When did entertainment become so stressful? – Squid Game

— This article will contain Squid Game spoilers —

Squid Game is a South Korean dystopian survival thriller horror television series created, written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix. The series revolves around a secret contest where 456 players, all of whom are in deep financial hardship, risk their lives to play a series of children’s games that have been turned deadly for the chance to win a ₩45.6 billion (US$39.86 million) prize.

INTRO

Before I begin to yap, I am not trying to kill the fun of the show, I thoroughly enjoyed the show, but that doesn’t erase how stressful it is – I was quite literally gripping sofa during Season 3 Episode 4’s game. From the very first season, we are not eased into the horrors it displays, we are flung into high-stakes of violence, with bright colours and eerie music. When did our idea of entertainment become so anxiety-inducing?

DATA ANALYSIS + ANECDOTE WITHIN

Squid Game didn’t just just torment its characters, also the viewers; according to ScreenRant, the second season of the show garnered 68 million views in the first three days and became number one in every country on Netflix! That is insane – we all know good shows but for them to excel everywhere?? What’s crazy is that it isn’t a lighthearted fun show – people were tuning in to feel tension.

A study by Mathias Clasen and Marc Andersen involved running several experiments in a haunted-house setting in Denmark which they called “Dystopia”. They hooked heart rate monitors to the participants and recorded how scared they felt and how much enjoyment they felt throughout. They found the participants’ results to have an upside-down U-shape; if participants weren’t scared at all, it wasn’t fun, but if they were too scared the enjoyment level dropped. Andersen worded it as “It is as if humans dislike being very far from their normal physical state but we seem to like being out of our comfort zone,”. This makes sense when applying it to Squid Game; we do not want real physical harm but we enjoy the thrill – the feeling of being off-balance.

The last game in Season 3 Episode 4, let’s be so for real, we all KNEW that Jun-hee was going to die before she even got eliminated, so why were most of us bawling? Even after that you continued to watch it at “torture” yourself, when you KNEW it was going to be emotionally scarring. ACTUALLY NOT EVEN THAT – WAS SEASON ONE NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?! God bless my girl Sae-Byeok, Ji-yeong and Ali 😔- literally became ill from the amount of tears that were shed.

Anyway, so you’re not insane for finding joy in these types of shows !

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