Why The Fandom Ruined Squid Game

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Transcript

00:00After being in this community for so long, I've noticed a visible downgrade in the fandom

00:05compared to season 1. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what the problem was, until yesterday,

00:11when I finally realized the main issue with the season 2 and season 3 fandom, and how they've

00:17actually ruined the show. I was just waking up, made my coffee, and was scrolling randomly

00:22through social media when I came across a poll asking which of these characters was more broken.

00:28The options were No Owl, Jun Hee, Hyun Joo, and Gum Ja. Jun Hee won with an overwhelming 67% of the votes.

00:37Initially, I didn't pay much attention to this poll, but later, I came back to the post and checked the

00:42comments. In the comments, there was another poll, and the majority vote truly shocked me.

00:47The question was, who is the most evil character in Squid Game? The options were In Ho, Il Nam,

00:54Myung Gi, and the salesman. Who do you think fans voted as the most evil? According to them,

01:01it wasn't the creator of the games. It wasn't even the man who lured people to their deaths with a

01:06smile on his face. No, the most evil person in the Squid Game universe, according to the fandom,

01:13is Myung Gi. And that's when it hit me. The Squid Game fandom is now overrun with children, and the show

01:20has turned into a popularity contest instead of a critique of capitalist society. Now, I don't have

01:25a problem with teenagers watching the show, even though I have doubts they truly understand its core

01:31message without experiencing the harsh realities of our economic world. I actually think it's important

01:37to expose them to the truth about how the world really works, rather than filling them with the

01:42usual Hollywood-style, always happy ending. They need to know the reality they'll face as adults.

01:49The real problem is with kids watching this show. I'm honestly amazed at how many children have seen

01:55something this grotesque. At first, I thought my encounter with this was just an isolated case,

02:01but apparently it's not. When I first started my Discord server, I had no prior experience running

02:07one, so I asked my subscribers and the first people who joined to help me moderate it. After selecting a

02:13few active members and discussing things with them in private chat, I was shocked to discover that one of

02:19them was only eight years old. Out of curiosity, I asked if he had actually watched the show and what

02:25he understood from it. He told me yes. He watched it with his six-year-old brother, and they only watched it for

02:30the games. They skipped most of the conversations, and as he called them, the boring scenes, just to

02:36watch the action-packed ones. Let me be clear, even though the show is based on children's games,

02:42it is not for children. Plain and simple. In my opinion, this is exactly what's wrong with the

02:48fandom. People haven't even watched the full show or understood the message, yet they argue online as if

02:54their opinion is the only valid one. I've seen this behavior countless times in the Discord server.

02:59If I didn't answer direct messages right away, or if someone posted a different opinion from the

03:04popular one, they were immediately called out, insulted, and even cursed at. The whole concept

03:10of discussing the show and exchanging different opinions has been destroyed. It's no longer about

03:15conversation. It's about, oh, you have a different opinion than mine. You're wrong. Get out of here.

03:21I hate you and your opinion because it's wrong. Even if you openly invite debate or ask for counter-arguments,

03:27you won't get any. All you'll get is marginalization for not agreeing with the majority.

03:32The saddest part is, most of them don't even truly believe what they're saying. It's just the trend,

03:37and they've adopted it as if it were their own belief. If you ask them to explain why they believe

03:43it, you won't get an answer. Just more insults. To be honest, I truly miss the days after the first season,

03:50when there were so many interesting discussions about the series, the characters, and the message

03:55behind it. Now the fandom mostly argues over which character is better, hates unrealistic portrayals,

04:01and ships everyone with everyone. I got completely exhausted by all the edits and endless conversations

04:07about the so-called situationship between Inho and Gi-hun. This has also led to an epidemic of

04:14misinformation and some of the wildest, most nonsensical theories I've ever seen, often fueled

04:20purely by the popularity of certain actors. You all remember the ridiculous number of people who

04:27believed Thanos would survive and return in Season 3. Or how, after the season ended, a lot of people

04:33believed Gi-hun actually survived that fall, would somehow miraculously recover, and that Squid Game

04:39would even get a Season 4 featuring him. Another big piece of misinformation that went viral in the

04:45Squid Game community was a fake article claiming that Hwang Dong-hyuk said if Thanos were alive

