I read with interest the news report of Pollisum Engineering’s Squid Game-inspired company event for its workers (Migrant worker wins $18,888 in Squid Game-inspired company event, May 31).

While I believe Pollisum intended to create a fun, engaging event for employees, I cannot help but think of the sociopolitical implications that the company overlooked by modelling its event after a show that critiques inequality.

In the Netflix series Squid Game, low-income individuals are given the opportunity to win a life-changing sum of money by triumphing in a series of deadly challenges based on childhood playground games.

Wealthy viewers watch the players fight for the prize as a form of entertainment. The series thus provides a commentary on income inequality under capitalism and the dehumanising nature of modern entertainment.

Pollisum’s challenges paid close attention to copying the tropes of Squid Game. People at the event were divided into players and game masters, and the games were designed after those in the show.

The report noted that Pollisum gave out a total of $100,000 in prize money. While every attendee received a smaller sum, Mr Selvam Arumugam, who supports 15 family members back home in India, won the $18,888 cash prize, which was 1.5 times his annual salary.

It is hard not to see that his situation is uncomfortably similar to those of the contestants in Squid Game.

Migrant workers earn much less than most people in Singapore. This event’s references to Squid Game inadvertently underscored the inequality in our own society.

Perhaps instead of designing a Squid Game-style event, Pollisum could have distributed that $100,000 sum more equally among its workers.

Nicole Ann Cheok