Mae spends hours every day at work seeking the approval, advice and input of others. Yet when she finally receives a grain of actual, constructive guidance from Mercer, who calls her “boring,” she becomes incredibly angry and deeply hurt.
In many ways, this scene represents the terrible phenomenon taking over the minds of our world’s teens, who seem to seek the approval of everyone except those who actually have something useful to offer.
This is a result of the new online universe that is now as close to the physical world as it ever has been. Experiences of all kind must be recorded. Celebrities are made through video sharing. Arguments and suicides occur because of comments on a Facebook post. We have traded the freedom and confidence of anonymity for the stress and self-destruction of approval seeking.
This may seem deeply dramatic, but it’s actually quite boring. It isn’t, for the most part, fun or thrilling to be engulfed in the new social media wave, which makes us slaves to the approval of others, conformists in the purest sense of the word and unable to properly experience and appreciate the beauty and excitement of life.
Mae’s performance with regard to her job at the circle is completely based off of a subjective number provided by the customers she assists. In the novel, the reader is constantly updated on her performance, and her efforts to raise it by seeking and pestering for approval. She is ranked at the company based on participation in social media—climbing the ladder by documenting, responding and posting as fast as she can 24/7. It is important for the reader to remember that this is part of Mae’s actual job, and not just a social effort to be a part of a larger group, although it serves this purpose as well. This obsession with the approval of others has permeated our society as well. Companies now higher “social media analysts” in an effort to glean more likes from potential consumers. The data they gather then influences the company’s further work, making them completely dependent on the feedback of readers and, in many cases, stray from their original identity. Children and young adults base their personal self-esteem on the number of likes they receive on a photo or a certain number of retweets. Their tendencies and interests are overwhelmingly similar because they are always putting themselves up for evaluation. This constant criticism drains individuals and unique organizations of their specialness by forcing them to shape their product or themselves into something others will approve of. Instead of setting their own standards of excellence, they are forced to rely on those of others. Implied here is the risk averse and therefore boring nature of our online and social lives.
This leads to mass conformity in a different way as well. When Mae first arrives at the circle, she is stunned to learn about the company’s seemingly excessive social media requirements. She nears a breakdown when, at the end of a lengthy speech, another circler reminds her “we consider your online presence to be integral to your work here. It’s all connected.” (Eggers, 96) Her uneasiness is justified and most likely shared by the reader. But eventually she embraces this idea because it is accepted by her coworkers and those surrounding her. A hundred pages later, her participation rank has climbed and she is “zinging” all the time. The idea, initially forced upon her, is now central to her existence. This concept also exists on our social media platforms. You often risk some level of social backlash simply for not participating on selected social media platforms. Ideas, as exhibited by this year’s election conversations, are declared wrong or right by a general public, and if a user is on the wrong side, they can face sometimes brutal abuse. Our opinions are no longer formed through introspection and careful research, they are formed by what’s trending or what our friends share. We, like Mae, are forced to conform to the ideals and biases of others. This makes us extremely unoriginal and therefore very boring.
Finally, and perhaps most tragically, the digital world has rid us of our ability to experience the best aspects of tangible life. In The Circle, Mae visits home and discovers that her family has received a custom-made chandelier from Mercer. She immediately whips out her phone and shares photos of it on “two dozen design and home design feeds.” (Eggers, 256) She spends the rest of the evening checking on the status of her posts and the feedback she receives from viewers, angering her parents and Mercer. She is so engulfed in the chandelier’s value in the virtual world that she forgets to admire its physical presence. We, as modern internet users, are guilty of this crime. We no longer watch parades and dance at concerts and clap for performances—we record and share them. Our live experiences happen through a screen. It is difficult to believe that this does not affect our absorption and enjoyment of the actual experience. And yet we continue to document—ignoring the intrinsic value of just being there. We become boring because we record more, but observe less.
Social media and the presence of the internet has tangible and effective benefits that have enhanced some aspects of the human condition. But these benefits are in many ways outweighed by the negative effects these platforms have on an individual’s self-image and use of time. The constant desire to please others, conform to their ideas of quality and the inability to truly enjoy and experience render us boring, unoriginal crowd followers. Mercer, in death, deserves the eulogy of a tragic hero—his ideology and perspective were more noble than that of any other character.