I enjoyed how every demographic portrayed in the novel is played up to the extreme. Like the burbclaves and bimbo boxes in suburbia, the orderly and tech-savvy Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, the rednecks from New South Africa, and the south Asian boat people on the Raft. The larger than life personas like the Texas billionaire Bob Rife and even Hiro himself being a hack with a virtual persona that is larger than it is in reality. The ethnic groups tend to stick together, such as the Tajeek taxi drivers, due to ethnic mistrust. This, I feel, makes the characters of Hiro and Y.T. stand out from the masses; Hiro because he is bi-racial, and Y.T. because she is willing to associate with people like Hiro or Raven who are outside her ethnic origin, but rather by quality of technology.
The kids who buy cheap generic avatars at Walmart are looked down upon by people who can afford custom-built and intricately-detailed avatars. This reminds me alot of PC gaming, not so much anymore, but in the mid to late 90's and early 2000's. It was not as drastic as this sounds, but it was due to competitive play where performance gave you an extreme advantage especially when coupled with DSL or Cable vs dial-up (56k) or even 14.4.
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