Identity

Mae, you’ve saved not just your father’s life but my life, too, I swear to god you have, my sweet Maebelline.

Here, in Book I, Part 4, Mae’s mother reacts after Mae tells her that she put both her mother and father on the Circle’s health insurance plan. This is big news since Mae’s parents have been financially struggling while dealing with their health insurance’s excessive bureaucratic red tape to get Mae’s father, who has multiple sclerosis, proper care. Mae’s parents tell her they feel shame having to rely on her, and how wrong it is that it has to be this way. They also tell Mae she’s become a “real adult.” Earlier in the novel, Mae struggles with feelings of powerlessness and shame. After spending thousands on college, she can’t help her parents with their troubles. Now, Mae can change their lives. Mae’s parents see this moment as a step in Mae becoming an adult, underlining how economic power is viewed as a step in creating an identity in American culture.

Mae was too off-balance to see herself clearly.

In this quote in Book 1, Part 4, Mae has been called into Dan’s office to discuss her low attendance in the company’s social feeds and on-campus events. Two other representatives from the HR department, Josiah and Denise, have come to facilitate the meeting with her, which ends up feeling much like an “intervention” and an attack on Mae. Mae, who has only been at the Circle for three weeks, is already overwhelmed with her regular work, and doesn’t understand why being socially involved in the company is so critical to her job. After a battery of tiring questions, Denise concludes that Mae might have low self-worth. Mae is so confused that she can’t give Denise a straight answer. This scene paints a picture of how disorienting an environment the Circle is and foreign to the world outside. It also demonstrates Mae’s youth, and how she has yet to establish a clear picture of her values, beliefs, and other aspects of her identity, which would guard her in the face of questioning like this.

’Mae.’ 

It was her voice, she knew, but then somehow it sounded less like her and more like some older, wiser version of herself.

Mae is asked to answer CircleSurveys, questions that come in sporadically from Circle clients to gauge Circlers’ tastes, preferences, and buying habits. She has been told this is an honor, since people working at the Circle are viewed as influencers, and hold a lot of sway over the public. The survey work will add to Mae’s workload, and for a moment, Mae is overwhelmed thinking about the constant interruptions she’ll have to deal with answering the surveys as they come in. The questions come in through a headset she wears all day, and always begin with a recording of her name. Here, In Book 1, Part 5, as Mae hears her name being spoken for the first time, she has a moment of psychological recognition. Her newly forming identity as a Circle employee and tastemaker of the world is being essentially played back to her, and she feels encouraged by the maturity of this new Mae.

Merging of Government and Technology

TruYou changed the Internet, in toto, within a year. Though some sites were resistant at first, and free-internet advocates shouted about the right to be anonymous online, the TruYou was a tidal wave and crushed all meaningful opposition.

Here, in Book I, Part 1, the Circle company’s backstory is introduced. The founder, Ty Gospodinov, created TruYou, a system where online users’ accounts, passwords, and identities were merged into one, traceable account. The system caught fire and dominated the tech world, swallowing up Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other companies. The pushback described in this quote, where internet advocates raise issues over online privacy, happens often, as technology companies often harbor a utopian vision of making everything streamlined, efficient, and searchable online. TruYou’s monopoly on the internet speaks to its usefulness and allure, but also to the power tech companies have when they create something that ends up providing an essential public service. It also foreshadows the events later in the novel, when Mae goes transparent and no longer has any privacy.

Williamson. You didn’t hear? She got busted for all kinds of weird stuff. She’s under investigation for a half-dozen things, all kinds of ethical violations. They found everything on her computer, a hundred weird searches, downloads—some very creepy stuff.

