A Belgian Youtuber is the latest person to jump on the Squid Game bandwagon with his version of the card game ddakji, a children's game that plays a prominent role in the Netflix sensation.
The stunt, by YouTuber Acacia Jr. Mbenga (21) and his cameraman Dilan Van Linden (24), asked people on Antwerp's Meir shopping street to participate in their version of the game, in which they were told to flip the red card on the ground using the blue one. While simple sounding in principle, generations of players young and old have found it's not as easy as it sounds.
Winners were awarded €10.
Losers – as in the series – got a slap in the face.
The creators, however, were quick to stress that their version of the game wasn't dangerous.
"Of course, we were aware that some people would go too hard on this and get violent, so we gave a gentle slap to still stay in the theme," Van Linden told HLN. "We are both film students and saw this more as a social experiment to see how much appeal the series actually has. To be honest, we did not expect to attract so many viewers. There were even so many people that the police came to check if we weren't hitting too hard. Fortunately, they were fine with it, so our game didn't come to a halt."
The Youtubers says they intend to make future episodes focusing on other games from the hit show, including 123 piano, which will involve 20 subscribers in the challenge.
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This isn't the first time the violent Korean TV show has made headlines in Belgium after children started playing their version of the children's games in the show.
Despite being marketed to over 18s, children at the municipal school of Erquelinnes Béguinage Hainaut have been caught playing versions of '1,2,3 Piano' and other games from the show. To mimic the show's outcome – where contestants are killed after losing – children are also "beating up" the loser, the school warns.
This resulted in the school sending a letter to parents and warning that children who continued to play would be reprimanded.
