Squid Game — What goes wrong with mindless SEO.
Don't jump on the bandwagon until you know its destination. Or something.
It took me a while, but this week, I finally managed to finish Season 1 of Squid Game, Netflix’s most recent success story.
It was…fine, I guess? If I’m honest, my motivation for watching it was that memes were popping up that I didn’t fully understand — or worse, that I did understand, and therefore managed to spoil elements of the story for me.
I’m generally quite a sucker for level-based elimination type stories. The Running Man is one of my favourite films even though I know it’s cheesy as hell. Battle Royale, the first Saw film, even The Raid — I think anything that calls back to playing old NES games and wishing I was on Knightmare gives me that nostalgic dopamine hit, so I was bound to watch it in the end.
There are definitely good and bad aspects to the show. For me, the characters were a little broad, and a lot of the dialogue wasn’t exactly memorable, although I’ve read that this is a common approach in Korean TV so that may be a cultural thing. The imagery and cinematography was great, and it doesn’t surprise me that people are already discussing Squid Game Halloween costumes. Apparently sales of Vans shoes have rocketed since the show launched. Which…fine, people like to replicate recognisable imagery. The ‘soldiers’ in the show, with their easy to imitate Playstation facemasks, are definitely memorable enough that people will be jumping on that bandwagon.
Of course, we already have a moral panic in the media around kids ‘replicating’ the games from the show. Moral panics like this have always existed. In my era it was kids replicating WWE moves and TMNT fight scenes, where kids might actually hurt themselves. In comparison, this seems ridiculous. The ‘games’ from Squid Game are, with one exception, just schoolyard games where nobody would injure themselves. There’s nothing inherently violent about playing marbles, or trying to break the shape out of a Dalgona sweet. The violence comes from losers of the game being shot, which I would imagine is unlikely to happen in a British schoolyard. Even in Tottenham.
The only game which has any element of violence to it is the titular ‘Squid Game’ which happens in the first and last episodes, and that doesn’t really seem much different to the games of British Bulldog we played as children. Interestingly, you could make a comparison between that game and the Squid Game series as a whole. Everyone starts on an equal footing, with the number of competitors gradually whittled down, facing stiffer, harsher competition until only one is left standing. Still, whether or not there’s any truth in it, the UK media have been happy to stir up fear anyway. The main argument seems to be that kids are using the games as an excuse for violent retribution. I wonder if these journalists have ever actually met children? Violent retribution is pretty much ‘what boys do’. Read a Roald Dahl book if you don’t believe me.
Still, that’s par for the course isn’t it? Something becomes popular, and people misinterpret or misunderstand it. After all, the show is clearly a thinly-veiled criticism of capitalism. The contestants, all struggling in life, persuaded to enter a competition with remarkably thin odds, in some cases sacrificing their own life for the entertainment of the wealthy. A wealthy individual taking part ‘for fun’ knowing that they’re not really at risk. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has been widely quoted as saying:
“I wanted to write a story that was an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition, somewhat like the extreme competition of life,”
So with that in mind, you’d have to be dumb, ignorant, or both, to try and use the imagery of Squid Game to market your product without an understanding of that fact, right?
The above tweet is one of several that…lacked foresight. Look at the image closely — this was not something pushed out without consideration, this took preparation and planning. The tweet was taken down after a day or two, but this is what happens when you chase popular SEO-friendly terms without any understanding of what you’re referencing.
Look at that first line — “Squid Game but make it beauty! What’s your player number?” Let’s imagine for a second that Fenty Beauty’s marketing team have actually watched and understood Squid Game and are making the comparison deliberately. Are they implying that, by not choosing the correct combination of foundation, eyeliner and lipstick, you’ll end up being shot — or worse, looking unfashionable in public?
I’m aware that, as a white male, I need to be careful criticising the behaviour of a successful company run by a black woman. It’s fair to say that plenty of other people on Twitter did the same, although apparently Instagram loved it. Is that because Instagram is a vacuous hole that can only speak in gushes of unnecessary positivity? Not for me to say. However, I should probably get back to something that’s more in my lane.
Video Games — is there anything more white and male?
So, let’s take the same approach. Are Microsoft suggesting that they’re fine with capitalist destruction, as long as they’re the ones in control? Unlike Fenty, they’re suggesting that they are the soldiers rather than the contestants. Microsoft are carrying out the brutal destruction, but they’re not the ones in control. In reality, they’re as trapped in the system as everyone else — faceless, mindless drones who just happen to be at one end of the gun rather than the other. Sure, sometimes you win a game, sometimes you lose, but fundamentally you’re trapped in the same endless, repeating cycle.
Definitely sounds like Halo to me. Anyone else?
So, for unaware Brits, Nutter Butter is a peanut butter cookie from the US, and as with many accounts, they’ve taken a rather irreverent, silly approach to Twitter. Their account currently has 10.4K followers, which is…well, I mean it’s more than me, but fewer than the (brilliant) comedian Mark Olver, who specialises in doing warm-ups for TV shows, so it’s not really much to boast about in the grand scheme of things. The ‘Mr Peanut’ brand of peanuts has over 130K twitter followers, so there’s a long way to go. Still, with that in mind, the numbers above aren’t too bad are they?
So what’s the difference? The tweet above is, objectively, stupid — but then so is their entire account. And why wouldn’t it be? This is the twitter account of a cookie brand, with an irrational hatred of jelly/jam and an obsession for posting the word ‘nut’ over and over in increasingly inappropriate ways. There are over 2k replies to that tweet and I’ll leave you to guess how many are related to jizz, or contain performative disgust at the jizz-related double-entendre.
It’s a lot.
I’m clearly not as appalled by this as I am the first two — I suppose because they’re not making a comparison to the show as much as just saying ‘Hey Squid Game is a thing, but we make cookies, so whatever’. It does appear that their social media person is in some trouble with their boss about it, but then who knows what’s really true online? Fundamentally, a dumb joke is always possible, if you’re willing to be known as a company/account that makes dumb jokes, but that clearly isn’t an option for everyone.
Is it at all possible to do something related to a critique of capitalism without coming across as stupid? Mr Beast is apparently trying to raise $2m in order to do a ‘real life Squid Game’, while a version has already taken place in Abu Dhabi. Presumably without the death, although who can say for sure? Someone’s even planning a version in the UK, where you can win the grand total of £500. Whoop-de-doo. Again, I can’t really criticise someone like Mr Beast — the guy is clearly a success at what he does, as much as I find it a little tiresome, but he’s not really going to deconstruct a system he’s made such a success of, is he?
Again, without the death, these really just come across as ‘people wanting to play childhood games’. It gives me the vibes of Secret Cinema events — people wanting to pretend they’re living in the days of The Great Gatsby, without the realisation that they would have probably died in the war rather than become a Long Island socialite.
So, is there anyone, anywhere, who can make a reference to Squid Game that is accurate, thoughtful, and gets you those sweet, sweet clicks without showing you up to be ignorant or idiotic?
Step forward the brilliant UX Collective and their writer and Product Designer Stephen Crowley.