How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) or (Feed Chatter #.Paragraph)
Quote #7
We were still like that, looking into each other's eyes and all, when the doctor came in and was like, What the hell had happened in the examination room, what's with all the needles? And he was upgrading to homicidal and going all, Da da da professional care unit, da da da dangerous and costly da da infection da da da, etc. Luckily, Link's mom heard him yelling at us, and she's a complete dragon, so she gave him a piece of her mind. She told him that we were all suffering from a very stressful experience and we weren't used to these kinds of stresses and he had to understand that we had to have our fun, too. (14.13)
None of the characters get that they're acting like obnoxious brats, and that this is no way to behave in a hospital. But don't blame them: they've just got affluenza from the buy-it-now-I've-gotta-have-it-now attitude that the feed promotes in this society. And the parents might just be worse.
Quote #8
We all talked about old music, like from when we were little, and all the stupid bands they had back then, and the stupid fashions we liked in middle school, like the year when the big fashion from L.A. and shit was that everyone wanted to dress like they were in an elderly convalescent home, there was this weird nostalgic chic for that, so we all remembered having stretch pants and velour tops, and Calista had even bought one of those stupid accessory walkers at Weatherbee & Crotch. (14.14)
We'd like to think that if a stupid-sounding fad like convalescent home fashion was all the rage, we wouldn't buy into it. But then we remember 80s fashion--and normcore.
Quote #9
And the feed spoke to me real quiet about new trends, about pants that should be shorter or longer, and bands I should know, and games with new levels and stalactites and fields of diamonds, and friends of many colors were all drinking Coke, and beer was washing through mountain passes, and the stars of the Oh? Wow! Thing! had got lesions, so lesions were hip now, real hip, and mine looked like a million dollars. The sun was rising over foreign countries, and underwear was cheap, and there were new techniques to reconfigure pecs, abs, and nipples, and the President of the United States was certain of the future, and at Weatherbee & Crotch there was a sale banner and nice rugby shirts and there were pictures of freckled prep-school boys and girls in chinos paying on the beach and dry humping in the eel grass, and as I fell asleep, the feed murmured to me again and again: All shall be well . . . and all shall be well . . . and all manner of things shall be well! (29.35)
So far, so feed—until we get to the ironic quotation at the end, which comes from Julian of Norwich, a woman religious writer from the Middle Ages. Where'd that come from? Well, the original quotation tells us that, even though we're all big fat sinner, God loves us anyway, and everything is going to work out just fine. But here, the spiritual meaning is replaced with consumerism: God isn't going to fix everything; buying stuff is going to fix things.