‘The Circle’s’ Jordan Plays the Game Like an Angry Superfan — And It’s Great

Every Circle player has a strategy — especially in Season 6. Sometimes that strategy involves reading the auras of profile photos, and sometimes it involves thinking like your hit-making younger brother. In the case of The Circle Season 6’s Jordan, though, his strategy should seem all too familiar to everyone who’s every gotten way too hot about The Circle. Jordan’s strategy: play The Circle like a bored, pissed off Circle fan.

Okay, Jordan’s actual strategy is a bit deeper than that. He’s insanely strategic and willing to play cutthroat, but he’s hiding his gameplay behind photos of himself when he was a few years young and a hundred pounds heavier. His reasoning: no one will suspect that smiling “Big J” is really a hardcore gamer. That was Jordan’s initial strategy, but that doesn’t take into account that Jordan is clearly a Circle superfan — and apparently being in a Circle apartment playing The Circle feels a lot like watching The Circle at home.

Some of the best parts of Season 6 so far are when Jordan shouts at the TV and calls out what he thinks are bogus moves.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the “Oh We’re Going There” game, where players asked each other questions anonymously. Unfortunately for the audience of one, Jordan, the questions on this TV program were not spicy enough.

But instead of shouting all that at a TV in his home, Jordan can actually act on his frustration. That’s a quirk of The Circle: the game unfolds on TV screens, which is also how you watch episodes of the show at home. Imagine being able to alter the course of a reality competition show while you’re watching it. That’s kinda what The Circle is… except you’re completely isolated from society and have hours and hours of downtime because the only thing you can do is watch The Circle.

But that downtime gives Jordan a lot of time to plot out his ideal reality TV scenario, and that revolves entirely around blocking Myles (#BlazerBoy). So much of Jordan’s frustration is centered around Myles! It becomes an almost comical fixation, as he keeps trying to spread gossip about Myles only to be met with nothing but Myles stans.

All of Jordan’s frustration comes to a head when he gets the power of a Secret Influencer. His Ride or Die QT was rated #1 by the cast, making her the public-facing Influencer. And as her Ride or Die, Jordan gets to sneak along for the ride and secretly influence the decision. Well, that’s what Jordan thought was going to happen. It turns out that while Jordan’s playing the game like an unstoppable force, QT has been planted as an immovable object since Episode 1.

QT ultimately bounces from the influencer chat and makes the decision all by herself. She blocks Autumn, and Jordan only has one response to that:

Okay, two responses to that.

Whether or not this strategy will get Jordan to the #FinalFive or not remains to be seen. Whatever his fate, though, Jordan has made his mark by playing the Circle the way we all watch The Circle from our own couches. You can’t hate on Jordan’s gameplay because it’s our gameplay.