Aahana Swrup
In Season 4 of ‘Industry,’ the HBO financial drama series sets the stage for a gripping narrative that digs into the more clandestine nooks and crannies of the finance world. The season premiere finds Harper Stern running her short-only fund, which is currently betting on the volatile horse that is Siren. The subscription service, which is known for sex work and other explicit content, is currently navigating what could be a potential disaster, thanks to potential government policies. For the same reason, Whitney Halberstram, CFO of Tender, Siren’s primary payment processing company, is wary of continuing their partnership. Nonetheless, his close friend and the company CEO, Jay Jonah Atterbury, seems to be committed to maintaining the story, defined by gambling and porn services, that got them on the board in the first place. In the intersection between the Tender and Siren, ‘Industry’ tackles some socially and politically relevant themes that further enhance its on-the-pulse connection to contemporary reality.
Siren is a Fictional Service Which Explores Pornography and Digital Privacy
The subscription service ‘Siren’ is a fictional element introduced in ‘Industry’ season 4 as a storytelling device. In real life, no identically titled service exists, rendering the on-screen business a work of fiction. Yet, despite its fictionality, the online paid subscription service, which specializes in explicit content, parallels significant off-screen cultural markers. Most notably, the service seems to be a fictionalized counterpart of the well-known internet subscription service, OnlyFans. The latter is a subscription and pay-per-view platform for video content shared by users with their subscribers. Although it houses content creators of diverse professional pursuits, it is largely known for its sexually explicit content. In the show, Siren occupies a similar online and offline space.
Notably, ‘Industry’ utilizes its version of the sexually explicit subscription service to examine the reality of privacy breaches and leaks that are attached to sex work on the internet. In recent years of the 2020s, such invasion of privacy, particularly through OnlyFans leaks, has become a prominent concern. The show delves into the same through the character of Sweetpea Golightly, a former Pierpoint employee, who used to share anonymous explicit content online as a side hustle. However, years into her career, when cybersecurity leaks result in the destruction of that anonymity, it has a significant and unpleasant impact on her. Alternatively, Siren’s introduction into the plot also allows the series to touch upon a prominent political development in the online space that has unfolded in the mid-2020s. At the beginning of the season, Siren faces an ambiguous future due to the Labor Party’s efforts to push an Online Safety Act, which helms the introduction of age verification in online spaces.
Naturally, this offers an on-screen parallel to the UK’s real Online Safety Act, which became a topic of conversation for many reasons. One of the reasons includes concerns about the invasion of digital privacy. In a conversation with Deadline, co-creator Mickey Down spoke about the same and shared, “Weirdly, the conversation around age verification and the puritanism of porn now that’s going on felt very relevant, and actually it only really blew up when we were in the post process (for season 4). Obviously, the Online Safety Act and age verification in the UK was kind of becoming a question at the end of the Conservative government, but it only really became this sort of big cultural touch point when it came into effect this year, and suddenly people were talking about it, and it was sort of re-energizing that conversation. I’m happy the show is coming at the same time as that happening.”
Tender is a Fictional Payment Processor Company
Much like Siren and many of the other central storytelling devices in ‘Industry,’ Tender is also a fictitious element. The payment processor company does not share any direct roots in reality. Instead, it was created solely in service of the plotlines that the show’s season 4 introduces and explores. Initially, the company enters the story through its connection to Siren. The subscription content service and a handful of scandalous businesses, mainly rooted in porn or gambling, are initially the target clients for Tender. Nonetheless, the company’s CFO, Whitney Halberstram, mediates a coup to overthrow his best friend, Jay Jonah Atterbury, to take control of the venture and steer it according to his vision.
Consequently, the narrative pulls off a seamless bait-and-switch where a plotline seemingly about Siren and the age verification bill turns into a deeper dive into the politics of finance and its conspiratorial side. In doing so, the narrative gets to touch upon a more politically driven storyline for its fourth season, which allows for further realistic storytelling. In discussing the same with Mashable Co-creator Konrad Kay said, “It all feels like part of a capitalist puzzle. Because these things, if you drill into them enough, there is overlap between all of them.”
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