by Ayla Roback

Reality TV is just one of those things, people either love it or hate it. I personally enjoy a “getaway” of sorts from everyday life and immerse myself in the mostly larger than life world of reality TV shows. From The Bachelor franchise to The Great British Baking Show, 90 Day Fiance, Queer Eye, The Voice, and America’s Next Top Model, I love it all. If you are like me and enjoy a good dose of drama, sometimes competition, romance, and comedy in your reality TV get ready to dive into your new obsession-- The Circle!

The Circle is a Netflix original reality game series that is a “social media” experiment. The game begins with eight players from different backgrounds and locations around the country, thrown together into an apartment building, competing to build relationships and alliances. They are ranked by their fellow players and either be ranked top two and become “Influencers” or could be chosen by the Influencers to be “blocked” and eliminated from the game. Only to be replaced relatively quickly by a new player. Players must gain influence in the Circle to make their way to the final “inner circle” and oh yeah, the prize of $100,000. If that isn’t an incentive to make some alliances, I don’t know what is.

There are also a few little catches to this game: 

1) Players can choose to enter the game as themselves or as a persona, meaning they could use someone else’s photos on their profile to “catfish” or be someone totally opposite of their personality to try and get further in the game. 

2) Players do not meet face to face and only communicate to each other through the closed (only to other players of the game-- no connection to the outside world) social media profiles of the Circle. Meaning players have no idea if the connections, alliances, and friendships they are forming are real, or if the people they are communicating with are either!

This first season of The Circle begins with a group of seven awesome and completely unique individuals rotating out as they are “blocked” from the Circle. The players in this season range in age from 23-52. 

There is the not-so-typical “bro,” always 100% honest (sometimes to his detriment) and sweet mama’s boy bartender Joey and sassy but sweetheart Miami transplant and behavioral worker Samantha “Sammie.” 

Then, the kind-hearted beauty guru, gay and proud Christian from Dallas-- Chris Sapphire, and sweet Marvel-loving “nerd” and virtual reality designer-- UCLA grad, Shubham “Shooby.” 

The direct and “keep it 100” Karyn (aka Mercedeze) from the Bronx, and the goofy and “emotional” Seaburn (aka Rebecca).

And finally, bubbly real-life model Alana and professional basketball player Antonio round out the cast for the first episode.

Contestants build their profiles, play games, and chat amongst themselves throughout the season.  Soon building alliances, sort-of friendships, some rivalries, and even romantic “relationships?”

To quote my personal favorite player, Chris, “This is going to be juicy, I hope y’all brought a cup…” Throughout the season, there are lots of twists and turns in the game. The players get to know each other a little better (as well as you can without actually knowing someone), and some of the people “catfishing” (or pretending to be someone else) start to slip into their natural personalities as their secrets come to light. Towards the end of the game, people start to realize that maybe their alliances and friendships aren’t as real as they thought and people start to turn on each other, as humans do, to climb to the top of the ratings. 

It was interesting to see the level of depth that some people went into, with basically total strangers and the support they received when sharing their truths and the real-life things they wrestle with. I also was intrigued by the fact that many people throughout the season entered into the game as someone else because they didn’t believe that people would like and/or accept them for simply being who they are. 

We all want to be loved and accepted for who we are. That’s the thing with social media, it’s a tidbit of perfectly curated photos or videos that we choose to share, showing the best of us or who we want to be perceived as. While there were moments that were “fake,” there were moments of true connection and authentic vulnerability between the players that seemed to even translate across social media, which brings to mind a few questions:

Was any of it-- the relationships, friendships, and alliances real, or was it all a strategy to gain influence with the other players?

Applying this to real-life:

How many of our interactions through social media are authentic and meaningful? What is it about us, innately, that makes us crave the status of “Influencer” or having a presence on social media or even a position of power in our lives?

As someone who uses the Internet daily, it isn’t hard to see the polarization between people, especially in the comments section. Even on meme pages on Facebook, you can find at least a dozen “trolls” or hundreds of people with very strong feelings about said meme, opinions one way or another-- political and otherwise. While this isn’t necessarily always a negative thing- people discussing thoughts and opinions, this radically political “it’s us or them” way of thinking can lead to some pretty heated and even hateful conversations alienating us from our loved ones or people that we don’t even know!

