It’s a fact that Squid Game took the world by storm. Just like that, all of a sudden, everybody was singing the ‘Green Light, Red Light’ song in all its language variations; everybody was recreating the Dalgona candy of the series on social media and even sharing how to do it; and definitely, everybody was avidly looking for merch of this iconic series that has become one of the most seen series on the Netflix platform.
Perhaps the story seemed too risky for the executives, but it’s a fact that no one anticipated the huge success Squid Game was going to be. This to such an extent that basically no merch was prepared to fulfill the needs of avid fans wanting to acquire anything related to the series. Naturally, we’re talking about the official brand owning the rights of the characters and visuals, because almost overnight, the streets of Mexico were full of all sorts of paraphernalia alluding to the series.
The iconic guard masks, the main costumes of the series including the pink jumpsuit (actually, most vendors started reselling recycled red suits from the series Money Heist), the green tracksuit with the different number tags from the characters, wigs with two pigtails, and orange dresses to embody the terrifying doll, origami game sets, piñatas, posters, and of course, all sorts of bootleg toys as interesting and odd as Mexican piracy can be.
If there’s something that characterizes Mexican bootleg products is the rapidness and the immediacy in which it is developed. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a movie, a series, a book, or even a fashion piece, if something becomes popular, most likely you’ll find a bootleg version right away. Now, there are all sorts of piracy that range from hand-made products (even made by artisans who don’t own the rights to reproduce such objects) to literally low-quality merch that has some sort of appeal due to their lack of details and commitment to its production.
Talking about Squid Game piracy, we can find products from both options. There are hand-made crochet dolls inspired by the characters and even custom Funkos. These came out almost at the same time the series was released; the Funko brand is just about to release their official dolls weeks after these pieces were already sold out online. But there’s also the other side of the coin, the low-quality products we mentioned before, and although they are not very well elaborated, and we could even say that they’re kind of ugly, they have some kitschy allure that’s making them quite popular around costumers.
Of course, the existence of these products raises an important debate regarding the ethics and morals of consumerism. Piracy indeed exists under absolute illegality, whether we’re talking about small businesses run by artisans hand-making products or big organizations functioning through corruption and violence. But should both be judged under the same moral law? Is it ethically fine to buy these types of bootleg products? Where does the cycle end?
At the same time, the existence of these products and the rapidness in which they are fabricated and commercialized in the open also talks about our consuming habits and the immediacy we are now accustomed to. Likely, legal businesses and official brands are still working as they used to back in the day, but the existence of bootlegged merchandise is only responding to the laws of supply and demand that our consuming behaviors are setting.
