'Squid Game' series breaks all records

In the "Honeycomb Challenge," participants have to remove the stamped symbol from a traditional "dalgona" Korean candy by licking or breaking the pre-carved shape out of it with a needle — without destroying it. The Brown Butter Cafe in Singapore organized the challenge for its guests. If they had followed the rules of the survival thriller series, this woman would have been dead.

Jung Jung-soon (right) and her husband Lim Chang-joo (left) prepare dalgona candy at their street stall in Seoul. They were hired during production of the series to make the crisp sweet, also called ppopgi, on set. Since the surprise success of the series, customers have been lining up to buy their snacks. Dalgona street vendors' sales have doubled.

Google searches for dalgona recipes have multiplied. On social networks, thousands of users show how to make the sweet. It's not difficult: heat sugar until it caramelizes, add a pinch of baking soda, stir, flatten it to make the round discs and imprint each with a mold.

The fact that the successful series comes from South Korea is no coincidence. Since the end of the 1990s, the government in Seoul has promoted cultural exports such as music, film and TV as an economic growth industry. It's been successful, as proven by boy band BTS and the 2019 Oscar-winning film "Parasite." The Korean Cultural Center in Abu Dhabi (photo) also organized a honeycomb challenge.

There was no dalgona candy at a Netflix promotional campaign in the Philippines — instead, visitors to the Robinsons Galleria Ortigas mall in Manila faced the robot doll from the "Red Light, Green Light" game. The 3-meter-tall (nearly 10-foot) figure warns pedestrians not to cross the street when the light is red. Luckily, unlike in the series, ignoring the warning doesn't result in getting shot.

A man and his daughter play the squid game on a squid-like diagram on the ground in Goyang, South Korea. As the attacker, the dad tries to reach the circle-shaped head at the top, while his daughter tries to stop him. The final game in the series is a classic South Korean children's game, which is once again enjoying increased popularity among young and old.