With The Squid Game something similar is happening with The Money Heist. That is, the Asian series is so successful that it has become a cultural phenomenon capable of transcending beyond entertainment. We know that the costumes and masks of The Squid Game They will be the sensation of Halloween, but in South Korea they are also using them during a proposal, which is a serious situation.
On October 20, according to a report by The Strait Times, tens of thousands of unionized workers took to the streets of Seoul to raise their voices. The reason? They demand better working conditions and an increase in the minimum wage. Those involved started the protest despite constant warnings from the government, which had previously prohibited the gathering of people due to sanitary restrictions caused by the pandemic.
However, not even COVID-19 prevented those affected from demonstrating. Interestingly, some workers resorted to the suits of The Squid Game to attract as much attention as possible, and they succeeded. They comment that, as with the characters in the Netflix series, they are also “fighting for a living”. They are certainly not in a violent game, but what they are trying to convey is well understood.
It is worth mentioning that in other regions of the country there were also workers who showed their dissatisfaction through a strike. In total, according to the aforementioned media, 550,000 people stopped their activities for a whole day. In Seoul, 27,000 workers demonstrated peacefully, and it was the only place where it was possible to observe the clothing of the guards of The Squid Game.
You can be sure that neither Netflix nor Hwang Dong-hyuk (creator of The Squid Game) expected production to have this impact. Of course, in the streaming video platform they have found a gold mine that they will take advantage of as soon as possible. Although there is still no official pronouncement on a second season, the end of the first left the door open to a continuation. Will Seong Gi-hun get revenge on the organizers of the games? We will know in the future.