You can be honest, forthcoming, you can even invest in someone emotionally through online interaction, but how authentic can communication be that is filtered, packaged, produced, and then distributed by a giant corporation? It’s not always malevolent, but it is often manufactured.
Watching the players interact online as they predict one another’s behavior, or even try to connect on a real level, while navigating the game they are playing in competition with one another makes you realize we are all playing this game.
This is where The Circle is at its strongest, because it chips away at the idea of an authentic identity. Philosophers have long argued about whether authenticity is possible, and not just online: Ostensibly, we are always “putting on a face” or code-switching to navigate the world and communicate effectively. Authenticity is “rewarded” with follows and likes and engagement, even when people aren’t really being authentic. Social media is often doused with this idea of authenticity. This is not an exhaustive list of everyone on the show, but you get the idea. Then there are the catfishes: a guy playing his girlfriend (Seaburn/Rebecca) a guy playing another guy he thinks is hotter (Alex/Adam) a black butch lesbian playing a black cis straight woman (Karyn/Mercedeze) a fat woman playing a straight-size one (Sean). The young millennial cast includes a perfectly plucked range of types: There’s a Jesus-loving, gay, makeup-obsessed young man from Dallas (Chris) a self-proclaimed Italian “bro” who works out all the time and loves his family (Joey) a no-nonsense young woman who is, first and foremost, smart, but not afraid to post sexy selfies (Sammie) and an earnest South Asian dude who has never used social media but works in VR (Shubham). The Circle tackles a very fraught social phenomena of the unpredictable and predictable ways we behave in online spaces. But through group chats, DMs, and the hijinks producers seem to put the cast through endlessly, the premise becomes much more complicated. The premise is simple enough: eight people living in an apartment complex, sequestered from one another, only able to communicate through a social media platform.
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