Pretty Boy Crossover

Introduction
In the following pages I am going to deal with Pat Cadigan´s short story Pretty Boy Crossover. The story was first published in 1986 and is included in her short-fiction collection Patterns.
By analyzing the various aspects of the text I will try to give my own interpretation of Cadigan´s essay and her views on society and human behaviour influenced by computers and new technologies.

The Story
As the introduction of Pretty Boy Crossover already gives away, Cadigan got her ideas for the story from her own observations and experiences of the mid 80´s club scene. Her main character is Pretty Boy, a sixteen year old kid, who is struggling with a decision that would influence his life. He has attracted the attention of influential people, who want to recruit him for their “programme”. Like his friend Bobby, “they� want to transform Pretty Boy from what they call a “less efficient form� (human being) to a “S-A-D”, a self-aware data. In a way
PETTY BOY CROSSOVER Term Paper for “Aesthetics Of Techno-Culture in American Literature and Film”

Thinking is getting oppressed (there is no room for critical thoughts). What counts is the screen. The crowd watches a guy dancing on the screen. That´s the real entertainment. It´s like the quote at the beginning of the story says : “First you see video. Then you wear video. Then you eat video. Then you be video.” (Cadigan 129).

His “creator” argues for it: “Of course he´s Bobby. Do you change into someone else every time you learn something new?” (Cadigan 135). Pretty Boy remains sceptical but the “older man” continues: “This is Bobby and will remain Bobby, no

Of course he changes his mind at the end but he also understands that he can´t convince Bobby, that he can´t compete with someone who is made of pure information.

One of the differences from Cadigan´s design of a future society to the present one is the exaggerated refusal of the process of growing-up. Any kind of ageing seems to be harmful, “we need to get you before you´re twenty-five, before the brain stops growing (Cadigan 137).