"Stupid Game: The Copy Version": A thematic discourse analysis examining the articulation of dislike by anti-fans that positions the Netflix reality series Squid Game: The Challenge as a bad object.

Abstract

This thesis examines how anti-fans articulate their dislike towards the Netflix reality series Squid Game: The Challenge (2023) utilising Jonathan Gray’s concept of bad object anti-fandom (2019); positioning itself within anti-fandom scholarship and the object referring to textual elements such as genre or ideology in Squid Game: The Challenge. Gray has urged the need for more research involving anti-fans and dislike, highlighting the importance of studying why media matters to us, and why and when it does not. I argue that fans turn into anti-fans once a series does not align with their expectations, resulting in dislike towards an object within the series that they perceive to be the rival of their beloved media text, causing fans to become part of bad object anti-fandom. Netflix released its newest reality competition series Squid Game: The Challenge in November 2023 based on the Korean Netflix Original Squid Game (2021) that was received rather negatively by fans of the original. By performing a thematic discourse analysis as conceptualised by Taylor and Ussher (2001) on anti-fans’ reviews taken from IMDb, the motivation for dislike in the form of bad object anti-fandom has been made apparent. I have found that one group of fans turned into anti-fans due to the change of genre as they believed the series to be a second season of the original, while another group did enjoy the genre but majorly critiqued the execution of the games and its elimination processes and the series’ use of genre conventions. Both groups however, directed their dislike towards Netflix for not meeting their expectations and going against the ideological critique of the original. The dislike towards the genre, the execution and the representation of a negatively perceived ideology are in this case study what make SGTC a bad object according to anti-fans.