A fan-made animation of the 'red light, green light' girl from Netflix's 'Squid Game' went viral and sparked a new meme
The original "Squid Girl" animation reached over 45 million views on TikTok. Now, fans are dubbing other songs over the video.
Netflix
- "Squid Game," a Korean-language Netflix original, has inspired a flood of memes online.
- A fan-made animation of the show's "red light, green light" girl reached over 45 million views.
- Fans are now editing K-pop tracks and other famous songs over the clip.
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Netflix's "Squid Game" has made a huge splash on social media, with memes about the show taking over TikTok. Now, a fan's animated video of the show's "red light, green light" animatronic girl dancing has become a meme of its own, with K-pop fans editing their favorite artists' songs over the clip.
"Squid Game" is a Netflix original series that premiered on September 17. Produced in South Korea, the show follows a group of adults who, facing dire economic need and staggering debts, enter a survival game in which they compete in children's games for a cash prize. There's a twist, though - if they fail a game, they'll be killed.
The show is on track to become Netflix's biggest non-English language series of all time, if not the platform's most-viewed original series ever, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at the annual Code Conference on Monday.
A TikTok video posted by user @punyaibenk shows the animatronic girl from the series' first episode who presides over a game of a mugunghwa kochi pieotsumnida (무궁화 꽃이 피었습니다), a Korean game similar to "red light, green light" in which players stop and go at someone's command, waving her arms and dancing.
The post includes several hashtags (#3danimation and #blender3d) that suggest it's an original animation, referencing the 3D animation software Blender.
The video was posted on September 25 and has amassed over 45 million views on TikTok. It's since spread to Twitter, where people - mostly accounts that appear to be run by K-pop fans - are editing songs from their favorite artists over a cropped version of @punyaibenk's TikTok.
It's unclear exactly where the meme started on Twitter. Reposts of @punyaibenk's video crossed over to Twitter on September 25, and meme iterations of it began to circulate on Sunday, a day after it was originally posted. Now, fans are posting videos overlaying the music of K-pop groups like Girls' Generation, EXO, and LOONA over a cropped version of @punyaibenk's video.
-ًr (@soshyul) September 27, 2021
-& VIVI ⸰ ???? ͙ࣳ (@vivinfluence) September 28, 2021
-RYE ???????? (@nonStopKSoo_) September 28, 2021
The meme has spread out of K-pop fandom as well, with people layering other tracks like "La Jeune Fille en Feu" (from the French film "Portrait of a Lady on Fire") over the clip.
-in my garance marillier phase (@womansbathtube) September 28, 2021
The animatronic girl has become one of the most iconic images from the show, appearing in a marketing exhibit for the show at Itaewon Station in Seoul, South Korea, a mall in Manila, the Phillippines, and in countless memes online.
-Netflix Philippines (@Netflix_PH) September 22, 2021
The first season of "Squid Game" is currently available to stream on Netflix.
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