Social media and the role it plays in people’s everyday lives is a very important theme in the novel The Rabbit Hutch. Tess Gunty makes a lot of commentary about the negative effects of social media throughout the book. Her commentary through each character's interactions with social media perpetuates the theme that social media can be very harmful.
One of the first instances of characters in The Rabbit Hutch interacting with social media involves Joan Kowalski. Her job is entirely involved with the internet, censoring people’s comments on obituaries. While working, Joan deletes Moses’ comment on his mother's obituary, which he claims “an offense like that cannot go unpunished,” and ends up stalking Joan (Gunty 95). This interaction through social media lays the groundwork for Moses’ significance as a character in the book. We get an insight into what condition that he believes he has- the Toll. Through Joan’s perspectives, we see that Joan is not hiding herself on the internet and consequently opens herself up to be easily tracked down and followed by Moses.
Joan is only one of many characters in this book that has negative interactions due to the internet and social media. After Blandine drops out of high school due to her failed relationship with James, she gets a message from a former student, Zoe. The message that Zoe sends is vague but powerful. She writes to Blandine “So he got you too?” which makes Blandine rethink her entire relationship with James (Gunty 147). Although their relationship was already over and ruined, this added fuel to the fire as Blandine was led to believe that she was the only one that James chose to be involved with at her school. This affects their interactions later on in the book, where Blandine realizes that if James denies being with Zoe, he likely does the same when asked about Blandine.
The last, but most terrifying, use of social media in the book is the video that Malik posts to YouTube. While Blandine is being attacked by Todd at the end of the book, Malik and Jack do not attempt to help. Rather, Malik records Blandine being assaulted and decides to post it online to boost his internet presence and help him with his path to stardom (Gunty 353). This is extremely troubling, and Gunty likely included this abuse of social media to show how dangerous the internet can be even before anything gets published.
Jocelyn Crockett
ReplyDeleteResponse to “Social Media in Rabbit Hutch”
Social media is a through line throughout the book, and all of these points are definitely great examples. Moses’s connection with social media is particularly interesting. He runs a mental health blog for those afflicted by the Toll. He seems to believe that this is because he wants to help people. HE claims the Toll has “graced [him] with an extravagant capacity to feel, a conduit to imaginative empathy” and it is his “celestial duty to exercise this capacity” (242). He “accepts messages from those afflicted by the Toll.... and offers his council to them” (243). At face value, this seems to be a kind act, an attempt to foster a community of support fostered by their extreme empathy for others. However, Moses receives a distressed message from an anonymous user directly asking for his help despite knowing that he doesn’t have the Toll. The message ends with a solemn “[p]lease help me” (258).
Moses deletes the message without responding.
This interaction seems to be completely out of line for the type of person Moses imagines himself as. He makes excuses, thinking that since he doesn’t have the Toll, Moses doesn’t have the training, so it is not his responsibility. However, the anonymous man knows that he does not have the Toll, and still wants whatever help Moses can offer, making this a weak justification. Deleting the message doesn’t seem like the acts of someone who is, in Moses’ words, graced with imaginative empathy. This encounter is a great example of how the idealized version of the internet that serves as a place of friendship and kindness can often be cold and distant in reality.
I think you picked a really great topic to zero in on for this blog post. I was interested in your mentioning of how Joan deletes Moses’ comment from the obituary. Not only does the subsequent spiral of Moses’ actions show just how odd and horrible the impacts of social media can be, but the actual act of Joan deleting the comment hints at another important concept. Even though social media is ostensibly meant to connect people and give people a voice, that voice can also be easily taken away from them in ways that are not exactly possible in real life. Further, social media - even though it arguably tries to be a facsimile of real life - often allows us to intentionally and conveniently ignore other people’s pain. It allows us to censor each other in ways that are only possible via the internet.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I appreciated how you touched on the ways people use and abuse social media in order to gain attention from large numbers of people. Social media has led many people to believe they have the potential to become a celebrity if only a certain post or certain video would go viral. As such, this leads to a dangerous set of circumstances where people act out in an increasingly outrageous manner until they end up horrifically hurting another person, as we see play out in relation to Malik and his filming of Blandine’s assault.
I completely agree with the conclusion that The Rabbit Hutch’s overarching stance on social media is one of skepticism and caution.