Why Netflix's 'Squid Game' Is An Overnight Sensation

[soryang]

Netflix has been distributing Kdramas for years. Their involvement with the production of Kdramas expanded greatly with the onset of the Covid epidemic as domestic production of Kdramas in South Korea fell off. Netflix moved into the market in a major way because Kdramas were already an international fad in Asia.

I'm not a big fan of the proliferation of these apocalyptic sci-fi dramas and films coming out of South Korea. Few of them are any good. I haven't seen this one yet. Perhaps it is an exception. This series apparently follows the Chosun Ji ok (조선 지옥 Korean hell) theme that has been widely discussed on Korean social media for the last few years. I'm vaguely reminded of Stephen King's story The Long Walk. (I didn't really like Parasite either).

There is a basic antagonism between the fundamental humanism of Asian culture and the predatory nature of rentier capitalism and the FIRE sector in the neoliberal state. South Korean society like ours has yet to come to terms with intense economic and social competition in an inequitable society. I think its the overwhelming majority of young people without business or family connections (in mek 인맥 ) who suffer the adverse consequences. The prior generation's Korean diaspora was fueled by similar factors leading to the 1997 Asian (IMF) financial crisis.

The predatory nature of economic competition and the debt markets in South Korea is real. There are allusions to loan sharking and real estate speculation and land development in many contemporary Kdramas. This was pretty much the central theme of the popular Kdrama Vincenzo. Fraud, corruption, and break a leg loan sharks are the underside of the speculative markets. The adverse social impact of real estate speculation, political corruption, and the pandemic are causing more social dissatisfaction particularly among the young fueling the popularity of an allegory like Squid Game. Squid Game is also extremely popular in China, where it evidently is trading in bootleg digital markets.

[soryang]

1. the youtube post mortems from the stars, casts, etc.

...are getting millions of hits. I didn't post any because of possible spoilers