quid Game has captivated audiences around the world with its dramatic tension, stunning visuals, and tasteful horror, becoming Netflix’s number one most popular title of all time. The show topped the most-watched list in 94 nations and was sampled by 142 million users worldwide in 28 days.
Reportedly, the South Korean drama is such a global sensation that it’s even become a hot commodity inside the world’s most reclusive nation: North Korea. There, copies of Squid Game are smuggled on USB drives and SD cards, and viewers of the show risk a death sentence.
Such ubiquitous popularity begs the question: why is Squid Game so popular? The answer lies in its critiques of neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism, which are universally impacting our world right now.
In Squid Game, each character is deep in debt and unable to make ends meet. Facing bankruptcy, extreme poverty, and violent creditors, they are given a chance to compete in children’s games in order to win 45.6 billion Korean won ($38.6 million USD). But if contestants lose, they die.
The show’s second twist comes when contestants are allowed to return to their lives after the first death game, only to realize that living in such immense poverty is worse than the games. So, they return to the tournament.
A SOUTH KOREAN TRAGEDY
The storyline is an immediate commentary on South Korea’s society. As of 2021, personal debt in South Korea leads Asia at over 100% of the country’s GDP. Skyrocketing property prices, an abysmal job market, and a widening income divide leave many Koreans relating to the show’s struggling characters.
Even the show’s protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, is a reference to a Korean economic tragedy. Gi-hun is a poor, laid off autoworker who went on strike 10 years ago and suffers with PTSD after watching his friend die on the picket line. The strike is a thinly-veiled reference to Ssangyong Motors, who filed for bankruptcy in 2009. In the process, Ssangyong laid off 2,600 workers who went on strike and were violently suppressed by police. The workers were promptly blacklisted from the auto industry and fined for economic damages that confined them to a life of extreme debt. Over 28 of those workers have since died of suicide and PTSD-related causes.
Squid Game is a heightened depiction of the violence, immorality, and coercion of late-stage capitalism. While fictional, it expresses the real woes plaguing one of Asia’s most successful economies.
However, these woes are far from unique to South Korea.
A GLOBAL MONETARY CRISIS
In 2021, global public and private debt have reached an all-time high, and the IMF and World Bank have scrambled to provide support to dozens of nations struggling not to default on their loans.
Inflation is making everyday goods unaffordable to the average person. In the United States, inflation is rising at its fastest rate in 30 years. In the UK, the Bank of England is signaling that it will raise interest rates in the coming months to compensate for high inflation. The costs of goods leaving factories in China also remains high, causing growing inflation and stagnation, which increases risk of a global economic downturn.
Even as the average person is struggling to afford food, the rich are getting richer. The United Nations reported in 2020 that wealth inequality is on the rise for 70% of the world’s population. The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report found that the world’s wealthiest 1% own 43% of the world’s money. Similarly, Oxfam reports that between 2009 and 2018, the gap between the world’s richest and poorest soared, with the number of billionaires equaling the world’s poorest 50% falling from 380 to 26.
Squid Game has become a global sensation because, in the wake of the worst recession in history, many people relate to not being able to afford rent or groceries while the rich offer them pennies to labor their lives away. While less immediate and violent than Squid Game, the world is not necessarily a better place than the one depicted in the drama.
A BEASTLY SOCIETY
North Korea decried Squid Game, calling it an exposure of a “beastly” South Korean society “where moneyless people are treated like chess pieces for the rich.” North Korea has no moral superiority while interring its citizens in prison camp for even watching the survival drama, but they may have stumbled on a hint of truth.
What words besides “beastly” do we use to describe economies with unresolved tragedies like the Ssangyong Motors strike?
On a global scale, how do we reconcile the United Nations warning of “unprecedented catastrophic levels” of food insecurity while billionaires launch celebrities into space?
Luckily, Squid Game offers us answers for that too.
SQUID GAME AND SOLIDARITY
Throughout Squid Game, Gi-hun often rejects the pressure of the survival games and shows compassion to other players, such as a wounded woman and dying elderly man. Gi-hun is a representation of holding onto hope in others through unjust, inescapable situations larger than oneself. In the finale (spoiler alert), Gi-hun remains by choice among the poor and rejects a chance at a normal life in order to fight against an unjust system—he remains an unbroken union man.
Many of the show’s viewers are taking this message of solidarity to heart. In Seoul, thousands of union workers have donned Squid Game’s guard uniforms while demanding better pay and conditions, declaring that they were suffering like the show’s characters. Squid Game is an indictment of late-stage capitalism, but also a means of protest against it for those willing to organize and demand better.
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The Truth About Squid Game’s Popularity
Scene from popular TV show Squid Game - Photo via Netflix.
