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Joe resists joining Facebook, Tinder, or any other social media platforms until it benefits his search for Amy. He hates the idea of social media, and when he joins, it is even worse than he thought. Social media presents an artificial version of people. It also allows people to broadcast their whereabouts, which is the only thing that allows Joe to find Jessica Salinger.
The celebrity sightings in The Pantry are one of the first signs of Joe’s view of social media. Seeing someone in a grocery aisle is not a newsworthy event, but no one seems to know. Consider the breathless tweets with their inane hashtags: “Omigod literally just saw Pacey Cole Witter Lockhart #dawsonscreek #pantry #needaffair #ilovela #idie,” and, “LA where you can’t get groceries without feeling like a #loser #pantry #adamscott #joshjackson #dianekruger #ihaventbookedanythingin4months” (58). People get on Twitter to tweet about famous people, inspiring envy and (hopefully) catching the eye of a producer or actor. This vapid pretending at social connection bothers Joe intuitively, yet he does not see his own hypocrisy in embodying the same drive to be seen, if not to actually be known.
Throughout the novel, people use social media to hold public conversations about mundane events that would scarcely count as anecdotes in a private conversation. Because Joe has little experience with social media (outside of using it to stalk people), his first shaky steps into Twitter, Facebook, and Tinder help readers with comparable inexperience empathize with him.
Part of what attracts him to Amy is that she is as offline as she can be. This is, to Joe, a sign that she is a substantial person. She does not need people to know who she is or where she is. What Joe doesn’t know is that Amy is offline, at least in part, because she is a criminal who wants to be able to hide. At the same time, this signifies that while she may not be a fine, upstanding citizen, at least she accepts herself for who she is rather than striving to be more.
On the way to LA, Joe decides that he should use Facebook and Facebook friends as camouflage: “I have to fuck around on Facebook. I’m a hunter going on a wild safari and I need guides on my trek through this small segment of the foothills of Hollywood” (41). People share sensitive details on social media that make them vulnerable, information that they would be less likely to share with strangers face to face.
Joe understands the vapidity that the platforms enable. For instance, when Henderson texts—via Joe—his final empty bubble, everyone treats it as if it is profound and inscrutable. Joe’s instincts are correct: People will approve of anything Tweeted from a celebrity. Joe sends a Tweet with zero content, and within seconds, people respond, approve, and amplify the non-message. Overall, Joe is only interested in using social media for antisocial purposes, and it results in several of his most significant breakthroughs in his pursuits, as well as it brings about his own capture by police.
One of the novel’s central ironies is that Joe—a character of dubious mental stability—defines aspirations as a dangerous illness. An aspiration seems innocent enough: To simply want to achieve or obtain something is how much of progress—personal, professional, and scientific—occurs. What Joe resents and despises is what Hollywood people aspire to. He despises the inane ambition that aspiring to fame requires. He is a character who is driven by insecurity and compulsion, making him the opposite of a dedicated social climber, and yet, when he gets the chance, Joe finds the attention and mild fame intoxicating.
People go to LA to make it in Hollywood, a phrase that repulses Joe. He is an acerbic character, whose filter-less thoughts are one of the novel’s joys, but again, Joe is particularly venomous toward the mere idea of aspirations. He gives some insight into his disgust during the first dinner with Love’s parents when he says, “If everyone is onstage, who’s in the audience?” (129). Joe tells Ray and Dottie that the nature of fame disturbs him. In the look-at-me culture in which everyone can amplify their voice on the Internet, everyone becomes a passive consumer and an object of attention. The temptation of fame transforms the nature of experience. People in Hidden Bodies go to chic places, not for the experience of the venue or act, but in order to take a photo of themselves on site, vicariously connecting themselves to the glamour.
Delilah is the most acute cautionary symbol of Hollywood’s aspirational culture. She wants to be famous and will do anything to get there. And yet, she still can’t break through. Her efforts eventually result in her murder at Joe’s hands, her reward for the pursuit of empty fame. Hidden Bodies presents fame as a hollow, soulless goal. In essence, outside of the trappings of wealth and opportunity, fame is simply the irrational desire to have as many people as possible be aware of one’s existence.
Joe makes constant reminders to himself about avoiding these traps: “Note to self: Do not get sick with aspirations. They eat your brain and trick your heart and you wind up on a stage in a basement saying unfunny things and waiting for someone to laugh” (43). Still, Joe learns that he is not immune to the effects of fame after the success of Forty’s elegy. With a taste of success, he thinks, “A new life is possible for me and I see how it is possible to become infected with aspirations. I might. Be discovered like Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights before he fucks it all up” (184). However, he eventually learns his lesson and thinks, “This is when I know I’ve caught aspirations. Nothing good can come from them” (190). For Joe, an aspirational life is an unhealthy life. To aspire is to embrace the deterioration of one’s mind, self, heart, and values. It is also to pretend that one can change one’s nature, or break the depressingly reliable cycle of humanity’s proclivity to repeat its mistakes.
It is difficult to argue that Hidden Bodies—with the possible exception of Love’s parents—depicts any healthy relationships. Every pairing is tinged with mercenary greed or, as in Joe’s case, deceptions that misdirect attention away from his morbid compulsions. Delilah hopes to benefit from anyone who will give her attention. Amy convinces Joe that she loves him, only to steal from him and flee to the other coast. People Tweet about Henderson as if they are close friends, when in fact they hope to use him to be noticed and admired. Henderson, for all his bravado, can’t get over his ex-wife.
Love’s feelings for Joe are sincere, but she reveals herself to have a disturbing streak that may eventually prove to rival Joe’s dark proclivities. If she can forgive him for being a killer, and he is relieved that he doesn’t have to hide it from her, then they are likely to fall into a folie-a-deux, excusing each other’s actions until both reach a nadir. The fact that Love can love Joe so unadulteratedly as to excuse his past actions and attempt to protect him from repercussions makes her an enabler and shows the underbelly of love.
When Forty meets with Joe after being left in the desert, he blackmails him into writing for him, rather than turning him in or cutting him out of his life. He knows that he can get something out of Joe, and this transactional coercion underwrites the LA culture that Joe loathes. It is also the culture that he joins when he experiences the intoxication of popularity after the eulogy.
One of the ironies of fame—and its pursuit—is that its success relies on other people. Without sycophants, admirers, and fans, there can be no such thing as celebrity. The people in LA mingle as if they are all pulling for each other, but they also coexist in order to, hopefully, set themselves apart from their social circle and become an object of worship. The people in the novel are all interested in what other people can do for them, and while not famous, Joe is no different. In the case of a character like Amy, she is an outright con artist and thief. Henderson may have been more authentic at the beginning of his career, but once he finds success, he continues along the path that led him there.
Proximity to fame is often a substitute for fame; or, in terms of wishful thinking, there is always the hope that, by being around a famous person, one is more likely to be discovered by that person’s influential peers. This is why people place such value on someone like Barry. They don’t like him for who he is but because he knows so many people and has such an extensive network of influence.
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