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Salon
Salon
Lifestyle
Melanie McFarland

The manosphere mascot of "Squid Game"

Out of all the surprises “Squid Game 2” yields, the most bizarre may be the love/hate attraction to Thanos, Choi Seung-hyun’s lavender-haired, pill-popping hooligan.

Player 230 – real name Choi Su-bong – is the mascot for every would-be alpha whose inflated sense of specialness is precisely what makes him ordinary. In the “Squid Game” dorms he’s just some guy with a douchey haircut until another player recognizes him from TV or the Internet, awestruck by his showing as the runner-up in the final round of a show called "Rap Underground." Not the winner, the also-ran.

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