Squid Game: The Psychology of Why of Turning Violent Fiction into Reality TV is Dangerous

Squid Game The Challenge rewards antisocial behavior in pursuit of personal reward. It’s the opposite of what society needs right now.

KEY POINTS

• Reality TV adaptation of the violent series Squid Game raises serious ethical questions.
• Replicating stylized and ominous visuals and gameplay does not offset the Challenge’s lack of the series’ larger social message.
• Portraying violence as justified or rewarding normalizes antisocial behaviors and amplifies the media’s impact on aggression.
• Viewer investment in characters drives audience engagement and ratings but also increases the tendency to mimic observed behaviors.
• Schadenfreude is all too human, but encouraging it contributes to social divisiveness.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Netflix released a new reality game show: Squid Game: The Challenge. The contrast between Thanksgiving and unfettered callousness is a social commentary, suggesting no limits to what people will produce (and watch) for entertainment. However, that’s a statement about the show in a societal context. The larger message of social inequality in the series is missing in The Challenge, which rewards self-preservation by any means in pursuit of a big cash prize. While this translation of the brutal series will increase curiosity among those familiar with the original series’ violent ruthlessness and ominous visuals, it remains to be seen if watching people alternatively collaborate and betray is enough to sustain audience interest. I am more concerned, however, with the messages people –especially young people–will take away.

Audiences of “spin-offs” come with expectations based on the original. Even the most benign adaptation of the original series will not be mentally divorced from the brutality. The producers may attempt to satisfy fans’ expectations by replicating part of what was compelling in the original—startling and ominous settings and the contrast of the innocence of children’s games with symbolic mortal threat (elimination from the game). The series, however, was scripted fiction. Stories like Squid Game, Battle Royale, Hunger Games, and others use cruelty, death, and moral dilemmas faced by the protagonist as metaphors for more significant social issues, like power and control. Squid Game, the series successfully balanced betrayal and selfishness with contrasting moments of humanity as players grappled with self vs. other choices. Unlike the reality show version, the series had several interwoven narratives that gave larger meaning to the whole: VIP spectators who reveled in luxury and debauchery while observing the games and a police officer trying to unravel the mystery linking the games to his missing brother. These combined narratives created a jarring social commentary about poverty, desperation, capitalism, and social disparities. The reality adaptation relies only on the participants’ struggles. The audience members are now VIP spectators mesmerized by base behaviors without social conscience or stigma.

The Emotional Appeal of Squid Game

The compelling appeal of the original series was the ability of the main characters, such as Seong Gi-hun, to communicate genuine emotions in contrast to the stark cruelty of the story world. This was an incredible feat of acting, given that many of us watched a dubbed version. While the audience was fascinated by the relentless tension, violence, and heartless extremity of the challenges, they also got to experience displays of humanity in the struggles and small gestures. In fiction, death is an emotional, not physical, threat. Nevertheless, identification with characters or immersion in a story will trigger the physical response of real fear, releasing stress hormones like adrenalin and stimulating repetitive bursting patterns of electrical discharges in the amygdala. The resolution of a story activates the dopaminergic reward systems, extinguishing fear. The viewer receives the psychological benefit of symbolically facing death and surviving.

In the reality game version, death is represented by the equivalent of paintball tag—the only concession to good taste being the choice of black paint over red. With 456 participants, there are too many people for the audience to care about, even with rapid elimination at each round. This places the focus on desperation and duplicity rather than empathy for characters and limits the psychological reward to morbid curiosity. Unless the game is rigged, there is no way to know which participants will survive each round, risking the emotional continuity that keeps people engaged in shows like Survivor. Thus, the producers face their own moral dilemma to sustain ratings: if they orchestrate “reality,” they lose authenticity and impact. If they leave eliminations to chance, they lose potential emotional connection if popular participants leave too soon.

