21 March 2012

Christina's "Password Protected"

There's a lot going on here I think, which I always like. First there's the relationship between Thomas and the narrator, Julia. He is the one who always helps her through things, and I guess the ending she is the one who...helps him? (I have more thoughts about the ending.)

There's also the bit about how technology has changed the landscape of personal information and how we use/portray/create it.

I loved the bit about the guy who creates his suicide an event. That's funny. Very funny, actually. The resulting comments about the event...are also really funny. It makes everything about the "connections" on Facebook utterly meaningless. You made me laugh.

Pretty much anything about Facebook on here kind of makes me laugh. Like this is some sort of satiric thing. I don't know. Putting the actions that people do on Facebook in actual print and prose makes it seems so silly.

And I really, truly like that about this piece, but the problem is I'm not sure if that's what you were going for. I'm think I'm projecting my own beliefs about Facebook onto this story, and I think I'm able to do that because I'm not sure exactly what the narrator really feels about all of this. And because I think Facebook is a very silly place (You should see my own profile. I'm a literal bear on there.), that's the stance I took for the narrator.

For instance, at one point in the story, she can't believe that people think that their words mean anything on FB (I'm talking about the bible verses and the you're-going-to-be-okays). But then, when her brother dies, she believes that the words she puts on his profile mean literally everything.

And I also don't know how we're supposed to feel about the guy committing suicide. Are we as the reader supposed to take his cry for help seriously? Or not? Because essentially what he's doing is a very silly thing. And I took it as that.

So I guess that's the biggest problem. I don't know what you want your readers to feel. I felt like the ending could be taken in two ways. A happy one, where they truly believe her brother is immortal. Or a sad one (which is the way I took), where Julia isn't letting go. If you want it to be taken as a happy ending, then you need to show us how we are supposed to feel about Facebook itself and the other stuff. Like, if you want the cry for help to be taken seriously, I think it is something that needs convincing. We need to understand that this is real. Not just some sad attempt at getting attention.

...But, to be honest, I kind of prefer it if it weren't taken seriously. Then you get something surprisingly dark.

Also a song about death and stuff:

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