December 2, 2021
Squid Game is immensely popular in all corners of the world. The secret to that popularity is the show's critiques of neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism, depicting a world that looks hauntingly like ours, writes Diplomatic Courier's Katie Workman.
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quid Game has captivated audiences around the world with its dramatic tension, stunning visuals, and tasteful horror, becoming Netflix’s number one most popular title of all time. The show topped the most-watched list in 94 nations and was sampled by 142 million users worldwide in 28 days.
Reportedly, the South Korean drama is such a global sensation that it’s even become a hot commodity inside the world’s most reclusive nation: North Korea. There, copies of Squid Game are smuggled on USB drives and SD cards, and viewers of the show risk a death sentence.
Such ubiquitous popularity begs the question: why is Squid Game so popular? The answer lies in its critiques of neoliberalism and late-stage capitalism, which are universally impacting our world right now.
In Squid Game, each character is deep in debt and unable to make ends meet. Facing bankruptcy, extreme poverty, and violent creditors, they are given a chance to compete in children’s games in order to win 45.6 billion Korean won ($38.6 million USD). But if contestants lose, they die.
The show’s second twist comes when contestants are allowed to return to their lives after the first death game, only to realize that living in such immense poverty is worse than the games. So, they return to the tournament.
A SOUTH KOREAN TRAGEDY
The storyline is an immediate commentary on South Korea’s society. As of 2021, personal debt in South Korea leads Asia at over 100% of the country’s GDP. Skyrocketing property prices, an abysmal job market, and a widening income divide leave many Koreans relating to the show’s struggling characters.
Even the show’s protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, is a reference to a Korean economic tragedy. Gi-hun is a poor, laid off autoworker who went on strike 10 years ago and suffers with PTSD after watching his friend die on the picket line. The strike is a thinly-veiled reference to Ssangyong Motors, who filed for bankruptcy in 2009. In the process, Ssangyong laid off 2,600 workers who went on strike and were violently suppressed by police. The workers were promptly blacklisted from the auto industry and fined for economic damages that confined them to a life of extreme debt. Over 28 of those workers have since died of suicide and PTSD-related causes.
Squid Game is a heightened depiction of the violence, immorality, and coercion of late-stage capitalism. While fictional, it expresses the real woes plaguing one of Asia’s most successful economies.
However, these woes are far from unique to South Korea.
A GLOBAL MONETARY CRISIS
In 2021, global public and private debt have reached an all-time high, and the IMF and World Bank have scrambled to provide support to dozens of nations struggling not to default on their loans.
Inflation is making everyday goods unaffordable to the average person. In the United States, inflation is rising at its fastest rate in 30 years. In the UK, the Bank of England is signaling that it will raise interest rates in the coming months to compensate for high inflation. The costs of goods leaving factories in China also remains high, causing growing inflation and stagnation, which increases risk of a global economic downturn.
Even as the average person is struggling to afford food, the rich are getting richer. The United Nations reported in 2020 that wealth inequality is on the rise for 70% of the world’s population. The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report found that the world’s wealthiest 1% own 43% of the world’s money. Similarly, Oxfam reports that between 2009 and 2018, the gap between the world’s richest and poorest soared, with the number of billionaires equaling the world’s poorest 50% falling from 380 to 26.
Squid Game has become a global sensation because, in the wake of the worst recession in history, many people relate to not being able to afford rent or groceries while the rich offer them pennies to labor their lives away. While less immediate and violent than Squid Game, the world is not necessarily a better place than the one depicted in the drama.
A BEASTLY SOCIETY
North Korea decried Squid Game, calling it an exposure of a “beastly” South Korean society “where moneyless people are treated like chess pieces for the rich.” North Korea has no moral superiority while interring its citizens in prison camp for even watching the survival drama, but they may have stumbled on a hint of truth.
What words besides “beastly” do we use to describe economies with unresolved tragedies like the Ssangyong Motors strike?
On a global scale, how do we reconcile the United Nations warning of “unprecedented catastrophic levels” of food insecurity while billionaires launch celebrities into space?
Luckily, Squid Game offers us answers for that too.
SQUID GAME AND SOLIDARITY
Throughout Squid Game, Gi-hun often rejects the pressure of the survival games and shows compassion to other players, such as a wounded woman and dying elderly man. Gi-hun is a representation of holding onto hope in others through unjust, inescapable situations larger than oneself. In the finale (spoiler alert), Gi-hun remains by choice among the poor and rejects a chance at a normal life in order to fight against an unjust system—he remains an unbroken union man.
Many of the show’s viewers are taking this message of solidarity to heart. In Seoul, thousands of union workers have donned Squid Game’s guard uniforms while demanding better pay and conditions, declaring that they were suffering like the show’s characters. Squid Game is an indictment of late-stage capitalism, but also a means of protest against it for those willing to organize and demand better.
