About

The Recruiter Smiling refers to a reaction image and caption meme format based on images of Squid Game character The Recruiter (played by South Korean actor Gong Yoo), also known as The Salesman, smiling at the viewer, usually paired with captions about suppressed suffering. The meme format achieved virality on TikTok in early January 2025 following the premiere of the second season of the Netflix show.

Origin

On December 26th, 2024, the second season of the South Korean survival drama series Squid Game premiered on Netflix. On December 27th, Netflix's X^[1] / Twitter account @netflix posted a montage of scenes featuring the character The Recruiter, also known as The Salesman, a minor antagonist in the series. In several of the shots, The Recruiter smiles in a friendly manner while looking at the camera (shown below). The post garnered over 14,000 reposts and 63,000 likes in two months.

On December 31st, 2024, TikTok^[2] user @nickyboi0928 posted a still image of the character paired with a caption about suppressing laughter and feigning innocence after rage baiting a friend, set to a cover of the song "Never See Me Again" by Kanye West. The post (shown below) received over 490,000 likes in one month.

Spread

In early January 2025, the caption meme format achieved viral popularity on TikTok, with multiple memes based on images of The Recruiter smiling going viral. For example, on January 2nd, TikTok^[3] user @jackplaysbadminton posted a version of the meme that received over 287,000 likes in one month (shown below).

Following the initial virality on TikTok, the format saw further spread to other platforms. For example, on January 6th, 2025, the Facebook^[4] page Daylight posted an image of The Recruiter captioned, "Me smiling at you because I didn't hear anything you just said." The post (shown below) received over 100,000 reactions and 34,000 likes and was widely circulated online in the following weeks.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References