Is the Squid Game phenomenon dangerous?

Audio 29:30

How to explain the squid game phenomenon?

YOUNGKYU PARK Netflix / AFP

By: Philippe Lecaplain

1 min

We talk about it in playgrounds, while it is not recommended for children under 16.

We talk about it at work, when it can be seen as an anti-capitalist firebrand.

We talk about it among friends, while it denounces the dehumanization of our social relations.

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What happens in the 9 episodes of this series characterized by uninhibited violence and a tangy pop aesthetic?

Characters, over-indebted, hope to win the jackpot by playing playground games, such as the very innocent: "one-two-three-sun".

But, in

Squid Game

, the losers are ruthlessly executed.

It's gory, creepy and trashy.

Why such a craze as if the Circus Games of the Roman era - except for digital effects - had not aged a bit?

To be honest, is this Squid Game phenomenon dangerous?

To discuss it: 

- Ophélie Surcouf,

 journalist, specialist in Korean series, editor for

K-Society

magazine 

, author of 

Pourquoi la Korea?

The Korean wave and us 

(Notebooks workshop)

- Carlo Fasino

, programmer for the

Séries Mania

festival

, specialist in Asian series 

- Sophie Jehel,

 lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences

at Paris 8 University

, author of

 Adolescents facing trash images on the internet

 (in press editions)

and of a book, to be published in December

 2021 , The social risks of the digital economy 

Marianne Chaillan

, professor of Philosophy, specialist in pop culture, author of several books 

In Pop we trust, 

Game of Thrones, a dark end full of terror, Where is happiness? 

(

Ecuador

).  

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