Inspired By Squid Game, 1415 Students Play Red Light, Green Light Game For Guinness World Record

Over 1415 Students at the University of California Irvine (UC Irvine) participated in the largest game of red light, green light and broke the Guinness World Record. The students played the South Korean childhood classic on Wednesday in Aldrich Park. The popular children's game is commonly known as Statues and there are variations of the game throughout different regions of the world.

The game Red Light, Green Light has become a global sensation following its popular debut in the South Korean drama Squid Game, which is streaming on Netflix. From memes to references in pop culture, the sudden resurgence of the game is unmissable. Now, UCI has organised the Red Light, Green Light competition as part of its Welcome Week tradition and broken a Guinness World Record of maximum students playing the game together, which speaks volumes about the game's popularity.

A Guinness adjudicator present at the event verified that the UCI broke the previous record which was set by 1203 participants at Oregon's Willamette University in 2015.

🚦💙💛🐜🍽 Anteaters have done it again! With a crowd of 1,415 UCI has broken the Guinness World Records title for largest game of Red Light/Green Light. #UCIWelcome pic.twitter.com/PYwKgp8i5O

— UC Irvine (@UCIrvine) September 21, 2022

“I think [red light,green light] made a really big resurgence because of “Squid Game,” I'm not going to lie,” Semaan told LA times. “A lot of us, when we were kids, used to play that game as well. So in the spirit of having something that everyone would kind of know how to play, we chose red light/green light ... It's really rewarding to see how many people turned out to show their school spirit.”

“I know it's a little cringey, and UCI isn't particularly known for its school spirit, but I think this year is really different. I see a lot of people this year who are really willing to just let go of that conception of ‘Oh, I'm too cool for this' and just really have fun and play the game,” Semaan added.

Semaan organized the event with Connie Nguyen, vice president of student services, and professional staff, the leading publication reported.