Felix Ever After

The use of email and Instagram is a recurring motif in this text. The characters use digital and anonymous communication for many needs, such as holding power over one another, saying things that they’re too afraid to say in the flesh, and accessing vulnerability. One of the major examples is Felix’s emails to his mother, which appear at the beginning of multiple chapters and reveal his deepest beliefs and questions. The email drafts are a way for Felix to process the loss of his mother. Felix never sends these emails, but knowing they exist in his drafts and could be sent someday gives him a sense of power and control as he works through all his questions. When Felix finally does send one of these emails to his mother, it shows how much he has grown because it is contrasted against the 476 emails that he has not sent.

Both Felix and Austin use the anonymity of social media to troll or catfish other people. Austin performs niceties to Felix’s face, complimenting his art and calling him cool, while simultaneously unleashing his violent transphobic beliefs through his anonymous grandequeen69 account; this two-faced behavior allows Austin to keep his reputation and social capital while saying deplorable things in the safety of a nameless digital space. Felix begins catfishing Declan to get revenge on him, but the digital relationship quickly turns into a safe space for the two boys to be vulnerable with one another. Felix and Declan use this anonymity to share things they have not told other people for fear of judgment, such as Declan’s father kicking him out or Felix’s hundreds of email drafts to his mother. Of course, while anonymity allows them to express vulnerability, that namelessness dooms any romantic connection in real life because the relationship is built on deceit. These examples demonstrate that anonymity can be helpful or hurtful, depending on how it is used.