Existential Threats in Media

The reality show employs the unsettling juxtaposition of threat with childhood games, creating dystopic fantasy settings. The Neo-Freudian psychologist Bettelheim argued that fairy tales’ extreme violence and ugly emotions helped children resolve existential issues such as abandonment, oedipal conflict, sibling rivalries, and other internal fears. Freud argued that horror allowed for the expression of repressed feelings. However, I am skeptical that reality TV (even though it’s not reality) can help manage existential threats. I fear that the impact will be more mundane and less admirable. When audiences identify with reality show participants, whether housewives or survivors, they can internalize beliefs about the observed behaviors and values since all the behaviors are rewarded by attention and, often, celebrity. While some may find comfort from downward social comparison, reassured that others are worse off or more unappealing than they are, most reality shows have a strikingly different message. They implicitly reward bad behavior, consumerism, and superficiality.

The Appeal of Watching Others Struggle

Reality show competitions under challenging circumstances are often popular. Although highly edited, the most successful appear spontaneous and authentic, blurring the line between reality and fiction. The positive side is self-reflection. You watch survivalists and wonder if you could survive. The less admirable part is taking pleasure in another person’s pain. This phenomenon called Schadenfreude dehumanized perception, failing to consider another’s mind. Social neuroscience shows that the social-cognition neural network normally activated by thoughts of other people fails to engage with a dehumanized target.

Psychologists have theories (always) to explain this all-too-human experience. Envy theory says Schadenfreude occurs as an emotional response to an identity threat when someone enviable gets knocked down. Deservingness theory suggests that it results when you feel that the target received what was coming to them. The intergroup-conflict theory emphasizes social identity and the enjoyment experienced when rival groups are defeated, such as during sporting or political competitions. Whether triggered by any or all of the feelings of envy, superiority, or tribal affiliation, all are shown to increase pleasure when bad things happen to the “other.” Schadenfreude drives politics, celebrity gossip magazines, sports rivalries, and reality TV.

Ethical Concerns about the Reality Show Gamification of Squid Game

Aside from Schadenfreude, there are moral and ethical issues about undertaking a reality show “game” that is so directly linked to violence and rewards callous self-preservation. Evidence that media increases violent behavior is mixed with conflicting findings. Some suggest that seeing violence and antisocial behavior decreases sensitivity to others’ suffering of others and increases the likelihood of violence (Alia-Klein et al., 2014). Short-term exposure to violence has been related to priming, arousal, and imitation of specific behaviors. The longer-term effects suggest that observational learning is related to aggression, activation, and desensitization of emotional processes. Young people who identify with an aggressive character and who see realistic portrayals of violence and antisocial behavior in media are more likely to mimic violent behavior. Justifying or rewarding violent behavior rather than punishing it increases the effects on longer-term aggression (Huesmann, 2007).

Thanksgiving aside, the timing of the reality adaptation of Squid Game the Challenge is opportunistic following the success of the series. I also find it ethically questionable. Even if Schadenfreude is “normal,” and the effect size of media portrayals that reward antisocial behavior is small, any amount is too much right now. Society is more divided than ever in the U.S. and globally. There are groups of people for whom violence is seen as an acceptable response to discontent with the institutional processes. There is no accountability for inflammatory misinformation from public officials.

In Squid Game, the original fictional series, the violence was a stark reminder and call to action against inequality. The Challenge as reality TV promotes the opposite: a ‘game’ among ‘real people’ where ruthlessness, duplicity, and lack of empathy are essential to a big payout.

A Word to Parents:

No matter how much you try to protect your child from programs, you can’t control what they hear and see outside the home. If your children mention this show (or any other), it is an opportunity to develop their digital literacy and reinforce moral values. Listen and ask questions to help them dissect the program using critical thinking.

• Are reality shows real?
• What kinds of behavior are you seeing? What kind of friends would that make?
• What makes a good friend or leader?
• Does this show require any talents, strengths, or skills?Subscribed

References

Alia-Klein, N., Wang, G.-J., Preston-Campbell, R. N., Moeller, S. J., Parvaz, M. A., Zhu, W., Jayne, M. C., Wong, C., Tomasi, D., Goldstein, R. Z., Fowler, J. S., & Volkow, N. D. (2014). Reactions to media violence: It’s in the brain of the beholder [Article]. PLOS ONE, 9(9), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107260

Huesmann, L. R. (2007). The impact of electronic media violence: Scientific theory and research. J Adolesc Health, 41(6 Suppl 1), S6-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.09.005

Photo: Fly of Swallow/Canva