04:50in Season 3, he would have helped Jun-hee, carried her during the 5th game, and helped her survive. And yet,

04:57a shocking number of people still believe this as canon, defending it to the bitter end. This is what

05:02happens when such a high percentage of the audience is made up of children. With TikTok nowadays,

05:08they'll believe anything they see online, without even questioning whether it's real. That's why we

05:14keep seeing these crazy scenarios and ridiculous theories everywhere. Another huge problem is that

05:20many of them completely miss the whole point of the show. They call the last season shitty, mostly

05:25because their favorite character died. I've seen an alarming number of debates and videos suggesting that

05:30Gi-hun should have killed the baby in the end, as if that's the core issue with the season.

05:35When I say Season 3 was a flop, it's not because of the ending, or because the main characters died.

05:41That was never my problem. In fact, I thought Gi-hun's ending was perfect, and I even made several videos

05:47explaining why. They're on my page if you want to check them out. My real issue with Season 3 wasn't

05:54Myungi's willingness to sacrifice his baby, or the fact that the games didn't stop. The actual problem

06:01was the multitude of narrative threads that were left unfinished, and how much screen time was wasted

06:07on irrelevant moments that were later forgotten. It felt rushed, and Hwang seemed to choose the easiest

06:13way out for the majority of the characters. But for the fandom, the one I'm talking about here,

06:20that wasn't the problem at all. For them, the only issue was that their favorite character died.

06:26They didn't care about why the character died, what their death symbolized, or the message Hwang was

06:31trying to convey. All of that went right over their heads. They were only watching because of the show's

06:36popularity. I've said this before in another video, but one of the problems with casting extremely popular

06:42actors, like Joe Yu Ri or Im Si Wan, is that their fan bases follow them into the show, and their only

06:50interest is that specific character. They become outraged if that character is portrayed in any

06:56negative way whatsoever. This is why we see poll results, like the ones I mentioned earlier, where

07:01a broken character who endured the horrors of the games and tried everything to protect his baby,

07:07but ultimately chose himself to survive, is considered more evil than the actual person who

07:12created the games. And this is where the deeper problem begins. Because once a fandom stops engaging

07:20with the moral complexity of a story, it becomes a completely different kind of community. It's no

07:25longer about the world the series builds, or the uncomfortable truths it forces us to confront.

07:32It becomes about protecting personal favorites, feeding into trends, and rejecting anything that

07:38challenges the comfortable narrative fans have built in their own heads. This is the danger of letting the

07:44loudest voices in a fandom be the least informed. And it's not just that these younger viewers don't

07:51understand the themes, it's that they confidently spread their shallow interpretations as though they

07:56were fact. That confidence, paired with the rapid-fire nature of platforms like TikTok, means misinformation

08:02travels faster than any thoughtful analysis could ever hope to. Think about it. One well-edited,

08:09emotional fan video can overshadow dozens of nuanced essays or discussion threads. A fabricated,

08:15behind-the-scenes quote, can get more attention than the actual words of the creator. And before you know it,

08:22the fandom's collective memory is built on half-truths and imagined scenarios. I've seen this happen before

08:28with other shows, but with Squid Game, it feels even more dangerous, because this series isn't just

08:33entertainment, it's a mirror, a warning. But here's the most ironic part. Many of these kids believe

08:39they get the show simply because they've memorized character names, trivia, or minor plot details.

08:45They'll argue endlessly over who could win in hypothetical match-ups, but ask them what the ending of

08:51season one was really saying, and you'll get silence. Or worse, an answer so far removed from reality,

08:57it's almost unrecognizable. The fandom is evolving into something the show itself would have mocked,

09:04a competitive, popularity-driven spectacle where substance doesn't matter as long as you're winning

09:09the argument. And it's sad to see this amazing series turn into this carnival, because with time,

09:16this is all that would be remembered about Squid Game. Not the deep theme about the cruelty of the

09:22capitalist system, not the perfectly written characters trapped in its gears, but only the

09:27shallow noise of popularity polls, edits, and shipping wars. And that's a tragedy, because Squid Game was

09:35never just about a deadly competition. It was a mirror, showing us the very real game we are all forced to

09:41play in life.

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