REVIEW: Trivial Pursuit by Molly Soda
Deciding on vibes, becoming influencers, getting to be "authentic"
If you are even remotely interested in the intersection of girlhood, internet culture, and capitalism, Trivial Pursuit is for you—especially if you enjoy sarcastically cringy criticism.
The audience was unsurprisingly predominantly white. This doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the play, but it’s hard not to wonder if the play’s topic—three women creating a vision board of internet memes/posts and teaming up to become influencers—resonates more with white people, if the cast’s friends are mostly white, or both. I guess the audience demographic stood out to me because I’ve been attending exhibitions alone during non-busy hours, so I’m usually the only viewer I’m aware of.
I had a headache all day but powered through to see this play, so I really needed it to be good. Pageant is a small venue, so it’s not possible to sneak out unnoticed. In the first few minutes, I was desperate to leave. The three women sat on a pile of printed memes, reading them aloud before taping them to a wall behind them. I’m not perpetually online, but I do doom-scroll. I was frustrated, thinking I might endure an hour of live, monotone doom-scrolling, but Trivial Pursuit unfolded to be much more. Something obvious yet interesting was how different memes got different kinds of people laughing—or more like a “teehee.” Most of the memes elicited giggles from two or three people in the room of about fifty. This reflects how varied internet content is, catering to extremely granular comedic or otherwise specific preferences.
The three women eventually rose from the pile of memes and spaced themselves as if each stood within a rectangular frame. They started speaking in that awfully cringy influencer voice, each pitching random products like shampoo, dog food, body oil, etc. They passionately explained why their featured product was unique and better. They spoke over each other without missing a beat, restless and relentless. They emphasized how they wanted to share this “information” with their “community” while aggressively selling AT you. I thought Mackenzie Thomas was a professional actress because she was so convincing. I later discovered she is a professional TikToker. The costumes—very short skirts and shorts—were simple but effectively highlighted how femininity, no matter how subtle, is instrumentalized to commodify products. Wasn’t it once considered humiliating to be a sellout? Now, the ultimate goal of influencers is to get sponsorships and brand deals, so they can sell, sell, sell.
The actresses’ delivery was hilarious, as they perfectly captured the self-seriousness of influencers. Tension began to build between the characters played by Man and Thomas, who accused each other of being fake. This was a nice callback to an earlier part when they dreamed of becoming influencers as a way to make money while being their “authentic” selves. At one point, the trio discussed who would handle menial tasks like email. The responsibility fell to Maya Man’s character because she was “detail-oriented.” I wasn’t sure if this was commentary on the microaggressions Asian women face, such as being asked to take meeting notes or perform less glamorous tasks at work. If not, it was still a good way to show how many people are lured into chasing trivial internet fame over pursuing conventional work.
In the end, the trio doesn’t survive the tension, and they take imaginary votes from the audience to kick someone out. They each deliver speeches, trying to convince the audience in overly broad terms why someone other than themselves should be voted out. Rather than antagonizing the corporations that make these useless products and algorithms driving us to consume rather than connect, we participate in the distracting game of antagonizing and bullying relatively small players. After the voting, Thomas gets kicked out.
Internet culture offers no mercy when it comes to the pace of fame and popularity—it crowns you with an ocean of attention before quickly relegating you to “has-been” status. Perhaps the writer and director of this play, Molly Soda, had her own taste of this. I didn’t know about Soda, but I encountered her name through a screenshot exhibition organized by Maya Man, who I also didn’t know. I didn’t end up attending that exhibition, but my more online friends reacted when I mentioned Molly Soda. They said, “Wow, I haven’t heard that name in a LONG time.” Based on my superficial research, it seems she was a “Tumblr queen” in the “sad girl” scene of the internet—definitely a cultural moment from a decade ago. If this play is an expression of how she processed the shift from internet relevance to being forgotten, she did a great job without awkwardly wedging in self-pity.
As Trivial Pursuit draws to a close, it leaves a haunting realization: the internet, once a space for connection and authenticity, has become a marketplace where identity is sold and discarded with frightening ease. Fame on these platforms, like the memes they propagate, is fleeting—what once made you relevant can just as easily be what makes you forgotten. In a world where visibility is currency, it’s no wonder the play hints that the pursuit of influence is not just trivial but ultimately empty.