We're living in a whale world.
It wasn’t long after the first series of Squid Game aired that we started to see its unsubtle anti-capitalist message twisted by the very types of people it attempted to skewer, and just as quickly came the takes mocking the executives, marketers and corporations for their lack of self-awareness. But as ever, the joke is really on us.
Of course it’s extremely tempting to imagine Netflix suits, Activision’s marketing army or MrBeast as clueless idiots who didn’t understand what Squid Game was trying to say (very loudly), thus spawning multiple real-life knock-offs and collab skins for Call of Duty; just as it’s tempting to ascribe the success of the show to its potent takedown of modern capitalism, rather than its stylishness and gratuitous violence. But neither of those characterisations are true.
What is true is that the message is completely irrelevant. Squid Game has been hugely successful and made a lot of people a lot of money. That’s all that matters in the eyes of Netflix and Activision. The people coming up with these campaigns aren’t blind to what Squid Game says about society, but they also know that fan culture turns people into whales, and that its popularity alone is enough to overwhelm any criticisms about these companies missing the point.
In a fairy tale utopia, fans of Squid Game would have no truck with these collaborations or crossovers, because they are disgusting, but time and time again we have shown a willingness to lap this gruel up with wild abandon, merrily spending our own money to promote and enrich random brands and media. There is nothing they can’t sell us.
I’m not talking about the ‘hey, you can play Fortnite as Spider-Man now’ stuff, even if that is ultimately advertising for Sony and Marvel that you’re paying for, but rather the more nakedly capitalistic collabs, like Aston Martin’s deal with PUBG, or FF14 players spending $20 on bubble tea to earn a subtle reskin of a flying pig. The kind of things that are overt marketing campaigns where we spend money to raise an unrelated brand’s profile.
Sure, when it’s all laid out in a vacuum it does seem ridiculous. People are spending $28 to advertise a Netflix show where the premise emphasises the complete disregard capitalism—and the people it elevates—has for humanity. The participants in the games are stripped of their dignity and transformed into playthings for the ultra wealthy.
People are spending $28 to advertise a Netflix show where the premise emphasises the complete disregard capitalism—and the people it elevates—has for humanity.
But I feel faintly embarrassed railing against it when I remember how much money I spend on trainers (way too much) from companies like Nike, which has a history of tax evasion and allegedly running sweatshops that employ child labour. “No ethical consumption under capitalism,” I say, while still willingly participating in destructive systems that make the world a worse place, flashing that big Nike tick everywhere I go.
So for a piece of media that rages against capitalism to become a huge, money-generating brand, it’s really just a Tuesday. There’s nothing weird or incongruous about it. The moment it became popular, it was inevitable. The toys. The spin-offs. The Just Eat commercials where the people you just watched massacring poverty-stricken Koreans bring you some junk food.
Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is trapped here with us. While the first season made Netflix a fortune, he didn’t see much of it himself. “Honestly I didn’t make much,” he told the BBC in November. What he did get was nine missing teeth, which he said he lost due to the stress of creating the series. Naturally, this experience didn’t exactly compel him to do it again, but he eventually acquiesced. Why? “Money,” he said. “Doing the second series will help compensate me for the success of the first one too.” He’ll be doing a third, as well. Netflix’s coffers will grow, the collaborations will continue, and if we’re really unlucky it might inspire MrBeast to make another Beast Games.
No doubt, like so many creators, Hwang Dong-hyuk wishes that Squid Game resonated in such a way that it could inspire, but media rarely truly shapes us. Just look at how many right-wing fans of Marvel, Star Wars and Star Trek complain about the ‘woke mind virus’ ruining their beloved brands, even though the shows, comics and movies have always espoused liberal and leftist ideals. That they’re the villains of the media they are so protective over doesn’t even register.
So! Yeah. Nothing to see here. This is just business as usual—and a business that’s ramping up. CoD is really just following Fortnite’s lead here, which has established itself as the home of random collabs turning millions of players into unwitting advertisers. Its enduring popularity among kids also ensures that this is never going away. The next generation of gamers are going to think that it’s perfectly normal to shell out cash to promote everything from popstars to movies. And they’d be right.
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