What Are Korean Variety Shows? A Guide to Finding Your Next Good Watch

People in tracksuits with numbers on their chests, confined in a room where a deep mysterious voice tells them when to sleep, eat, and get ready to play. No, this isn’t about Squid Game. The Netflix show is now a full-fledged hit but while its violent spin on traditional children’s games is intriguing, the very game show format it’s built on isn’t actually new. In fact, there's a name for it—variety shows.AdvertisementMusicThe Guide to Getting Into K-Indie, South Korea’s Next Global Culture MovementTommy Powell08.18.21Most Koreans or those who love K-pop culture would have remembered that in one episode of the game show Infinite Challenge, cast members played tug of war in a set made to look like two tall buildings, just like on the popular survival drama.Though, unlike the bloody Squid Game, variety shows may just be the purest form of entertainment on TV. It’s one of the few things children, young adults, parents, and grandparents agree to watch, uniting the family for about an hour...