globalization and social networking

Pattern recognition is a very modern novel that is unlike any books that have ever been seen before. Unlike many modern novels, Gibson touches on globalization, social networking, and the emergence of a monoculture.

Globalization is apparent when we see Cayce traveling from country to country. Traveling, which is usually considered an exciting journey to exotic places is made easy and even a little bit boring with the invention of passenger planes. When Cayce arrives in Japan, “she sees the Coca-Cola logo pulsing on a huge screen, high up on a building (125).” Half-way around the world in a place westerners usually consider exotic and we already see the many things Japan has in common with the rest of the modernized world: slogans, advertisement, enterprise, and marketing culture. No matter which part of the hemisphere you are looking at, there is bound to be marketing culture and the familiar modern city with its tall skyscrapers. Only a while ago, this would not be true. But now globalization is happening everywhere and it is happening faster and faster as the world becomes more uniform, producing a single culture that the rest of the world has in common: a monoculture. The fact that Cayce interacts with people of different ethnicities and cultures is also evidence of the world’s progress in globalization. We get Boone Chu, who is Chinese American; Voytek and Magda, who are Polish; Bigend, who is Belgian but raised in England; and many more.

But what is Gibson’s tone towards globalization? It’s hard to tell but he illustrates both positive and negative effects of globalization. On the positive side, we see that globalization has made countries such as Japan and Russia significantly richer. Tokyo is the world’s largest metropolis and Russia is quickly rising out of poverty. With Russia’s new cultivated wealth, privatized prisons are created giving prisoners better living conditions and to prevent disease. However, this new wealth illustrated in the novel is in the hands of very shady figures like Bigend and Volkov, who always seem to have ulterior motives. These business figures seem to act on self-interest alone and operate in a shroud of secrecy. It is unnerving to think that it is these figures that control the media and drive the globalization process.

One thing that emerges from globalization that seems to have a powerful and widespread effect on society is social networking. Throughout the novel, we see Cayce interacting with people all over the world and developing friendships, such as Ivy and Parkaboy, through the internet. With the invention of the internet, you can talk to anyone on the globe that has a computer and an online connection. You can do this on a telephone, but it’s too personal and less convenient. The invention of the internet has connected so many people globally that a new culture is born: a cyber culture; a culture that makes communication so easy that you can do it anywhere, anytime, twenty four seven. For anyone in the virtual world, there is no limit to how many friends you can have, whether you prefer a few friends or five hundred friends. You can even forge a new identity in the online world. And this is everywhere and it has only been around for less than a decade. Everywhere you see there are people texting, chatting online, or posting comments on Facebook. But are all these online relationships healthy? Up until now, we use to go over to our friend’s house if we wanted to socialize. But now, we have five hundred friends, many of them who we almost never see face to face, which we communicate through words posted on the internet. Our idea of what a relationship should look like is changing so fast that when Parkaboy tells Cayce his real name for the first time over the phone, his “name feels strange on her tongue (279).” Even after all the years that Cayce has known Parkaboy over the internet, she feels strange and awkward speaking to him for the first time. Parkaboy’s voice wasn’t really what Cayce expected and she realizes that she doesn’t really know much about his personal life despite being friends for a very long time. Today, some of us might find this shocking and weird, and for others, not so much. But it isn’t completely farfetched that someday, all of us will have online friends all over the world. The fact that this future is a lot closer than we think is mind boggling and baffling.