In Matt Serafini’s razor-edged horror thriller Feeders, the pursuit of internet stardom becomes a blood-soaked descent into madness. Part contemporary parable, part social media satire, and wholly relentless in its pacing, Feeders reads like a TikTok-fueled nightmare shot through with the stylistic audacity of Bret Easton Ellis and the narrative dread of Paul Tremblay. At once deeply unsettling and absurdly entertaining, it forces us to ask: how far are we willing to go to be seen?
Premise That Cuts Too Close to Home
The story centers around Kylie Bennington, a teenage girl desperate for social media relevance, who stumbles upon MonoLife—an off-grid app with a sinister user agreement that rewards antisocial behavior with clout. What begins as a curiosity spirals into a pitch-dark journey through voyeurism, violence, exploitation, and internet addiction. The deeper Kylie falls into MonoLife’s twisted ecosystem, the more it rewards her—but always at a soul-eroding cost.
Serafini brilliantly weaponizes our cultural obsession with virality, and this premise proves both eerily believable and explosively terrifying. From its first kill to its final twist, Feeders by Matt Serafini leans hard into the psychological horror of watching a character sell off slivers of her morality to climb the algorithmic ladder.
Characters as Currency: Kylie Bennington’s Descent
Kylie is not your average horror heroine—and that’s what makes her unforgettable. Unlike typical final girls, she isn’t running from monsters; she’s chasing them with a camera. She isn’t corrupted by MonoLife—she unlocks her truest self within it.
Key character insights:
- Moral Ambiguity: Kylie is a walking contradiction—vain yet vulnerable, manipulative yet strangely sympathetic. You won’t like her, but you’ll root for her.
- Influencer Paradox: She becomes exactly what she claims to despise—shallow, fame-hungry, and exploitative. And Serafini lets her own it without apology.
- Tragic Arc: Kylie’s journey is a Shakespearean downfall dressed in hashtags. Her transformation is the novel’s heartbeat, and it’s as horrifying as any slasher kill.
Supporting characters like Erin (her influencer bestie turned rival), Cameron (the boytoy with surprising depth), and Simon (her morally wobbly MonoLife partner) all serve to mirror Kylie’s ethical decay. Each one is a dark reflection of digital personas gone wrong.
A Plot That Doesn’t Blink
Matt Serafini knows how to pace horror. Feeders doesn’t build—it escalates. From the moment Kylie watches a viral murder video of a missing classmate, the narrative snowballs into a surreal hybrid of teen drama and techno-thriller.
Highlights of narrative structure:
- Act I: App Installation as Infection – Kylie downloads MonoLife and is instantly changed. Her first viral hit—capturing a grieving neighbor over a dying dog—is as disturbing as it is effective in setting the tone.
- Act II: Content Creation as Cannibalism – As Kylie posts more controversial videos, including stalking, pranks, and a harrowing exposé on her cheating ex, her fame grows. But so does the danger.
- Act III: Collaboration with a Killer – She teams up with Simon for a truly heinous stunt that ends in a suicide—blurring the line between witness and perpetrator.
- Act IV: Revelation and Collapse – Kylie’s feed becomes a graveyard of morality, culminating in a reveal that ties her rise in followers to actual death tolls.
Serafini employs jump cuts, time skips, and unreliable narration with cinematic flair. The result is a reading experience that feels less like a novel and more like doom-scrolling through someone’s digital unraveling.
A Razor-Sharp Satire of Modern Influence Culture
Underneath the body horror and gore, Feeders by Matt Serafini is a savage cultural critique. Serafini peels back the skin of performative sadness, influencer narcissism, and algorithmic validation to reveal the rotten bone beneath.
What Serafini skewers brilliantly:
- “Clout Over Conscience” Mindset: Characters routinely prioritize viral success over human decency. The app literally punishes them for logging out, rewarding cruelty with popularity.
- The Gamification of Morality: MonoLife is chillingly plausible, its user agreement echoing the real-world erosion of privacy and ethics in pursuit of digital fame.
- Social Media as Survival: Kylie doesn’t just want to be liked—she needs it. The app becomes her drug, her mirror, her God.
By the time the novel’s title clicks—Feeders aren’t just monsters; they’re us—Matt Serafini has forced readers to confront their own complicity in digital voyeurism.
Writing Style: Raw, Satirical, and Deeply Immersive
Matt Serafini’s prose is quick-cut and cinematic. The pacing mimics social media’s dopamine rush: short chapters, stylized formatting, emoji-strewn text threads, and fast dialogue. Yet, despite its pop-lit veneer, there’s surprising depth.
Stylistic strengths:
- Voice Authenticity: Kylie’s internal monologue feels unnervingly real, a seamless blend of Gen Z cadence and psychological deterioration.
- Tone Fluidity: Serafini deftly toggles between satire, suspense, horror, and tragedy without tonal whiplash.
- Dialogue-Driven Momentum: The character dynamics are built through fast, quippy, often chilling conversations.
Fans of Grady Hendrix or Zoje Stage will feel at home here, though Serafini’s signature edge—misanthropic humor laced with existential dread—is unmistakable.
Flaws in the Feed
Despite its strong premise and execution, Feeders isn’t without its rough patches.
Room for critique:
- Repetitive Structure: Some mid-book sequences blur together (e.g., prank setups, repeated MonoLife interactions). The second act could have been tighter.
- Underdeveloped Subplots: Erin’s OnlyFans side arc and Duc’s psychological decline deserved more space. These threads feel hastily tied.
- Moral Equilibrium: The narrative walks a fine line between satire and endorsement. Some readers might struggle with the ambiguity of what the novel is actually condemning.
Yet these flaws don’t diminish the book’s impact. If anything, they reflect the novel’s chaotic subject matter—media that’s messy, manipulative, and dangerously addictive.
Comparable Reads and Thematic Kin
If Feeders by Matt Serafini sunk its hooks into you, consider these spiritual successors:
- Follow Me by Kathleen Barber – for its influencer paranoia and social-media-fueled dread.
- Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson – for the metaphorical lens on self-destruction.
- The Bright Lands by John Fram – a queer horror take on toxic masculinity in modern settings.
- The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling – for isolation and psychological degradation in strange digital ecosystems.
Also worth noting is Serafini’s earlier work, Feral, a werewolf-centric splatterpunk novel that hinted at his fascination with society’s beastly undercurrent. With Feeders, he sheds genre convention and dives headlong into techno-horror—and it’s his strongest work yet.
Final Verdict: A Morbid Must-Read for the Digital Age
Feeders by Matt Serafini is an unflinching, savage, and scarily timely horror novel that reminds us just how terrifying the pursuit of attention can be. Equal parts Black Mirror, American Psycho, and Heathers, this book doesn’t just reflect our culture—it indicts it.
It’s not just a story about horror. It’s a story about what happens when horror becomes content.
