The most attention-grabbing TV series of the 21st century, according to science
Streaming has completely changed the way in which television is viewed. Very rarely do we share those cultural moments that exist around a broadcast schedule. Besides Christmas day, the recent Celebrity Traitors resurgence and of course, live sport, you’re unlikely to find any country banding together around the TV schedule, and sharing something in real time.
Among the many things modernity has robbed us of, this is quietly one of the most wounding, for it ultimately heightens the growing sense of disconnect within us as a society. Nevertheless, there are these lightning bolt moments that exist on streaming platforms and slowly claw back the gap that they’ve caused between us all.
Most recent examples of that idea would be Adolescence, the Severance season two finale or even Richard Gadd’s intense mini series Baby Reindeer. Despite the staggered viewing these shows experienced through streaming, there were still moments where you find yourself at the water cooler in your office, asking someone what they really thought.
But none of them tapped into the zeitgeist quite like Squid Game, it seems. The previously mentioned shows had a little more dramatic weight to them, but Squid Game was an all-consuming goddamn phenomenon in Western culture when it aired in 2021.
It was packed with nomenclature that would subsequently bleed into everyday society. Fans on the internet were either playing makeshift games of ‘red light, green light’ or baking cookies in the shapes of Christmas trees, trying to cut out the drawing in the middle.
The show’s creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, identified what he first noticed about the script, which might help it find its way into the social discourse if done right. He explained, “I read some stories about these indebted people entering into these life-and-death games, and that became really immersive for me because I was struggling financially myself. I was even thinking that I would love to join a game like that, if it existed, to make a bunch of cash and get out of this terrible situation.”
He continued to explain that the first draft was too focused on the rules of the game itself, not the drama, stating, “I was told I couldn’t make it because it was too difficult to understand and bizarre.” Subsequently, Hwang made the decision to “focus on the characters, rather than being distracted by trying to interpret the rules.”
What came after was a cultural behemoth that gave TV viewers a cautious sense of optimism as it came out the back of Covid. It became the most-watched Netflix show in history and earned six Emmy Awards, but in the case of this article, it became the most attention-grabbing show of the century.
According to Stat Significant, which measured TV shows based on their Wikipedia page traffic, Squid Game became the most researched show, with 23million viewers since 2010. That trumped the figures for The Last Of Us, Breaking Bad and Game Of Thrones.
