By every standard, Netflix’s Squid Game is a smash hit. The Korean drama-slash-horror series about a battle royale played out through children’s playground games — think Red Light, Green Light, or tug of war, but with a lot more blood — debuted on Netflix on September 17 and became an instant sensation, rocketing to the top of Netflix’s most-viewed releases and spawning memes across social media.
Squid Game has not only become the most popular Korean drama in Netflix history, but it is also on course to surpass Bridgerton as the most popular show in Netflix history after only three weeks on the platform.
What is Squid Game?
Hwang Dong-hyuk developed the South Korean survival drama television series Squid Game on Netflix. Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-joon, HoYeon Jung, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, and Kim Joo-ryoung are among the cast members.
The series centers around a competition in which 456 participants, all of whom are deeply in debt, risk their lives by playing a series of lethal children’s games for the opportunity to win a US$38 million reward. The series’ title is based on a Korean children’s game of the same name.
The Rise of the Meme and Why it is So Popular
The history of the meme is not well-documented. The word meme was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, “The Selfish Gene.” Dawkins used the term to refer to a cultural idea that can be transmitted from one mind to another. He theorized that memes can replicate themselves because they are not dependent on an individual human brain for their propagation.
Why are Squid Game Memes so Popular?
Although Squid Game has just one season on Netflix, it has already spawned more and better memes than many other series after numerous seasons. For some reason, this episode generates a lot of memes. Perhaps it’s the incessant drama or the unsettling parallels between the fictitious scenarios and actual life – in terms of impoverished, desperate people pushed against each other for money and to the death for the sake of the rich, English-speaking, nasty VIPs. Perhaps it is the deceptive and disappointing evil that arises among the players. For example, when people start breaking the rules of a game to mislead each other, murder their fellow participants, or betray those closest to them.
The popularity of Squid Game Memes comes from their simplicity and the fact that they are relevant to the current events happening in the world today, such as recent political events such as the Russian-Ukraine war.
A squid game meme is typically an image, GIF, or video that is related to a popular game and usually features the squid inkling from Splatoon. They have been used to talk about many different topics, including current events and pop culture references.
