At the end of part one, Mae encounters Mercer and falls into a disagreement. Mercer tells Mae that she has become "boring." Upset at his comment, Mae leaves; however, contemplates his statement. While working in The Circle, Mae becomes so engulfed in her social and work life as a Circler, she loses sense of what is real and what doesn't really matter. Things such as "PartiRank" is what Mae finds important in life. She is sleeping with guys, drinking a lot, and obsessing over work, just so that her social rank in the Circle could go up. Mercer is definitely right in the sense that she has lost sense of what is actually important. Boring may not be the correct word to describe Mae, but he is definitely on the right track in the sense that Mae is obsessed over things that aren't relevant.
In this world, modern society is becoming more and more like the society of the Circle in what people think is important and what people think is "socially acceptable." It would be hypocritical for me to talk about how ridiculous it is to care about how many likes you have or the number of snap chat streaks that you hold or how many friends you have-- even though half of them aren't really your true friends. It would be hypocritical of me to critic the people who worry about those things; however, it is pretty shocking to see the similarities in the modern society that we live in and the society that is in this dystopian story.
Mercer told Mae that she became boring. It can be argued that the new generation in the world that we live in have become boring as well. Maybe it is the small things like using your phone during dinner, or not paying attention in class because you are busy on twitter. Maybe it is that instead of sharing our feelings we tweet about them. Instead of feeling and remembering the concert we video tape it and make sure to upload it to every single social media site. Maybe it is because we care so much about what other people think of us instead of caring about our own actions. Like the way The Circle changes Mae, social media has changed our generation. It has gotten in the way of bonding with people, forming relationships, attaining knowledge, and even just experiencing life.
Good analysis - i liked your real life Snapchat and likes examples. The only thing I feel like you're lacking is an engaging hook, otherwise good job!
ReplyDeleteYour comparisson to the reading and real life is earley similar. Mae is starts to care deeply for the social aspect of her life just as we all care about the social aspect of our lives. It is true that just as Mae is becoming we as a society are becoming more boring and not just living in the moment.
ReplyDeleteThe repetition in your last paragraph adds significance and really drives the message home. I completely agree, a lot of our generation (myself included) is guilty of being too connected to technology instead of living in the moment. We have forgotten the art of making memories solely for ourselves. Instead, we try to make them for all of our followers, and we think that they care just as much as we do, which is false.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct when you say Mae is losing focus on what is important in life. Your use of real world media to compare your ideas about Mae's life is very articulate.
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