You are there, on the couch watching the TV series of the moment: Squid Game. Yet the truth is another: you are not a spectator. You are trapped inside a game. A devious and manipulative game, where what is at stake is not money, but something more insidious: the control of your emotions and your mind.
And the worst thing? You don’t even notice it.
Squid Game, for those who don’t know, is a Korean series that tells of a group of desperate people who agree to participate in deadly games to win an astronomical sum of money. Or perhaps it would be more correct to define it as a festival of violence, a window wide open on the abysses of human nature. Every episode oozes oppression, aggression, contempt for others. There is no redemption, there is no growth, there are no ideals or values to rediscover. There is only absolute emptiness, packaged with all the techniques suitable to keep you glued to the screen. And in fact you, hypnotized, devour it.
Behind the scenes then, the marketing machine is equally deceptive. Clothing, shoes, make-up, hamburgers, cookies and gadgets of all kinds that invade our homes normalizing symbols of cruelty and transforming them into familiar elements. Filters on social media that show you what face you would have in the game, game rooms in every corner of the world and reality shows that reproduce the challenges in a “soft” version. And then there’s that childish little tune that amplifies the contrast with the brutality of the images it accompanies. By now it is omnipresent: you find it as a ringtone on phones and as trending music on social media. A sound that creeps into the mind and never leaves, keeping you unconsciously tuned to the frequency of those images, even when you’re not watching them.
Everything in short, every detail, is designed to hook you and make you participate in a system that you never really chose but that is meanly imposed on you.
I have even heard it said that Squid Game is actually a brilliant social critique of capitalism, of unbridled competition, of the society of “mors tua vita mea” (your death, my life). But the truth is another: the same series that pretends to denounce dehumanization, dehumanizes you. It pushes you to devour toxic images, to trivialize sadism, to accept violence as a form of entertainment. Without asking yourself why. Without reflecting on what it really means to wear pajamas inspired by the vilest inhumanity.
After all, that’s how manipulation works: it’s devious. It doesn’t arrive knocking on the door of the mind to tell you “here I am, I’m here to condition you”. No, it creeps in silently. It disguises itself as entertainment, as social critique, as “everyone watches it”, as a masterpiece that addresses important themes. It’s like this, while they make you believe that you are choosing, in reality, you are simply obeying.
It’s the same manipulation that exploits music: lyrics that contain violence, misogyny, hatred. Fake artists who wear the mask of the rebel musician, but who in reality are puppets of a destructive culture that proudly flaunts the lowest sides of the human soul simply because it sells. Victims and perpetrators of a market that has sacrificed art on the altar of profit.
You complain about an increasingly violent society, but you feed on these contents. And every time you do it you not only damage your inner well-being, but you legitimize a system that glorifies evil and thus contribute to the worst cultural and historical loss of our era: the defeat of ethics. We are facing a painful chapter in human evolution, a step backwards from the teachings of the great thinkers who preceded us. Plato and Aristotle explained to us that the meaning of life lies in the search for virtue, in the pursuit of good, in the elevation of the spirit. Dante guided us through a journey that explores the meaning of justice, righteousness and redemption, highlighting the importance of the moral path for salvation. Manzoni taught us that true greatness lies in the struggle against injustice. Giordano Bruno sacrificed his life to defend the importance of the search for truth and inner progress. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, through their works, represented the ideal of spiritual perfection.
And what have we done with this extraordinary heritage of thought and values? Nothing. We have forgotten it, let it vanish in the vortex of time and distractions. We have interrupted a path that had led us to conceive man as a being capable of evolving spiritually and seeking a deeper meaning in life. In its place, we have begun a process of involution, a slow and inexorable decay that has pushed us further and further away from the principles of morality and integrity.
We are no longer interested in inner growth, in the improvement of our being, in the search for wisdom. We prefer to remain chained to our dark side, as if our most authentic self were the one that emerges in its most primitive form, the one that pushes us to seek immediate gratification, to give in to instincts and superficiality. It is a return to the beast. A betrayal of centuries of philosophy, of thought, of ideals that aimed to make us progress towards the light.
Yet, we can still choose. We can stop feeding on poison for our mind, we can decide not to fuel a miseducative artistic culture and rediscover true art, the one that elevates, that inspires, that invites us to be better. We can choose, yes.
However, most people who read these lines will continue to maintain that Squid Game is a brilliant work, that it’s just a series like many others, that it’s right that everyone expresses their creativity as they see fit. They will continue to defend with every possible argument any obscenity if it is promoted by their favorite actor or musician because idolatry blinds them.
There, that is the sleeping mass.
But then there is a person, who somehow perceives within themselves that in this type of entertainment something profoundly wrong is hidden.
And that person could be you. Perhaps these words will make you stop for a moment to reflect more deeply. Perhaps you will reject the darkness and seek a light.
And that’s how you get out of the game.
Rona
♥
Jesus then added: «You see, Didymus, how the Kingdom was lost? Through jokes, useless phrases, foolish thoughts, which seemed only innocent pastimes.»
(Gospel of Thomas)
