Squid Game Still One Of Top Global YouTube Shorts Topics

Squid Game season 2 was another global phenomenon – and one that continues to have staying power more than two months after its release; in part due to perpetual hype via YouTube Shorts.

Tubular Labs shows that globally, YouTube Shorts about Squid Game have generated 23.8 billion views since the start of the year, making it the No. 8 topic in the world among all Shorts in 2025.

• Squid Game only trails much larger topics this year, including very broad categories like food (24.0 billion views), film (36.3 billion) and humor (116 billion) among others.
• Notably, less than half (48.7%) of Squid Game Shorts views this year came from videos uploaded by U.S. creators.
• The show has generated over 1.5 billion global Shorts views each full week since its release in late December 2024.

While the show itself obviously lends to Shorts-type content, the success here is also a how-to guide for other streaming services with viral hits. Empowering moments in content that can be mimicked and recreated in meme form creates additional buzz for shows, without having to engage in paid partnerships.