The Circle blows the lid off social media madness
Even designers fit for a future queen need to move with times
‘The show is mesmerising. Shocking. And more than a little scary’
Anyone who has been tuning in to Channel 4’s hellish new reality show, The Circle, will already be reeling in horror as the 21stcentury Dantean inferno unfolds.
Billed variously as the “ultimate popularity contest” and “Big Brother for a social media age”, the nightly programme is firmly embedded in the Eighth circle; it is here that the Fraudulent and the Malicious are called to account. But with Ikea furniture and voice-activated software.
It’s disturbing, bleakly funny, dystopian… and I couldn’t recommend it enough. Why? Because I have a hunch (a hope) that this insight into manipulation and deceit will change social media forever.
If you have ever felt uneasy about the inroads that online platforms are making into modern life, or worried about your children’s virtual welfare, then The Circle will confirm every suspicion.
The show sees a load of youngish people housed in separate flats in a tower block where they can communicate only via The Circle, a private social media platform. Together but apart, they have created their own profiles and are chatting to one another online.
The aim is to garner enough “likes” from each other to stay in the game and eventually win the £50,000 jackpot. And anything goes. By which I mean anything, no matter how immoral.
In the first episode, 40-year-old advertising executive Jennifer cynically pretended to be a paediatric oncologist because she thought it would impress the others. In fact, the young people thought she was boring, blocked her and she was evicted.
Among the remaining contestants, there’s shrill, shrieky Freddie, who, by his own definition, is the sine qua non of high camp – and pretending to be straight. He thinks claiming to want marriage and babies will make him popular. As he’s only 20, nobody believes him. But Freddie has another card up his sleeve, and has successfully gained social traction from pretending his fake dog just died. Freddie hates animals.
Meanwhile, Alex has deviously changed gender, renaming himself Kate, and posts a profile photo of his winsome real-life girlfriend. He admits that it’s a bit icky, but as soon as the men in the house show “Kate” some interest, he jumps up and down on the sofa in dopamine-fuelled delight.
Genelle is a single mother with a baby, whom she has with her in the flat. She wisely withholds this piece of intel and tries to seem young and flighty in between sterilising the feeding bottles.
Each of the contestants has very carefully curated their biography to project an image that they want the world to see. It is mesmerising. Shocking. And more than a little scary. But it could prove to be ground-breaking too, in exposing how easy it is to dissemble, lie and trick other people online.
Because, as Kate-who-is-reallyalex demonstrates, human beings are hard-wired to crave affirmation and acceptance, from strangers and friends.
The Circle exposes the cheats, but, more poignantly, it also reveals the vulnerabilities of those responding to the half-truths and treachery.
Which is why, after just three episodes of a three-week run, The Circle makes a perfect case for removing anonymity on all major social networking sites.
Yes, you heard. Before millennials start smashing up their ipads (or “doing an Allsopp” as it’s now known), let’s think about it.
Imagine if people could only post on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and the like, if they had a clearly identifiable photograph and an equally verifiable email account. Rather like a national insurance number, this address would be not only legitimate but transparent and, most crucially of all, instantly traceable.
Let’s see how long the nation’s keyboard warriors last when their weapon of choice, the cloak of anonymity, is removed.
For millennia, social opprobrium and peer disapproval have very effectively policed human behaviour. Why not transfer that powerful group dynamic online? Fibbing is fine, as is exaggeration or even lying – as long as you put your name to it.
Facebook et al have proven to be notoriously slow to remove offensive content. How much quicker would trolls cease, desist and delete their posts if neighbours, colleagues and family could see them wishing rape and cancer on random celebrities?
It’s tricky to bully a classmate or, indeed, groom a child, when your face is on the left-hand corner of the screen, and the victim can forward the exchange to authorities.
Some would argue that this level of Big Brother scrutiny goes against the founding spirit of the internet, but there is no such manifesto. Nobody is in charge.
I have yet to encounter a web page or PDF document enshrining the right to send toxic messages of hatred to female MPS, or mock grieving parents.
In everyday life, we expect to deal with one another face to face; my objection to the burka and similar garments is that they unilaterally remove this fundamental right from the rest of us.
At present, online users can have multiple addresses and hide behind as many avatars as they choose. That anonymity is, as The Circle so brutally reveals, a passport to deception.
I would not suggest for a moment that all sites demand such login details upfront; many an online romance would surely founder without the addition of a flattering filter or a little economy with the actuality. But mainstream sites have, as per The Telegraph’s ongoing campaign, a Duty of Care towards those who use them.
Daylight is the best disinfectant, so let us shed light onto social media, for all our sakes. If doubts remain, the breathtakingly devious machinations of The Circle will surely convince you otherwise.
Of all the retail curses that end in commercial disaster, “being too popular” is possibly the most unexpected, at least to lay shoppers like me.
Orla Kiely’s demise has been swift and catastrophic, although I struggle to understand how an empire with a turnover of £8million can collapse, seemingly overnight. Then again, I’ve never invested in a single item of her clothing – unlike the Duchess of Cambridge – because it’s really not my style. Though it’s just the Orla Kiely fashion label that has closed, I must say I also actively dislike the graphic stem patterns that adorn her homewares, in all their repetitive ubiquity. Too orange, too samey, too Seventies. Everyone I know has a horrid Orla Kiely mug, nest of canisters or a tea towel, and quite a few have bags about which I have murmured politely. I might feel differently if said friends start making a mint flogging them on ebay, but even I can see that the brand spread itself too thinly.
Even a vintage look needs to move forward and take the customer with it while, crucially, bringing in new business. I fear it was Kiely’s failure to evolve that put the retro into retrograde.