When I saw that The Circle by Dave Eggers, was on the best seller list, I immediately set out to get the first available copy – I’ve followed Eggers’ career since I read and enjoyed his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius published in 2000.
It’s a quick read and definitely a page-turner. The Circle is a social media company with many of the trappings of a Google-like corporate headquarters – a huge campus full of amenities and bright, driven, young people ready to change the world. The Circle’s ideology requires openness, transparency, sharing, and the constant communicating of opinions (while simultaneously performing actual work) via online comments, answering surveys, and sending electronic smiles and frowns, mostly on the Circle’s internal social network, but also on each employee’s outside network of friends. Every online activity is ranked and pressure to participate is relentless – not posting photos or comments on your every activity and random thought is deemed selfish, immoral, and inexplicable.
The protagonist, Mae, is an odd duck, driven by envy, competitiveness, and to a surprising degree, lust. Her improbable rise through the ranks occurs as she desperately quashes any doubts she may have about her company’s policies by diving into her work and refusing to acknowledge the effect on herself and her family and friends. Mae’s independence and her loyalty to people she has actually met eventually give way to a feeling of obligation to her online followers who grow exponentially and monitor everything from her heart rate, online and in person interactions, her expression, and even watch as she sleeps.
What is the ultimate goal of the Circle? World domination seems likely and people like Mae and her fellow Circlers are drinking the Kool-Aid like mad. There is no hint that Mae will ever realize that what she is losing is valuable or how her actions have resulted in tragedy. It is probably fitting that Eggers has created such a stubborn and shallow character as the embodiment of the dangers of groupthink. Despite its many flaws, this is a thought-provoking book about where we are headed as a society. Do we still value privacy? Or is it, as Mae and the other Circlers believe, that “privacy is theft”?
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