To be completely honest I don't understand the appeal of Squid Game. It's a very thin metaphor around super shocking imagery --- and don't get me wrong, although it's not my thing, I can understand people liking slasher movies and the like, but I don't understand why this discourse that Squid Game is very deep (and anything other than cheap gore horror) became so popular.
Art imitates life. Squid Game is very deep. The reason is that it doesn't allow for the initial knee-jerk reaction that the poor are virtious and are simply crushed beneath the wheel of the powerful and the rich.<p>The main character is a gambler that lives off of the back of his mother. This can be blamed both of his own shortcomings and that of society. At the end of the show it is proven yet again that he is a gambler in heart when he chooses to play the last game with the mastermind of the game instead of going out and helping the freezing homeless person. On top of that, he hoards the money and sits on it for a year instead of helping the victims' families. This can hardly be blamed on society or on the rich.<p>Dog eat dog world assumption really doesn't work in Squid Game. Here's why. Being a woman and old is disadvantegous. Yet the team chooses two women and old man for the tug of war competition. If this is not downright irrationality I don't know what is. Yet the little compassion that they muster during life and death situation ends up being their ticket towards survival. This imitates real life where even the morally worst will do something to save someone just to prove to themselves that they are not that far gone.<p>In the following game the main character again chooses the old man who most likely would've been left off to die. Yet again this small compassion brings him a victory as the old man simply gives him the marbles because they are friends and friends share everything.<p>So yeah squid game imitates life but that's not really pessimistic because it contains both the beautiful and horrible aspects of human nature.
> Meritocracy is a fallacious idea – a convenient lie told to those whose lack of wealth or social class leaves them at a distinct disadvantage.<p>This is a bit oversimplified. Meritocracy is not an <i>outright</i> fallacious idea, but depending on the subject, there is a certain threshold of opportunity above which it becomes the dominant force, and for many that threshold is out of reach.<p>For instance, learning to program is fairly "accessible" today, but even it has certain minimum requirements, a threshold of opportunity above which the playground becomes more equal: You need a computer, internet access, enough free time... eventually you need a job. The one that really generalises against meritocracy is "you need free time", because most of the world is fighting for their next paycheck and are not in a position to attempt to improve their life. I believe this is what the author is getting at, wealth and "social class" are just an indirect way of saying "the freedom to pursue more opportunities".<p>However throwing out meritocracy completely is not the solution to this, if replaced with ideas revolving around inclusivity and equality alone it will fall apart - meritocracy <i>is</i> part of equality, it's just not all of it, it doesn't automatically solve equal opportunity... And this is where I think the author is missing the point: the world, society, government does little to ensure equal opportunity - This is the point squid game is making, everyone starts equal unlike reality.
Yes I took the squid game message to be “we’re gonna shock you with all this gore but at the end of the day it’s not far from real life. Well maybe not for you as you are rich… after all you can afford to watch this”
I don't see the appeal of this show. It's a prepackaged, shallow production that adds little to the actual works it undoubtedly inspires and gets much from, FKMT's manga.
This is pure anecdata and somewhat tangential to the article, but - I had multiple conversations, distinct from each other and completely unprompted, where people said they thought the hype for this show was manufactured. One person in particular said Reddit felt like someone "flipped a switch" and suddenly everything was Squid Game for a week. At first I didn't see it but after the Nth article breathlessly repeating the same points about the show's message one does wonder.
Though I've seen it a hundred and more times, I'm always a little surprised to see this community completely miss the point of artistic works that challenge inequality.<p>Y'all seem to think that we're in some kind of meritocracy, that predatory capitalism isn't centrally planned, that you earned your position in society and so everyone who's poor just isn't working hard or smart enough...<p>And even after watching a show that makes the point in as simplistic a metaphor as you could wish for; even after reading an article that breaks the metaphor down precisely and makes it abundantly clear, there's still people in this thread saying "I don't understand the appeal", "it's just brutality and shock value", "if you can watch this you're rich and who it's aimed at", "pfft, this is a ripoff of [obscure manga]"...<p>How can smart people miss the point so completely? It's simple, but still surprises me almost every time - "“Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.”
A bit off-topic but : ‘Arcane’ knocks ‘Squid Game’ off the top of Netflix’s most-watched chart <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/tv/arcane-knocks-squid-game-off-top-of-netflix-most-watched-chart-3092784" rel="nofollow">https://www.nme.com/news/tv/arcane-knocks-squid-game-off-top...</a>
Meritocracy exists on a small scale, but always remember that someone wrote the rules, and they generally have an opinion on the outcome. The best moment of the show was when they changed the rules of the glass jumping game after someone figured out a trick to win. Basically the whole RobinHood/GMC debacle. Only approved parties get to manipulate the market.<p>Most of us are on the winning side of the game right now - central banks have dumped a ton of money into investments and banking, software has very low marginal cost at scale, and companies can be unprofitable for decades if they have a good story. Big Tech has also been immune to regulation and taxes. If the regulatory/legal space or the market want ROI now, then many of us may be the losers in the next round of our economic Squid Game.
I enjoyed squid game, but it bugs me that everyone says it's a critique of capitalism. They're literally participating in a centrally planned system.
Yeah all these waves of enthusiasm for a show just wash over me. I have ignored every one of them in recent decades. It has never harmed me socially to be utterly unaware of the details of the latest Mad Tiger Squid Soprano.