I'll buy it.

The idea that the work done by the coolhunters ultimately “kills what it finds” reminds me of an entomologist who, in cataloging all the beautiful insects they seek, must pin them down in lifeless grids. Moreover, I am reminded of the nature of fashion in Feed, which mutates not over the course of years or decades as we tend to think of currently (e.g., 80’s or 90’s fashion,) but rather hours or days, probably because the Feed is constantly indicating what is in style and thereby putting it out of style within a twenty-four hour period.

The second segment of the video conveys the notion that kids begin to see marketers as “the enemy,” which cannot help but remind me of Violet. While she is a minority character in Feed, I feel as though this kind of persona is more ubiquitous in the present day; after all, you would have to be blind to ignore the looks of contempt on the faces of the young men in that research panel. I was forced to consider the possibility that these boys were being Violets—that they might have been deliberately misinforming the researcher due to their resentment.

Let me warn you in advance that I’m about to go meg scientific on this—far more than Feed dared to, at any rate.

Still reading? Okay. So, perhaps you are familiar with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which, in laymen’s terms, states that the act of observation inherently modifies the state of the system being observed. Of course, the Uncertainty Principle applies most properly to the state of atomic particles; Immanuel Wallerstein, however, elucidates in his 1999 essay, “Social Sciences in the Twenty-First Century” that these principles do in fact operate at our macroscopic level. For example, the subjects of sociological studies, because they are aware of the fact that they are being studied, are not acting in their most natural state—this is exactly what we are seeing in Merchants. Violet’s rebellious shopping habits demonstrate that same desire to throw the proverbial wrench in the cogs of corporate marketing. Just like the Juggalos, it is clear that Violet is trying to “break so many rules that [she becomes] indigestible.”

In reality, it would seem that the feedback loop and our dependance upon it

are not something we can effectively resist—after all, Violet is not saved by the Feed companies because they cannot market to her, and even the Juggalos themselves arepackaged and sold (yes, literally). What we really face is a compromise between controlling our own experience, and having that right completely delegated to corporations. Fortunately, companies do include (some of) us in their process, so it is not as though they are arbitrarily mandating our desires. This is not to say that we should abandon criticism of their actions, just be mindful of what we would and would not have without them.