Squid Game: Desensitization to the Deplorable
Illustration by Sydney Hanson
Squid Game is a South Korean dystopian thriller, created for Netflix in 2021 by Hwang Dong-hyuk, with its sophomore season premiering just after Christmas in 2024. My social media algorithms have noticed that I watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) Squid Game 2 this past winter break. For a solid two weeks, I couldn’t scroll five minutes without finding a Squid Game video, post, or article. It didn’t take long before I noticed strange trends in the reception of the series, mine included.
As viewers, we are encouraged to identify with the players; those who have been beaten down by life, are drowning in debt, and whose only option is to participate in the deadly games. However, it’s also important to recognize the unsettling parallel between ourselves— comfortable, pampered viewers eagerly anticipating the next bit of entertainment—and the VIPs, American billionaires who fund and watch the games purely for gladiatorial enjoyment. The online culture surrounding Squid Game has become increasingly less focused on the show’s message. The jokes and memes have become a little blasé; do we need to poke fun at a character’s gruesome death? Do we need to joke about those so desperate for money that they’d risk their lives? These actions mirror those of the show’s villains and force me to examine the extent of my empathy toward the protagonists. Why are we so entertained? I suppose it’s human nature. Examining the specific message of Squid Game, I’d say the very fact that we are entertained at all should be cause for self-analysis. We must re-sensitize ourselves to abhorrent violence to feel empathy toward our fellow humans. We can’t lose ourselves in the entertainment of it all and forget the importance and meaning of the plot. As I said, in this scenario, we are not the players. You are not Seong Gi-hun. You, with your television, cell phone, and sofa, you are a spectator.
I can’t help but see parallels between the current events we watch online and the fictional ones on television. Abhorrent events happen everyday, and it’s easy to become desensitized to them – because where do we focus when it’s all coming at us at once?
To use a slightly less dramatic example, charitable donations in Canada are decreasing. In 2021, only 17.7% of Canadians reported charitable donations in their tax returns, and a survey in 2023 found that only 60% of Canadians reported any monetary donations that year. The economy is in decline, and people everywhere are having difficulty making ends meet, so charity isn’t exactly priority number one, but it shouldn’t fall to the wayside for those of us who can afford it – there are people in our own country who need our help.
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as the most followed YouTuber in the world, "Mr. Beast", produced the Squid Game-inspired reality show Beast Games in 2024. The show’s final prize totalled $5 million, a lesser sum than its inspiration’s, but it still has some eerie parallels. Donaldson eggs the contestants on, ending the first game with a bribe: if they walk away with the money, they can keep it, but their whole row is eliminated. Here, Donaldson is playing exactly into the original message of Squid Game – the one we seem to have forgotten. In both scenarios, the rich and powerful manipulate the lower class with the temptation of money, even turning them against each other for the prize. They will, in the case of the original Squid Game, kill, and in the case of the very real Beast Games, endure life-threatening mistreatment.
On September 16, 2024, five contestants of Beast Games filed a class-action lawsuit against Donaldson’s company, citing sexual harassment, denial of medical care, inadequate food, and lack of payment for both time spent on the show and the prize money. The extent to which Donaldson and his production team went to create entertaining content cost people their well-being. For the amusement of those who can afford to sit and watch, Beast Games exploits those who may desperately need its prize money.
There’s a quote from Squid Game that sums everything up neatly. “The game will not end unless the world changes.” The entertained, gladiator-audience response to Squid Game is, ironically, part of the game. I would vote to stop playing. Would you?