Is being “right” really worth sacrificing our relationships with people, or losing the opportunity to show someone the love of God? Do we have an obligation to speak up against things that we disagree with?

Yes, but doing so in love and using discernment is key. When we post a comment online to shame or judge someone about their choices, their lifestyle, or actions based solely on social media and what we perceive of them or even just responding to a single comment that they posted, rather than getting to know people and their heart, aren’t we missing out on the opportunity to plant that seed of truth, speak in love, and even possibly be a witness to them? According to Ephesians 4:12-15,

Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

In an article by Mark Ballenger, entitled “What Does the Bible Say About Judging Others: Matthew 7:1-6 Explained” he lays out a few different passages from the Bible that illustrate the difference between using judgment and discernment.

*SPOILERS AHEAD* 

Overall, I was pleased with the ending and the final five: Joey, Chris, Shubham, Sammie, and Seaburn (Rebecca). When the final five went to the Inner Circle room and met for the first time, you could feel the emotions and love in the room when they met in person and made those genuine connections whole. 

It was interesting to see how everyone reacted to learning that one among them was not who she (he) said he was. When the four discovered that their fifth member of the Inner Circle, Seaburn, was not in fact Rebecca, (as they had been led to believe the entire season) they seemed to graciously welcome him into their little circle, but I think they were cautious about opening up to him afterward. They seemed to not react as warmly at the finale filming. I think that was the consequence of pretending to be someone else and toying with someone’s emotions, even if it was all just for a game.

What drew me in with this show were the people in it. The players that went into the game as themselves, were vulnerable, and made decisions with their hearts; staying true to their personalities, were the ones that came out on top. While those that went in as someone else or kind of tweaked their personalities to strategize and accomplish an agenda went down quickly. 

What is also interesting is that Joey came out in first place. While he wasn’t necessarily always voted towards the top during the rankings, he remained a likable person to all of the players throughout, even if people assumed he was “douchey” before getting to know him. It just goes to show, people, aren’t always quite what you perceive them to be on social media. Our profiles are based on a selection of perfectly filtered (or for those of us that are blessed with ‘perfectly Insta-grammable skin, unfiltered) photos videos and clips of our best moments and show us “living our best life,” when that is not always reality. 

We can’t assume to know someone based solely on their profile before getting to know them. Even when we do get to know people, we don’t know how authentic those connections really are through text and messaging, when sometimes issues of the heart can’t quite be translated across social media. On the other hand, we can’t discount those interactions simply because they are online either, because there is room for true connection.  I loved watching this show and getting to know the players. Seeing how the game unfolded and how people reacted under the pressure was thrilling and it kept me on my toes. I would love to see another season soon!

Photo credits

1. Joey Sasso promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Metro News.

2. Sammie promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Flipboard.com.

3. Chris Sapphire promotional picture (2020).Photo courtesy of Oak Cliff Advocate- Advocate Magazine.

4. Shubham “Shooby” Goel promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Seventeen Magazine.

5. Karyn “Mercedeze” promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Seventeen Magazine.

6. Seaburn Williams “Rebecca” promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Cosmopolitan.com.

7. Alana Duval promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Mirror.co.uk.

8. Antonio DePina promotional picture (2020). Photo courtesy of Mirror.co.uk.

Resources

We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.

The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.

And finally, to go deeper into the subject, we have chosen a few curated resources to explore from other authors’ and thinkers’ research or perspectives.

Read. Engage. Enjoy!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Depending on how a gem is held, light refracts differently. At B+PC we engage in Pop Culture topics to see ideas from a new angle, to bring us to a deeper understanding. And like Pastor Shane Willard notes, we want “…Jesus to get bigger, the cross to get clearer, the Resurrection to be central…” Instead of approaching a topic from “I don’t want to be wrong,“ we strive for the alternative “I want to expand my perspective.” 

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