Stop Calling The 'Squid Game' Phone Number For Pete's Sake

Ahh, Squid Game – Netflix's ultra-gory, ultra-popular Korean dystopian thriller that your friends can't seem to shut the hell up about. Yet aside from its status as one of Netflix's most highest-performing original series, it seems the show has also sparked several trend revivals, including red-light green light, candy making, insufferable streaming peer pressure, and most notably, annoying the absolutely hell out of poor, unsuspecting people by blowing up their phone lines with an onslaught of prank calls. 

Since the show dropped on September 17, one extremely unlucky unnamed South Korean businesswoman who claims to have the same phone number as the one displayed in the series says she's received thousands of calls and texts from fans – all of whom evidently missed the point of the series -- begging her to partake in the Squid Games. She says she's received so many correspondences, to be exact, that she says it's been “hard for me to go on with daily life."

“This is a number that I've been using for more than ten years, so I'm quite taken aback,” she told Korean publication Money Today, per BBC News. "There are more than 4,000 numbers that I've had to delete from my phone," she continued. "At first I didn't know why, but my friend told me that my number came out in Squid Game and that's when I realised."

However, it seems she's not alone dealing with an avalanche of texts and phone calls from fans desperately attempting to secure that fictitious bag – with a phone number just two digits away from the one appearing on screen, 26-year-old Hannah Kim of Seoul says she, too, has been bombarded with messages and phone calls.

“It makes me angry because I had so much fun watching Squid Game, Kim, an office worker, told The Wall Street Journal of her predicament, which has resulted in her receiving countless messages asking her “Is this ‘Squid Game’?” – a question, when asked enough times on an endless loop, would make anyone question if they're living in a late-stage capitalist apocalypse. 

Yet amid the rise of these real-life Squid Game horror stories, Netflix has finally taken steps to remedy the matter, telling CNN they would edit the phone numbers out of the series. "Together with the production company, we are working to resolve this matter, including editing scenes with phone numbers where necessary," they explained in a statement to the news outlet. 

So, reader, until the show is phone-number-free, take it from these poor, exasperated people. Yes, we may live in a dystopian, murder-hornet-filled hellhole, however, its important Squid Game is not real – but the very annoyed people who have that cursed number are all too real. 

Top Image: Netflix 

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