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Channel 4’s The Circle: pandering to the selfie generation or the coming of the apocalypse?

This new gameshow features fame-hungry nitwits sitting alone in their pants spewing small talk online. But who are the real losers, the contestants or the viewers?

“Anyone can be anyone,” crows The Circle (Sunday to Friday, 10pm, Channel 4), a show in which fame-hungry nitwits sit alone in their pants spewing emoji-smothered small talk on a specially constructed social media platform. Depending on who you believe, this glossy reality confection either offers social comment on 21st-century living or, in pandering to the selfie generation, is a symptom of the coming apocalypse. Of its rivals, it has most in common with Big Brother – or it would if that show hadn’t become overrun with sociopaths and been euthanised. There are similarities to Love Island, too, though it can be hard to graft with your future soulmate when you’re separated by a fashionably exposed brick wall.

To the game, then, which sees eight people setting up home in separate flats in a tower block with lightning broadband and Playmobil-style furniture. There they will stay without seeing another human until they are “blocked” and thus ejected from the show. Viewers get to watch their every move as, having created their online profile, they engage in voice-activated group chats with fellow contestants and rate each other for popularity. The last person standing – ie the contestant with the most generous star rating – stands to win £50,000.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Qk6AQB
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