Squid Game Goes Global

2021

Date: 17 September 2021 · Place: Netflix, 94 countries simultaneously · Figures: Hwang Dong-hyuk, writer-director · Lee Jung-jae, lead · Jung Ho-yeon, breakout · Netflix Korea division · Tags: Netflix, K-Content, Red Light Green Light 01. 456 Players, One Algorithm Squid Game launches on Netflix on 17 September 2021. Within 28 days it pulls 1.65 billion viewing hours, becoming the most-watched Netflix series ever to that point. The pitch Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote in 2009 and shopped unsuccessfully for a decade lands the moment global pandemic precarity makes a death-game allegory legible to everyone at once. The Red Light Green Light doll, the green tracksuits, the dalgona honeycomb challenge, and the pink-jumpsuited guards saturate Halloween 2021. School districts in Britain, Belgium, and the US issue letters warning that children are reenacting the games on playgrounds. 02. The Honeycomb Crack The third episode's dalgona challenge sends TikTok back to the same Korean sugar candy that powered the March 2020 whipped coffee meme. Users carve umbrellas with sewing needles, fail, repost. The visual loop closes between two lockdown years and one Korean confection. Sources • Netflix Top 10, 'Squid Game' (28-day window, October 2021) • The Guardian, 'Schools warn parents over Squid Game playground reenactments' (10 October 2021) • Variety, 'Hwang Dong-hyuk on Squid Game's decade-long path' (29 September 2021)