Player 456 is Seong Gi-hun, the debt-ridden protagonist of Netflix's Squid Game, first released in 2021. In the series, numbered players compete in children's games for a huge cash prize, and eliminated players are removed from the competition, often with a formal announcement. Clips of those announcements spread online as shorthand for being knocked out, voted off or defeated, because the show's global popularity made the number instantly recognisable. The sound remains popular in gaming edits, reaction videos and parody competitions that borrow Squid Game's high-stakes language for everyday losses.