Why Are So Many Kids Still Obsessed With Squid Game?
Netflix's violent critique of capitalism, back for a second season, is all over Roblox. You can't escape it on YouTube. It's even on the playground.
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A few weeks ago, I was watching the first season of Netflix’s Squid Game when my brain started going hmm at the catchy tune the creepy robot in “Red Light, Green Light” hums while players shuffle across the room. That same catchy little tune is one I’ve heard my eight-year-old hum quietly over the years. But kids are often humming little pieces of randomness that you can never quite place, so I never questioned it.
I played the song for her, and then asked where she heard it. She shrugged. When pressed further and I mentioned “Red Light, Green Light,” she paused. “Oh! Roblox.”
Of course.
The second season of Squid Game premiered over the holidays, and while it does not seem to have captured the world quite as much this time, Squid Game was and remains one of the biggest TV shows in the world. Thus, Squid Game is showing up everywhere.
If you load up Roblox, many of the trending games are based on the Netflix property. Millions of children are playing interactive versions of games ripped from a television show where the exploited contestants do not simply lose a game—they’re killed, too.
It’s cute, weird, and…a little funny?
There are official Squid Game games. None of the ones on Roblox, however, are licensed by Netflix. Netflix didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Roblox did.
“The Roblox community is quick to react to cultural moments through immersive and interactive fan content they create and participate in,” said a company spokesperson to Crossplay. “We see this unique expression of fandom off and on Roblox—through iconic fashion moments influencing how people dress up their avatars to development of games and immersive experiences, as well as viral video content from our community. This lightning-fast reflection of real-life interests speaks to our platform’s unique creation capabilities and a generation of fan-creators who express themselves through outlets like Roblox, leveraging technology and interactivity in new and unprecedented ways for 3D content creation.”
It strikes as a mutually beneficial relationship. Roblox benefits from association with Squid Game and Netflix benefits from association with Roblox. Children do not care if the games are official—if anything, an “official” Roblox experience might be a turn off!
Plus, building video games is hard and expensive. What if other people did it for you?
It’s not as if Netflix doesn’t have options. Roblox has a “Rights Manager” tool that allows companies like Netflix to ask Roblox to take action. Inaction is an action, too!
People who haven’t watched an episode of Squid Game—like, for example, my eight-year-old—know more than they’re aware. Squid Game was not just a massively popular television show. The show “broke containment,” which is to say it expanded far beyond the confines of Netflix success and became pop culture itself, with its iconic jump suits, games, music, and more (the stairs!) becoming detached from the show.
When I was playing the delightful holiday level in Astro Bot, my oldest was piloting the controller and tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, is that the Squid Game logo?”
Friends, we are old.
“I had mentioned the second season to my husband and our child heard me and proceeded to tell me to my horror about all the games in great detail,” said Katie, parent to a six-year-old boy who spoke to Crossplay. “Needless to say we’re monitoring what he plays and watches more closely but the things I’ve watched with him and played with him (made a Roblox account!), it all seems fairly innocent so far.”
Anxiety over Squid Game and children happened a lot with the first season.
“This is not something young children should be watching. There's nothing redeeming or positive here for children," said clinical psychologist Dr. Robin Gurwitchn to People, in one of many alarmist articles. "It has the potential of creating, first of all, inappropriate behaviors ... and it could lead to a lot of high anxiety in kids. Difficulty getting images out of their minds, which will lead to difficulty in getting sleep. It can create concern of 'Could this really happen?' among young children too."
Who are “children”? What age is Squid Game, a show with sharp thoughts about the state of the world, suddenly age-appropriate? The sweeping tone bother me here.
“My seven-year-old son seemingly knows all of the beats of the show, despite having never seen it,” said one parent, Aaron. “His neighborhood friends play ‘Squid Games’ which just means they're playing the games like red light, green light but instead of being out, you're oofed/dead.”
When Aaron asked his son how he’d heard about Squid Game, guess what? Roblox.
The most popular “Red Light, Green Light” on Roblox, which as of this writing has 22,946 people playing and has been “visited” one billion times, is described this way:
(Visits are how Roblox tracks a person opening up a game. The game could crash, they might only idle in-game, or they might immediately leave. But it’s still a “visit.”)
Both of my kids have their “content maturity” on Roblox set to “mild,” a tick below “moderate.” (They often play together, which means I am walking a tightrope of trying to respect play and age differences.) They’d have to request to play the above version of “Red Light, Green Light,” where players are depicted as being shot and killed.
