October 12, Juche 110 (2021) 《Ariran Association, RSTV》   

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The television drama The Squid Game recently aired. According to popular opinion among TV viewers, it is gaining popularity due to the fact that it reveals the realities of South Korean society, in which brutality and corruption are on the rise, and fraud has become commonplace.

The reason Squid Game became popular with viewers is said to be due to the reality of a capitalist society and the fierce competition for survival in South Korea.

According to the plot of the television series, hundreds of people living out their lives in the fight against overwhelming debts are forced to enter a deadly game, the participants of which die and kill each other in order to win a one prize. It is believed that the series, visually showing the process of the deadly game, makes the viewer realize the sad essence of the monstrous South Korean society, in which people, subjected to cruel social selection, lose their humanity.

In particular, through the image of a rich man, the organizer of the game, who takes pleasure in the horrific massacre, the series presents a society where tyranny and arbitrariness of those in power are rampant. It is he who comes up with the main rule of the game, which says that the one who could not take first place must die. Viewers note that this causes outrage at the unequal social order, which treats people like chess pieces.

For this reason, many South Koreans who watched this television drama reflected on the serious economic inequality that pervades South Korea: in today's South Korean society, the number of “dropouts” due to fierce competition for jobs, real estate and shares is increasing significantly. In such a society, the people who have become the winners stand by the corpses of the losers. The show is said to serve as a reminder of what a hellish life people are doomed to in a cursed world where people are judged only by money.

South Korean critics write that The Squid Game is the most symbolic representation of today's competitive society.