Netflix thinks subtitles are a ‘Squid Game’

My Netflix watch list hasn’t included “Squid Game” yet, but by the looks of my social media feeds, I’d better change that. In a matter of days, the Netflix original Korean drama has become the streaming service’s biggest non-English language show. 

On TikTok, the hashtag “#SquidGame” amassed 29.5 billion views and the “Squid Game” sound, a Korean song sung during the show’s version of “Red Light, Green Light,” has been used 998,700 times. While many of the videos include cosplay, memes and recreations of the dalgona candies made on the show, a large number of videos contain analysis of Netflix’s English subtitles. 

What these videos reveal is that you can’t always trust subtitles. 

According to these creators, “Squid Game’s” English subtitles are oversimplified to the point that the viewer is being given inaccurate information about key character traits and K-drama tropes. 

TikTok user Youngmi Mayer posted a video explaining the mistranslations and tweeted the following: “not to sound snobby but i’m fluent in korean and i watched ‘squid game’ with english subtitles and if you don’t understand korean, you didn’t really watch the same show. translation was so bad. the dialogue was written so well and zero of it was preserved.”

According to Mayer, Mi-Nyeo, a character in the show, has her dialogue constantly mistranslated. Since she is supposed to be playing a low-income character who is determined and confident, she swears a lot and takes no bullshit. Mi-Nyeo’s one-off quotes get sanitized to be “more palatable,” but in turn, the audience loses the character’s values which can be picked up through speech.

Moreover, American audiences and K-drama fans are losing out on tropes that occur within Korean media. There is a point where the English translations suggest that Mi-Nyeo says, “I’m not a genius, but I still got it to work out. Huh.”

This in reference to Mi-Nyeo stating she was able to figure out the challenge in the game. However, Youngmi says that what Mi-Nyeo actually says is, “I am very smart, I just never got a chance to study.”

According to Youngmi, this is a huge trope in K-dramas, as there is more often than not a low-income character who is clever, witty and smart but was not given the opportunity to study. These tropes are probably things that fans of the genre look for, and they are the storylines that help non-Korean fans better understand recurring themes of Korean media.  

Even though these things seem like inconsequential details, they are meticulously thought out by the writers and creators. They are details that the audience is meant to know about it, to better understand the plot and to possibly relate to. 

Similarly, these translations could also serve as an educational tool for Korean culture. TikToker @hyuckstan02, explains Netflix’s subtitles fail to respect honorifics, which are titles used to express status or respect. In English, they are titles such as “Mrs.” or “Mr.” and even the more royal-like “Your Highness” or “Your Majesty.” 

@hyuchstan02 explains that a character named Sangwoo tells another character, Ali, to start calling him “hyung” instead of “sajangnim.” In Korean the word “hyung” is an honorific that means “older brother.” “Sajangnim” is a title that is equivalent to boss. 

In the subtitles, however, it shows that Ali goes from calling Sangwoo “boss” or “sir” to using his name. The audience loses the fact that they have created a brotherly bond. Their connection becomes deeper by going from calling someone a title to being on a first-name basis.   

There are plenty more analyses and theories about Netflix’s lack of effort when it comes to subtitles, but these two examples give enough information about some of the things that are lost in translation. 

This problem is much more serious than just an audience receiving a misconstrued version of a show; it is about honoring the integrity of an artist’s work. Time and time again, American media industries disregard non-English films. 

We saw this with the 2019 movie, “Parasite.” “The one-inch barrier” of subtitles, as director Bong Joon Ho put it, often becomes just that — a barrier. International films with subtitles tend to get less publicity or fewer views. Many people do not want to read subtitles either, becoming more of a hurdle toward non-English films getting the recognition they deserve. 

With “Squid Game,” it is encouraging to see international media is being watched and growing in popularity. However, there is still a barrier that remains. The hurdle of subtitles has been cleared, but the quality of these subtitles is being called into question. 

Thus, the writers, directors, producers and other staff whose whole lives have been working toward gaining a hit, are only putting a part of their story into the world. The messages, ideas and characters they want to share with the audience are being lost due, in part, to American media’s lack of attention to detail toward anything that isn’t in English. 

All I have to say is, do better Netflix. You are a multi-million dollar company that can afford to push back a show’s release if it means getting better translations. If not for the audience to better understand the plot of a show, do it out of respect for the piece of work and commentary the creators have worked tirelessly to create. 

Trinity Gomez is a senior writing about TikTok and popular culture. Her column, “TikTalk,” runs every other Friday.