Friday, October 01, 2021
Squid Game phone number turns out to be real, and a Korean man is bombarded with calls and texts; a fringe Korean presidential candidate offers to buy it for US$85,000
South China Morning Post: A South Korean presidential hopeful has offered 100 million won (US$85,000) to buy the phone number of a man who says he has been bombarded with unwanted calls and messages after it was shown in the hit Netflix series Squid Game.
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4 comments:
Wow. Setting aside the ridiculous politics (UBI of one hundred twenty thousand US dollars equivalent a month? so funny), this story is just weird through and through. More importantly, though, this demonstrates the care that needs to be taken with things like this in major productions. It's standard practice to use fake phone numbers and fake social security numbers and fake credit card numbers in TV shows, and I can't imagine how this was missed, but this is a serious error. This is clearly having a very detrimental effect on the owner of this phone number, and I hope he is compensated by the producers of the TV show for his time, trouble, lost business expenses, and potentially medical bills. I guess if not, at least he can get eighty four thousand dollars from this fringe political figure and just figure out how to live with a new phone number.
I keep hearing people talk about this TV series Squid Games and have even seen numerous articles in the news about how this series might become one of the most popular TV shows on Netflix. That being said I’ve sadly only had time to watch the trailer briefly, but from what I saw it seems that this is a horror based show. I particularly liked the color pallet used within the show as it gave across an almost childlike playground aesthetic while horrific murders are occurring left and right. That being said, I still don’t understand why possible presidential candidate of Korea Huh Kyung-young, of the National Revolutionary Party, would offer $100 million Won for a phone number used within the television show. As a presidential candidate why would you want to be associated with a TV show about an authoritarian game that kidnaps and kills people for sport? I then looked into the politics of Huh Kyung-young and I understood his politics better. Huh’s political party wants to create a socially conservative welfare state within Korea and he has previously made eccentric campaign pledges such as including giving 100 million won in relief funds to all adults, along with 1.5 million won as a monthly dividend so offering large sums of money are kind of his thing.
I was really hoping this article would end with the man selling his phone number to the presidential candidate that then used that platform to spread information about his campaign. Would have been a very interesting call for the unassuming. Imagine calling a number you see in a show out of curiosity or as a prank and getting put through to a presidential candidate. I would definitely be confused and maybe a bit startled. If the man was later elected and he used the number as a hotline for citizen complaints I feel like that would have been really funny. Oh well. Hopefully, the man with the number will stop being bombarded at some point in the near future...Although if it were me I would change my number despite my business just for the peace of mind. I can't imagine what kind of unwanted texts and pictures you would receive from...certain parts...of the show's demographic.
This is honestly really funny. I do feel a bit bad that the man got so flooded with messages and calls. I am glad that Netflix is trying to work things out with him but the poor man seems to have his entire life tied to this phone number. I think the fact that the Korean presidential candidate pulling all of these stunts, including offering to buy this phone number, only to win just over 1% of the vote. I think that that more than anything proves that gimmicks and overspending for publicity stunts does not replace actual policy. I do think that this general problem is something that is not unique to this situation, however. 8675309 was a real phone number that someone had that blew up after the song was released. This may be something that should be thought of before a piece of media gets released. Or if you want the phone number to be real make it into a mini ARG.
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