Who Is Savannah From Netflix's The Circle Season 2?

The first four episodes of The Circle season 2 dropped earlier this week on Netflix — and wow, this reality competition is really pumping up the drama right now. The binge-worthy show features eight players in separate rooms of the same house, competing for a $100,000 prize. They're only allowed to talk through texts and social media, without seeing or touching each other, which allows plenty of opportunity for catfishing. Their goal: to become the most popular.

This season's players are really drawing in the fans – if Twitter is to be believed. "This time, it's more strategic than ever," said host Michelle Buteau in the second-season trailer. Among the strategists (and newly-minted reality TV stars) this season is Savannah Palacio, a now-25-year-old Los Angeles-based, part-Latina, part-Asian woman (per Decider) who has already made waves with her early second-influencer status followed by a dramatic downfall — you'll just have to watch if you don't know what happened yet. But who is Palacio, and what made her such a good choice for this season of The Circle, anyway?

Savannah Palacio's intro video on The Circle notes that her profession is not really a reflection of her. "My job is on Capitol Hill, where I do data research," she said in it. "My job is a little lackluster, but my personality is quite opposite. I'm fun, I'm social, I love glitz and glam." However, she also noted that she had a "nerdier side" and she intended to show it during the course of the series — "the girl who is at home with her glasses on, probably gaming in front of her computer," she said. 

In fact, her LinkedIn page shows that she's a public relations intern at House Majority PAC, and she graduated from California State University in 2018 with a major in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Political Science. Her "nerdier" side shows up in the fact that she was on the Dean's List, was a member of a national honor society, served as Upper Division Senator for Associated Students, and was a membership vice president for an unnamed non-profit organization on campus. She was a volunteer for Autism Speaks as well.

You may not know Savannah Palacio's name immediately, but there are plenty of people on social media who do. On her Instagram account, she poses with makeup, clothing, and accessories, giving shoutouts to lifestyle and wellness companies that have provided her with her nails and other beauty products and services. She also has had influencer partnerships with companies like Yves Saint Laurent Beauty, Elf Cosmetics, Dermatologica, Sweet Sweat, Philosophy, ASOS, and Rihanna's Fenty Beauty House, among many others. She currently has around 245,000 followers on Instagram, more than 614,000 followers on TikTok, and over 18,000 followers on YouTube.

She's even posted a video detailing how she increased her follower count, in order to help others do the same. She credits the fact that she competed in pageants from age 7 onward with getting her the first 10,000 or so followers organically. She was a broke college student in 2018 when a friend asked her why she didn't take her Instagram seriously — so they went out and took pictures, and she did that for months with cute outfits from her closet. That was until Forever 21 contacted her and asked her to wear some of their clothes on her Instagram and tag them. 

"So from that point on, it was just a snowball effect with all these brands and for the rest of 2018 that is pretty much what all of my brand deals look like," Palacio said. She added that her influencer business is assisted by a consistent daily schedule, engaging through commenting and having conversations with her followers, and checking analytics to know when fans will be on. 

But she isn't actually this season's biggest influencer in the cast — both Chloe Veitch, at 1.4 million, and Bryant Wood, at 491,000, have higher follower numbers on Instagram. Still, her skill has been documented, and all this has made her a perfect contender for a show like The Circle, where social media prowess certainly counts.

Although Palacio told Parade that she wasn't a big reality TV watcher, The Circle was an exception. "I was a big fan of the show in the first season," she told Decider."I didn't watch it right when it premiered, but there was so much buzz around this show and I was like, I need to see it to believe it. And I loved it. I loved the strategy behind the game. I loved the idea behind it. I feel like it's so timely, especially because we were all in COVID and I thought that I would be good at it."  

She pointed out that she's never been the argumentative type and works well with people, but she has "a little fire inside." "I can stand up for myself," she said. And although she doesn't like doing things she's not good at, she doesn't feel The Circle qualifies despite any results that might indicate otherwise. "It was an amazing experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat," she continued.

For fans who are continuing this season's The Circle journey on Netflix, new batches of four episodes drop on Wednesday, April 21 and Wednesday, April 28, and the season finale will be released on May 5.