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.
