Transparency

With Mae now completely transparent as a social experiment, and the momentum of The Circle as a company reaching a peak, talk of "completing the circle" is abounding. And despite the faults in this idea to an outsider, no variables are slowing down the process at this point. While completing the circle, enduring total transparency, was deemed inevitable, the progress of this is expedited as the factors align. Timing is tragically on the Circle's side at this stage and the power is too strong to be subdued. With over 90 percent of Washington transparent, the others that are not are simply outliers subject to conformity without the to resist. This is the all too real truth: rampant totalitarianism and unchecked technology does indeed have an immeasurable strength with such overwhelming support. 

The ultimate goal is to make all Circlers transparent, but for now, Mae and one other are testing the idea and modeling the implementation in a way that seems to be appealing to many people despite obvious intrusion on day to day activities. Mae went from being quietly weary of everyone knowing everything about her, to being completely transparent for millions of followers and completely loving it. This jump is troubling, but not surprising. In the process of getting used to wearing a constant camera on her chest and endlessly making appeals to her viewers, she begins to eerily internalize the viewers praise for her point of view as affection. The reality is, the idea that followers and online respect and interaction is not affection of any kind, and this reality is also one that people in todays society are loosing touch with. Mae puts so much value on her image and her transparency that she has completely lost herself. The scariest part, however, is her utter indifference. 

Mae is equipped with a multitude of tools that keep record of all bodily phenomenons, but most importantly her point of view. The point of view which she gives her viewers is what has attracted such a following and allows her to meet statistical standards demanded by the Circle. "At that moment, standing before the octopus, Mae had 441,762 watchers, which was a little above her average, but still less than what she's hoped for while revealing Stenton's deep-sea discoveries. The other numbers displayed were unsurprising. She was averaging 845,029 unique visitors to her live footage in any given day, and had 2.1 million followers to her Zing feed" (314). These massive statics and numbers attest to the absolute transparency and the reality that every single Mae makes is watched, and she pays no mind to it. This complacency threatens the standards of todays society, and is a precursor to the reality of completing the circle.