A scene in Super Sad True Love Story that strongly represents a distopic image of the world is demonstrated on page 103 as Eunice and Lenny visit Central Park together. In the scene, Lenny describes the dying transit system, explaining that it now is run in a for-profit manner by corporations aligned with the corrupt American government under the repeated propaganda that “Together We’ll Go Somewhere”. He continues to describe the segregation that exists on the train between the business class who pay, as he explains, “the extra ten dollars” to be given a small piece of somewhat comfortable seating and the protection from the National guard against Low Net Worth Individuals who find themselves restricted to the regular cars.

Not only does the transit system represent an unjust, apocalyptic, survival-like arrangement dedicating to protecting the upper class, but the notion that there would be any form of unity and togetherness as brought-forth by the slogan of the ARA is simply preposterous. Eunice’s interjecting question “Why do you live here?” perfectly sums up the attitude of readers of the novel who find this to be a sad, broken state of living. The horror and disgust towards the system she feels resonates with that of any sane point of view on this lie of an existence.

I chose the image of a Nazi propaganda to demonstrate the notion that corrupt and broken governments have continuously through history utilized such falsities in order to gain the approval of citizens and to create perhaps a sense of hope in a time of absolute doom. In Germany, this doom was created by the aftermath of World War one in the form of the great depression and the treaty of Versailles. In Super Sad True Love Story, this is represented by the systematic degradation of the US.

As a child in love with sports and the culture behind both professional and amateur athletics, I watched a lot of ESPN. Channel 41 (173 in high definition) on Comcast was embedded in my mind at eight years of age and was the first channel I plugged in after flipping the on button of the television remote. My favorite show, sports-center, a sequence of breaking news, game-highlights and analysis, aired all night and all morning long, providing a perfect way to spend each morning I woke up a little too early before leaving for school and late nights where I struggled to fall asleep. Amazed by the talent, the skill, the creativity and passion put into each sport, I quickly fell in love. However, there was one specific part of sports-center and the ESPN channel touched my heart each aired episode. The soundtrack of rascal flats played on the background, introducing the powerful “My Wish” series. The “My Wish” series was created as a way to help disabled and terminally ill children by connecting them and providing the opportunity for them to meet their favorite athlete or sports team. If nothing else, for a few hours a purity, their spirits were lifted and they felt normal, if not, like a superhero. For my presentation, I would like to focus on the introductory page/ logo for the “My Wish” series and the manner in which it draws its audience through coloring, genuine-looking font choices, and drawing imagery. The page itself consists of a light blue background with a picture of the participating child with a joyous grin from the experience he or she had been give. Additionally, the sports-center logo sits above “My Wish..” with a cursive “My” and a star as the finishing point of the “y”. Underneath sits the child’s name in his or her handwriting.

Twenty and thirty years ago, acronyms such as “AFK”, ‘BFFL”, YOLO”, “ROFLMAO”, and “TTYL” were hardly ideas that came to mind as full phrases. Instant messaging and texting were obsolete concepts, creating no use for acronyms such as “Away From Keyboard”. Many people had dear and best friends, but felt no reason to conceptualize it in 4 letters available to put next to a hashtag on an Instagram post (Best Friends For Life). People accepted to idea of carpe diem and living life to the fullest, but artist Drake had not yet coined a term that would be used in a large percentage of text and instant messaging conversations for teens (YOLO). The fact is, the acronyms, capitalizations, and phrases that are used with regularity in Super Sad True Love Story may not be as inappropriate, obsolete, or nearly as far-fetched as we may believe.

On page 88, Vishnu introduces the term/acronym FAC meaning Forming a Community. He states: “It’s, like, a way to judge people. And let them judge you. Essentially it’s a system that picks up blood pressure levels and “tells her how much you want to do her”. With the level of knowledge already available to the society about one another through the apparat technology, this not-so far fetched idea caught on and was used several times by the group of guys in a matter of minutes. The same way our current society and culture ridicule such possibilities of connection and word usage, prior generations would have ridiculed our manner of communication and the types of phrases we have coined to create meaningless “shortcuts” in our everyday live. These acronyms and messaging concepts are simply the results of a more updated, faster, technologically updated culture that is not too dissimilar from our own.

In the podcast discussion of “Eye in the Sky” technology, the podcasters highlight the capability of this, once restricted to military usage, camera system that allows a team, now known as Persistent Surveillance Systems, to rewind through time in order to solve crimes and target enemy groups. By sending undetectable, small planes into the sky with cameras for hours at a time, they are able to capture the entirety of a city and can trace the actions of every moving being within its limits. This system retained the ability to capture suicide bombers in the Iraqi war and trace the bombers movement to terrorist headquarters, as well as to shut down drug cartels in Mexico following stakeouts. The ability to analyze this footage can help lockdown city shootings, as well as robberies and large scale drug operations within the US to assist in creating safer neighborhoods. Additionally, in order to create a moral standard in defense of privacy the team refuses to upgrade the quality of the zoom on their cameras in order to preserve close-up detail of everyday normal life. Essentially, they are only able to detect movement through specs of color, and can see much less than everyday security cameras set up in the corners of every store and restaurant across the nation. They are looking to target real, dangerous crime that allow people to live with greater comfort and peace of mind

However, there is a clear negative argument of security versus privacy towards this technology and a duality of the notion of comfort that has resisted the urge from city’s to agree to implement the system. Many people fear that the cameras are too invasive and will cause a sense of uneasiness as everyday, innocent citizens will be spied on and will feel too great a sense of control on their actions. Following incidents such as the NSA spying scandal through phones, there is a great lack of trust towards the government and larger-scale security agencies to be able to morally and justly handle these types of systems. Most people agree that bending the rules such as staying out a little past curfew and sneaking out at night are adventurous and enjoyable aspects of life that mold us into more complete human beings. The fear resides in the idea that this sort of technology will destroy the possibility of normal, free living, if only because of the knowledge that it is there, right above their heads, at all times.