Annenberg Radio

‘Sir, would you like to play a game with me?’: Not Squid Game but Date Game

Have you ever been down so bad that participating in ‘Squid Game’ doesn’t sound like a bad idea? If you answered yes, you’re not alone

Photo of Squid Game iconography of a circle, triangle, and square on a monitor

Squid Game is a South Korean survival drama television series broadcast by Netflix, directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk. (Graphic by Michael Chow, Annenberg Media)

By Tucker Judkins, Kyla-Drew Simmons, Wyatt Allsup, Adam Jasper and Lyme Cho

Have you ever been down so bad that participating in something like Squid Game sounds like a good idea? If you answered yes, you’re not alone. Many USC students are now playing a dating game that also supports a good cause. Lyme Cho has the story.

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If you follow the insanely popular Netflix show, ‘Squid Game,’ seeing people dressed in red jumpsuits with a circle, or a square printed on their black masks might have scared you. They’re passing out brown cards to invite you to ‘Date Game.’

‘Date Game’ puts participants through a three-minute audio-first speed dating event. At the end, your profile is revealed, and you choose to either match with each other or not. Monji Batmunkh helped create this app and organized this event.

MONJI BATMUNKH: And basically, what we are trying to do is bring a completely new experience into online dating. We just stripped down dating down to its essence, which is connecting people over live conversation just like this.

You have to pay $5 to play this game, and the students who earn the most matches can win up to $5000. The organizers say half of the money raised will be donated to USC Colleges Against Cancer.

USC student Rachel Roberson is with USC Colleges Against Cancer. She was happy to hear from the startup about collaborating on a USC event.

RACHEL ROBERSON: Yeah, it was really exciting. We try to like partner with different orgs and do different sponsorships, and all the money goes to cancer research and patient support programs. So, we’re always reaching out to different orgs and businesses around USC. So, to be approached by people without having to put that initial contact in is always really exciting.

But this dating game has really nothing to do with ‘Squid Game.’ It’s just using the TV show’s popularity to attract students. Again, here’s the event organizer Monji Batmunkh.

BATMUNKH: When we hand out those cards from squid game, then you know, they will recognize those cards instead of, you know, just like a regular sandwich shop fliers that people give out. So those are the aspects that we like that we thought that it would be easy way to grab attention.

If they caught your attention and you decided to play, the matches will be made — online — tomorrow evening. So be ready to log in and meet new people. If you decided not to play, you could still donate to USC Colleges Against Cancer.