In Book I, Part 5, Stenton gives a company talk on transparency, where he introduces the idea of making members of Congress wear SeeChange cameras to make them more publicly accountable. Earlier in the novel, the company gathered to watch a live press conference on Senator Williamson, who is leading an AntiTrust force against the Circle, calling it a monopoly. Now, in his talk, Stenton announces casually that Williamson has been found to have incriminating material on her computer and has been publicly shamed. Mae, who is young and not politically involved, forgot who Williamson is, and so with these words, Annie reminds her. The book is making a connection between politics and technology here since the suggestion is that the Circle had Williamson’s computer hacked to get the incriminating data. This underlines the power that tech companies have over political opponents, and the dangers these companies pose to democracy.

So why not require every voting-age citizen to have a Circle account?

In Book II, Part 2, Mae poses a question during Bailey’s company-wide meeting on automatically registering people to vote through their Circle accounts to encourage voter participation. Here, she suggests that voters be required to have Circle accounts, reasoning that the public is mandated to do all sorts of things already, like get licenses to drive and collect their garbage, so why not this. Mae reasons that making voters have a Circle account will encourage voting, and even suggests that the public’s accounts be frozen until they cast their vote. Riding on Bailey’s utopian vision, and the Circle’s motto that everything should be known, Mae’s comment is just what Bailey and Stenton want to hear. Had they spoken these words, the idea could be attacked, but coming from Mae, the idea seems aspirational, however naïve. The moment shows how easy it is to merge technology’s utopian vision with politics, and how their merging becomes problematic, especially concerning human rights.

Meaningful Relationships

Annie . . . stayed with Mae, sleeping next to her . . . [and] had fed Mae through a straw. It was a fierce level of commitment and competence that Mae had never seen . . . and Mae was thereafter loyal in a way she’d never known she could be.

In Book I, Part 1, Mae reflects on how Annie helped her in college after Mae broke her jaw. Annie kept a vigil by Mae’s bedside, fed her, and brought her to the hospital for days. This show of commitment has made Mae forever loyal to Annie and shows how solid and meaningful a foundation their friendship is based upon. The quote also sets up Annie’s big-hearted character, which is demonstrated several times in the novel as she goes out of her way to help those around her, and everyone remarks how they love Annie. The fact that Mae’s and Annie’s relationship collapses by the end of the novel is a testament to the destructive forces of technology and social media. When Mae goes transparent, Annie no longer feels comfortable having a conversation with her. Their interactions become more superficial and inauthentic, and the first cracks in the foundations of the relationship begin to form.

‘Mae, do you realize how incredibly boring you’ve become?’

Here, in Book II, Part 6, Mercer, Mae’s ex-boyfriend, calls Mae out for becoming a less interesting person while working at the Circle. He says her days are now spent sending smiles” and “frowns” through her computer, sitting at her desk for twelve hours a day, and thinking her opinion matters more than it does. Mercer says her job has inflated her sense of self-importance, yet deadened her ability to read simple social cues, like knowing when to stop looking at her phone at the table while they were having dinner. Mercer challenges her by saying she likely never goes outside or engages in hobbies and that it would mean a lot more for her to travel to a place like Nepal than just post pictures of it. Mercer, an important voice in Mae’s life, makes her question her motives and direction. This relationship becomes destroyed later in the novel when Mae drives him to suicide, becoming the most dramatic event to underscore the negative impact technology has on relationships.

Mae had not reached her parents in a few months now . . .

One of the most tragic circumstances in the novel is Mae’s estrangement from her family. Here, toward the end of Book III, Mae ponders how she hasn’t spoken to her parents in months. Mae’s relationship with her parents changes throughout the novel. At first, she’s the concerned daughter, worrying about her father after his multiple sclerosis diagnosis and her powerlessness to help. At the same time, she’s bitter about her parents’ lower socioeconomic class. When Mae goes transparent, wearing a SeeChange camera all the time, her parents laud her for her job and for getting them superb healthcare. Yet when they realize Mae’s career has taken away their privacy, they regret their involvement and create distance between themselves and Mae. Ironically, Mae, in this last section of the book, feels confident that technology will reunite them, a sign of the Circle’s cult-like hold on her mind after it has driven them apart.

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