Social media is often perceived as a democratizing force, allowing creative and ambitious individuals (including members of marginalized communities) the opportunity to prove their merits and to raise issues seldom discussed in more traditional media. However, Julie Chan is Dead repeatedly shows that social media reproduces and amplifies many of the same systemic injustices found in the offline world. Characters who have access to various kinds of privilege routinely achieve more conventional success than their counterparts without putting in more effort. Through depictions of privilege that span class, race, and conventional notions of attractiveness, the novel critiques a system in which privilege grants unequal rewards and drives some characters to attempt to counteract privilege through sinister means.

Julie and Chloe are born into the same socio-economic circumstances and, as identical twins who share the same genetics, they have an equal starting point in life. However, their lives diverge sharply after the death of their parents: Chloe is adopted by a wealthy, white couple, whereas Julie must live with their aunt, who struggles financially and is also cruel towards Julie. The twins’ diverging lives are reminiscent of twin studies like the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, in which researchers tracked the lives of twins raised in different households to isolate the effects of genetics from those of circumstance in determining life outcomes. Chloe is catapulted into significant privilege via her adoptive family: she can build a successful career as an influencer because she has the funds, free time, and confidence to do so. Once Julie assumes Chloe’s life, she sees how starkly their differing levels of privilege have led to unequal outcomes for the two of them. In the world of social media influencing, where physical beauty functions as a form of currency, it is significant that Chloe and Julie are physically identical: Their identical appearance not only allows for Julie’s deception to function but also serves as another experimental control, isolating the effects of economic privilege from those of what is often called “pretty privilege.”

As a wealthy and beautiful young woman, Chloe is able to achieve significant success; however, as a Chinese American woman, she continues to face limitations to her privilege. Julie (masquerading as Chloe) and Isla are the only two members of the Belladonnas who are not white, and they face different challenges than the other influencers. Isla, in particular, is not afraid to say that she experiences her career very differently from the white women: As she points out, “if a Black or Hispanic, or hell, even Asian […] person said the same things you do, they’d be labelled as ungrateful” (201). Julie/Chloe and Isla have some attributes they share with the Belladonnas (youth, beauty, charisma), but as women of color, they do not operate on an equal footing. The tense and angry reaction that ensues when Isla points out these obvious truths only reinforces how privilege creates misunderstanding and conflict between have and have-nots in the world of the novel.