The series “The Squid Game” reflects a severe crisis in South Korea

The South Korean-produced TV series “The Squid Game” has set records for viewership on Netflix.

The series tells how people with huge debts compete with each other in a bloody race to survive, and get a big cash prize. But in the same context, the course of the series largely reflected the reality in which the citizens of South Korea now live.
“The Squid Game” is one of the most watched series on the Netflix streaming platform, as the dystopian dark drama has made millions of viewers around the world sit in front of the screens.

In the course of the series, people with huge debts compete with each other in a bloody race for survival for the prize of 28 million pounds. These current events in the series are themselves a mirror that largely reflects the reality in which the citizens of South Korea live now, according to the opinion of the newspaper, “The Guardian”.

The authors of The Squid Game show how unexpected layoffs, bad investment, or just a series of bad adventures can lead people to turn to high-interest creditors to make ends meet.

It appears that the debt burden of the South Korean population has grown significantly in recent years and is now equal to 100% of GDP. This indicator is not found anywhere else in Asia.

Against this background, the difference in incomes of the population is increasing. The situation is exacerbated by the high rate of youth unemployment and high real estate prices, which are beyond the reach of most ordinary workers.

To illustrate, one of these people is Choi, a former software engineer, who fell into debt as fast as the characters in Squid. He often worked overtime, which undermined his health, after which he and his wife decided to save money and open a bar in his hometown. They did not plan to become a millionaire, but rather his biggest concern was to work with less effort commensurate with his health.

Their business started promising, but soon fell victim to the Corona virus pandemic, as the restrictions adopted by the authorities, led to a significant decrease in the number of clients they had. And they didn’t have enough money to pay the rent, so they took out loans from the commercial banks, and offered their house as collateral.

Choi says: “He is no longer worried about the high amount of debt in the country. He considers himself to be in the worst condition, and Choi adds that they lost stability as a family, because of the debts, his wife went to work in a restaurant in another part of the country, and they deposited their children with their grandparents. To raise the children. Choi says he’s heard a lot about the squid game, but hasn’t been able to watch it, so whoever wants to watch has to pay for it, Choi adds why is he looking at a crowd of people with huge debts? He can just look in the mirror.”