From the creators of Game of Thrones, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and True Blood, Alexander Woo, comes Netflix’s current top show in the world, 3 Body Problem, an adaptation of Liu Cixin’s 2008 book.
The eight-episode series is a high-stakes sci-fi epic about an alien threat and the faith of humanity, which shot to the top of the platform’s most-watched titles in nearly 80 countries around the world, per FlixPatrol. Netflix’s promotional efforts mirrored the global appeal of 3 Body Problem, whose story begins in 1960s China during the Cultural Revolution and ripples across nations.
The platform took from the plot of the show’s fifth episode and transmitted a message on screens, buildings, and ceilings worldwide. The title “You are bugs” was shown everywhere from Times Square in New York City and Plaza de Callao in Madrid to the Southern Cross Station in Melbourne and Zona T in Bogotá. The set-up became a wide-reaching call that perplexed the public and effectively spread the word about this new, large-scale mysterious Netflix show, but what does it mean?
What does “You are bugs” mean in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem?
Like Netflix’s campaign, the characters in 3 Body Problem were also bombarded with the message “You are bugs” appearing on every screen in the world at the end of episode five. It served as a warning from the alien civilization known as San-Ti, who are planning to conquer Planet Earth and annihilate the human race.
The meaning of the phrase, however, has a couple of different origins. The San-Ti began seeing humans as insects when, in a conversation between Mike Evans and the San-Ti entity known as the Lord, the former activist and now an oil company-owning billionaire refers to the operatives who have been investigating the threat as “pests.” This is taken literally by the alien ruler. “I was describing them as pests because, well, that’s what they are. Annoying, inconsequential, easy to eliminate, like bugs you can squash under your shoe,” Evans explains.
The reference to “bugs” also ties back to the story’s origins in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where astrophysicist Ye Wenjie comes across the first signals of this extraterrestrial threat, who had been traveling through space for 400 years. In the show’s past timeline in the 1960s, Wenjie witnesses her father being humiliated and beaten in a struggle session while the militant youth chants “Root out the bugs! Sweep away all monsters and demons!” The parallel between the Cultural Revolution’s vision of dissenters, including scientists and intellectuals, as bugs and the San-Ti’s attitude towards humans highlights the show’s political stance.
3 Body Problem is streaming now on Netflix.
