Whatshisface

Content Warning: This source text depicts bullying and insensitive remarks about mental health.

The GX-4000 symbolizes connection. The GX-4000 is a smartphone—one that is more expensive and supposedly superior to iPhones and Androids—and by definition it connect people to each other and to the external world.

The irony is that Cooper’s smartphone doesn’t connect him to people in 2018. He’s not texting his fellow students or going on social media platforms. When he lies to his sister and tells her he’s talking to friends, his sister quips, “The bill just came in. You made, like, three calls the whole month” (102). Moreover, Cooper only receives this phone because his parents feel terrible for disconnecting him from his previous community: they use it to bribe him into moving to Stratford.

In fact, the phone can symbolize connection only because it ties him to Roddy. Through the GX-4000, Cooper meets a life-changing friend. Together, they alter the understanding of literary history and find belonging. Contemporary discourse often focuses on how smartphones create toxic interactions and harmful behaviors, but Cooper’s smartphone produces positive interactions and develops his capacity for positive, healthy, mutual friendships.

Before Roddy and the GX-4000 arrived in his life, Cooper felt invisible.