The Squid Game Phenomenon
I’m sure you’ve heard —The Korean dystopian survival game series has been making huge waves globally and is set to be Netflix’s biggest hit ever.
Quick summary: 456 desperate individuals crippled in financial debt get roped (voluntarily) into a deadly competition consisting of 6 rounds of children's games for a chance to win 45.6 billion won. The catch is if you lose, you get eliminated (the participants were not informed of what this meant).
The concept and genre are not new, think The Hunger Games, Alice in Borderland, and all the Japanese films/series that the series is accused of being a copy of. When I first saw the trailer, I sincerely didn’t think much of it, having been exposed to the aforementioned blockbuster franchises and hit series. I thought, ‘it’ll just be another one of them,’ and as a K-drama, it’ll have great reception regardless. But something about this short series truly stuck its landing. Its reception isn’t just great, it's phenomenal. Squid Game is now the #1 show in at least 90 countries on Netflix.
I believe its virality isn’t just owed to the shockingly violent nature of the series and its social commentary, but also the hallmarks in the series that brought about a series of viral memes and content.
Of course, we have the iconic creepy doll featured in the first of the six games, Green Light, Red Light, which very quickly made its way onto social media. Spearheading the hashtag #SquidGame, which has 26 billion views as of writing, users were reenacting the game with themselves in it while turning it into a dance in true TikTok fashion:
As well as the Ddakji game that K-drama favourite, Gong Yoo (who can slap me anyday), cameo-ed for:
TikTok was also quick to recreate the Dalgona Candy game into a TikTok filter that has made the discover page:
And of course (shoutout to our talented creators), the slew of Squid Game challenges on YouTube:
Squid Game has even made its way to existing videogames!:
Squid Game has completely dominated social media for the past two weeks and at the very least, will continue to do so for the next few. I’m sure we can agree that there were many facets to this series that have set itself up for its virality — The brutality, the art, and the concept (I mean… recreating children’s games is pretty straightforward, and makes for fun, easily digestible content). However, I doubt they even predicted this level of success (we’re talking global). And the series would definitely not have performed as well if it was released 10 years ago when it was first written. It’s impact on social media aside, the series has most definitely earned its place in the non-English titles hall of fame, alongside Money Heist, Lupin, and has set a new bar for more to come. As ‘Parasite’ Director Bong Joon-ho most famously said, “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Unless of course, the subtitles ‘change the meaning’ of the show. Well, that’s a topic for another day.
