One of the main themes in Pattern Recognition, written by William Gibson, is the increasing impact of online social networks. Gibson shows us how the internet has become a huge part of people's lives by showing us an example of Cayce's role on F:F:F and how the forum "has become one of the most consistent places in her life". This shows us that people are displacing reality as the forum and is using it as their main source of socializing.
However, even though Gibson gives us positive outcomes from what is created on the internet, I believe that Gibson left out some negative effects that could have risen from being too friendly and opened on the internet. The internet can be sketchy and harmful to others because people can easily pose themselves as someone else, and therefore, true identity can be completely hidden and all the descriptions the person gave could be a lie. For example, Parkaboy tries to help Cayce receive the numbers that could lead to the locations of the footage by arranging a meeting with her and Taki in Tokyo. Taki, whom is really good with computers, was fooled by Parkaboy to hand over the numbers to Cayce in trades of pictures of “Keiko”, a schoolgirl that Parkaboy was impersonating. Parkaboy used his friend Judy’s picture as Keiko, but instead of using the raw image, it was photoshopped at the face and eyes to make the picture more appealing. After Taki sees this picture, he falls in love with “Keiko”, a petite Japanese schoolgirl that he has never met in person. From this, Gibson is probably trying to point out that technology leads a great cause-and-effect to people's judgement. However, in the end, Taki and Judy falls in love with each other, which I believe, is too optimistic for a relationship that started from the internet.
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