When you’re getting to know someone, there is always a chance that they might not be who they purport to be, but online life has probably heightened that paranoia. Part of that has to do with the fact that social media has broken our brains and warped how we relate to one another. The question that haunted the show’s contestants were variations of: “Will people accept the real me?” But what does it mean to be “real” online when every platform offers you an opportunity to curate your image (Instagram) or your thoughts (Twitter)? The show queries this sentiment and reveals that even the quest for authenticity, to present a “real” self, can feel like a performance. Season one led with an earnest theme of searching for authenticity. The show indulges in and rewards the artifice of social media. I didn’t go into The Circle expecting much - it’s safe to say my personal bar was in hell - but after a handful of episodes I was hooked. LOVIA GYARKYE: You did convert me! To be honest, you really sold the show, and if it weren’t antithetical to your literal job, I would say you should be their ambassador. What do you think is so appealing about this very dumb yet very addictive show? And do you think it says anything about our online lives at all? Lovia, I feel like I converted you into The Circle fandom very easily. There’s $100,000 on the line, which inspires some contestants to catfish, or pose as someone of an ostensibly more preferable sex, size or generation in the hopes of racking up likability points. Delusion has long been a mainstay of reality TV, and we’ve got two varieties at work here: the competitors’ often wrong perceptions of how they come across to other people in their social-media self-presentations, and the personae they project onto their fellow players based on the tiniest and flimsiest of data. Francis Lawrence to Direct Netflix's 'BioShock,' Michael Green to AdaptĪdapted from a British game show, The Circle is exhilaratingly stupid: a popularity contest waged online through selfies, two-sentence bios, group chats and private DMs by competitors isolated in their own apartment units.