Squid Game is on track to become Netflix’s most successful series of all time. While that’s good news for Netflix, it’s bad news for the poor dude who owns the phone number used in the show.
Before we get into it, let’s give you some context. Squid Game is a South Korean survival drama that pits a group of desperate cash-strapped people against each other in deadly games for a mammoth prize.
The premise can be described as The Hunger Games meets Saw meets every movie or TV show that asks the age-old question: am I a good person?
In the first episode, a man gives out business cards with an eight-digit number inviting participants to call and join the mysterious survival game.
Unfortunately, it turns out if you ring this phone number it will actually connect you to a normal person, not the game master, and they’re not happy about it.
Update 7/10: According to The Korea Times, Netflix has confirmed it will edit out scenes that include the phone number in Squid Game.
Squid Game’s fake phone number connects to a real person
According to the South China Morning Post, the call receiver is a man in his 40s living in the Gyeonggi Province in South Korea. He told local broadcasters that since the Netflix series has aired he’s been bombarded with endless calls, upwards of 4000 a day.
At first, the man said he thought they were spam calls, but he found out they were related to Squid Game after one of the callers told him his number had been used in the show.
While it seems like a harmless prank call for viewers, it’s actually causing a lot of distress for the poor owner of the number. The man said he couldn’t change his phone number because it’s the same one he’s used for his business for 10 years.
He claims to be getting phone calls at all hours of the night, as well as text messages and pictures. He’s even turned to sleeping pills to help reduce his stress.
Netflix is apparently in negotiations to solve the issue, however, another solution may have presented itself.
The honorary chief of South Korea’s National Revolutionary Party, Huh Kyung-young, heard about the situation and offered to buy the phone number from him.
“I heard that the owner of the phone number showed on a business card in Squid Game is suffering serious damage from prank calls. I would like to buy the number for 100 million won [$116,000 AUD],” he wrote in a Facebook post.
Regardless of how this situation is resolved, let’s pour one out for this poor guy and pray he can get some peace soon.
You can watch all episodes of Squid Game on Netflix now, but if you’re thinking of ringing that phone number, be a good human and just don’t.