Screen Playgrounds: tv Series as ‘School of Life’ for Gamification

Gamification spreads on television screens by replicating the ambivalence that distinguishes it in everyday life. The recent success of some tv shows focused on hybridisation between game and reality suggests the impact it has on collective imaginary and the persistence of a demand of knowledge for understanding it. What representation of gamification do tv shows offer? What is it possible to learn about this practice through the “school of life” of television? This paper starts from these questions to deal with the content analysis of the audio-visual texts of six titles published by Netflix in the last six years: Dash & Lily (USA), Love & Anarchy (Sweden), You vs. Wild (USA), Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (UK), Alice in Borderland (Japan) and Squid Game (South Korea). These series have a different origins and narrative styles but, together, they seem to make up the stages of a training ground for an experience that marks a profound deconstruction of the modern cultural apparatus.