagram account, I chose to select photos from a young male celebrity known for their consumerist posts, blindly following strange fashion trends, and moving from one relationship to the next as quickly as he does trends. So, one of the first celebrity Instagrams to come to mind was Justin Bieber, and that is where I got all of my pictures from. The photos show Titus’ need for approval from his peers, shown in his hashtags such as “#likeforlike.” He also uses hashtags such as “#megbrag” even though he doesn’t think things are that great, just so other people think he’s having a great time, like when he first went to the moon with his friend. The photo of Titus (Bieber) in black and white outside a plane clearly mimicked the advertisements described in the novel where the Feed shows Titus himself in an upcar surrounded by girls in bikinis. Bieber’s post looks exactly like an advertisement. In one post, I have him leaving the mall in ridiculous garb. In another, I have him paddleboarding on a synthetic lake, and ignorantly describes what the current state of the real lake is, since by the time the novel takes place, the environment is utterly destroyed.
https://www.instagram.com/titusflieskitesus/
Hi Cassidy,
ReplyDeleteI think it might be kind of genius to just turn Justin Bieber into Titus. It works as a sort of metanarrative about Bieber's role in our own consumer-driven narrative, and his style of performative partying for Instagram works for Titus' anxieties about being perceived as having fun. The Mall of America post is probably my favorite because he looks ridiculous, much like the characters in Feed. The only criticism I would offer is that it helps to insert some of your Instagram images into the post so we can see the profile alongside your explanation here on the blog.