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Titus

The first-person narrator of feed and one of its protagonists. Titus represents a typical teenager of his time: He likes partying with his friends and shopping for new clothes at places like Weatherbee & Crotch. Like everyone around him, Titus is dependent on the feed, and like his fellow upper-class friends, apathetic and blissfully ignorant that the Earth is dying and others are suffering. Still, Violet Durn sees something that sets him apart, particularly because he is the only one of his peers who uses metaphors.

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Violet Durn

Titus’s girlfriend and fellow protagonist. Home-schooled by her professor father, Violet is sensitive, sarcastic, and smart. Unlike Titus and his friends, she is well educated and only had her feed installed when she was seven, rather than at birth. Violet is also concerned that the world is in decline and that corporations have destroyed the Earth. Though Violet determines to resist the feed, a part of her longs to live what she feels is a normal life, and she gravitates to Titus for this reason.

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Violet’s Father

A professor of dead languages, including FORTRAN and BASIC. Violet’s father is educated, aware of the world’s problems, and close with his daughter. He home-schools Violet, shuns materialism, and chastises Titus and people like him for living in ignorance.

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Titus's Father

Inadequate parent of Titus, who is self-centered, obnoxious, and an example of a stunted corporate mindset. Titus’s father represents almost everything that is wrong with the society in the novel. Titus’s less appealing characteristics are all present and more pronounced in his father.

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The Feed

The novel’s antagonist. Created by major corporate entities and hardwired into people’s bodies at birth, the feed fills people’s brain spaces with news, entertainment, and above all else, precisely targeted advertising to induce them to constantly consume. Feeds create consumer profiles based on users’ purchasing decisions, thoughts, and feelings, and are tied entirely into a person’s brain and biological functions.

Link Arwaker

One of Titus’s upper-class friends. Link is taller and less physically attractive than many of his peers, for a reason: His ultra-rich family cloned him from Abraham Lincoln’s blood found on Mary Todd Lincoln’s cloak after his assassination. Link lacks intelligence and loves to party and “go into mal” via sites that induce drug-like trips.

Marty

The other male member of Titus’s close circle. Marty is athletic and described by Titus as being good at most anything he tries. Like Link, Marty loves to party and go into mal.

Calista

Another staple in Titus’s group of superficial friends. Also wealthy, Calista is popular, attractive, and the matriarch of the group’s females. She has an on-again, off-again relationship with Link. 

Quendy

Calista’s resentful second fiddle. Quendy appears less attractive than Calista, and as a result, competes with her, particularly for Link’s attention. This includes covering her body in artificial incisions to replicate lesions caused by industrial damage.

Loga

A third member in Titus’s circle. She and Titus dated in the past. Loga is the only member of the group who isn’t hacked during their spring break on the moon.

The Hacker

An old man and member of the hacker group the Coalition of Pity. At a dance club on the moon, he hacks into people’s feeds, including that of Titus and his friends, causing them to broadcast the message “we enter a time of calamity.”

Violet’s Mother

A woman who makes no appearances in the novel beyond Violet’s memories of her. She left the family when Violet was young and, according to Violet, likely lives in South America. She opted not to have a feed installed.

Steve

Titus’s emotionally disconnected father. He is often away for work, including a team-building event where he and his colleagues kill a whale. 

Titus’s Mother

Titus’s emotionally dysfunctional mom. When Titus worries that he isn’t as smart as Violet, his mother assures him he is the boy she wanted, because he was created in the likeness of DelGlacey Murdoch, a once promising but now forgotten actor. 

Smell Factor

Titus’s emotionally disturbed younger brother. Smell Factor is especially spoiled and regularly misbehaves. Like Titus’s mother, readers never learn his real name.

President Trumbull

The current President of the United States, who delivers bumbling speeches filled with propaganda. He defends corporate entities and lies that they haven’t destroyed the environment. 

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