But I have seen my four-year-old playing another version of the game—4,298 active players as of this writing, with 84.1 million “visits” in total—where it not only directly rips the catchy music from the show, but losing players are also depicted as being shot.
At the time, I assumed the four-year-old’s version was an oomph situation. Oops.
My four-year-old ended up next to me while I was watching the first episode of the Squid Game’s second season during the holiday break, which tensely involves—mild spoilers!—a version of Russian roulette. It was an extreme test of our family’s approach to letting our children largely determine what is and isn’t appropriate for them to watch, as my youngest began counting how many times the characters on-screen were able to avoid tragedy. One! Two! Three! Four! I found it darkly funny.
“Lankybox and Roblox is how my seven year-old found out about it,” said Beth, mother to a seven-year-old girl. “Thankfully we were able to tell her it's not appropriate and now she switches to another game/video when it pops up. But it's everywhere in the kid internet space to a disturbing amount.”
The combination of Roblox and YouTube is powerful these days. Lankybox is a YouTube creator with more than 40 million subscribers. The video in question:
“My kids don’t play Roblox but it definitely got through to them via the Mr. Beast to memes to YouTube shorts pipeline, with probably some schoolyard peppered in,” said Simon, another parent. “They think of it as a game show and not as an ultra-violent Netflix show.”
Mr. Beast is, of course, one of the biggest figures on YouTube. Kids know him, even if you don’t. Years later, his riff on Squid Game remains his most popular video. It currently has 702,053,139 views. His new Amazon series is Squid Game-inspired, too.
Beth asked her child to click away from Squid Game, helped by her child’s school telling parents it was banning kids playing inspired games on the playground.
“We had an official ‘these school rules say you shouldn't be interacting with this subject’ [advantage],” said Beth.
Mingle is the breakout of Squid Game’s second season, where contestants group with an arbitrary number of other players and lock themselves in a door before time is up. It, once again, has a catchy little tune and clever design. Perfect for Roblox, which is why it’s no surprise the most popular game on Roblox right now includes Mingle.
When you lose, you get shot. And yes, the game is considered “mild” by Roblox.
(I have, so far, not had much luck getting in touch with the creators of these games.)
I, personally, am not horribly disturbed by my children engaging with these. But I should also be clear: it is absolutely fine if you are horribly disturbed by your children engaging with these games. It’s a reason for you to be up-to-date on parental controls.
“My first grader and his classmates would play red light green light, with the kid who turns around saying, ‘I’m the doll!’” said one parent. “They didn’t mimic the shooting, just the doll.”
With my four-year-old, at least, the violence doesn’t land with her. When there’s on-screen violence, she tells me “Dad, it’s just makeup. People are pretending.” It’s part of why I don’t sweat what she’s watching at that much (yet). My eight-year-old, though, has a more thorough understanding of the world. She’s also more emotionally sensitive, generally. With her, she thinks the “games” are neat. And…well, she’s right!
An underrated aspect of Squid Game is how well designed the games themselves are.
While dropping my kids off at daycare today, out of nowhere, the “Red Light, Green Light” tune came up in conversation, and my children asked me to play it. This prompted my four-year-old to ask if she could watch Squid Game, which I declined but said it would be okay if they saw a clip from it. Then, she explained Squid Game to me.
I captured the exchange in the clip below:
We watched a brief clip after I parked the car and…for now, anyway, she was satisfied.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
I did not love the second season of Squid Game. If you want to hear my full thoughts, I record a podcast called Decoding TV with my friend, David Chen.
One of the funniest responses I got while researching this and talking to different parents: “I feel like forcing a kid who gets obsessed with squid game to actually watch the entire show would be this generations version of the parent who catches their kid smoking and makes them smoke a whole pack of cigarettes.”
I should try the official video game, but it wouldn’t shock me if the Roblox creators did a better job of capturing what’s compelling about the show’s design.
I'd love someone to collect together media has a sharper message but in "breaking containment" whether by kids adopting it, intentional dilution, or remakes/iteration it is warped to something anodyne or at least different. Aesop's original fables were more brutal, right? Monopoly originally a critique of itself. The Starship Troopers to Helldivers translation. FNAF feels like it belongs in here somewhere, too, as a horrification on the child entertainment centers of our youth.
I'm not acutely bothered by kids absorbing weird assemblages of more adult media around them. But it's a fascinating process and dance on the creators' ends.
Really appreciated this write-up and wanted to say thank you. I don't have kids and, outside of a few nephew/nieces, really in a kid-free zone, so this is ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING.