Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s only one word we can use to describe Husnain Asif (Player 198) from Netflix’s ‘Squid Game: The Challenge,’ it would have to be determined considering how he went about this experience. The truth is he never really stayed on the down-low since that’s just his personality — loud and honest — but his strategy was to people-watch before befriending the strongest competitors. Yet alas, this backfired once he made an offhand comment about player 432 Bryton Constantin being a “fratboy,” as it led to the latter kind of threatening him and them getting into a full-on rivalry.
Husnain had actually decided he would not hesitate to boot Bryton if ever given a chance, which is why he was pumped when Test #2 rolled around following Red Light, Green Light and Dalgona. A telephone was placed right in the middle of their dormitory for this mind game, only for him to answer it as soon as it rang in the hopes it would allow a low-consequence handpick elimination. However, to his surprising disappointment, it just earned him a tray of burgers as well as fries — most of which were stolen by his peers — driving him to pick up the phone for the second time too.
Little did Husnain know that in a complete 180, he’d be tasked with getting another contestant to pick it up within two minutes or face elimination himself — he failed and had to say goodbye. He has since stated, “I genuinely thought it was going be the chance to eliminate someone and I didn’t want it to be me, so I tried to get ahead of it,” prior to adding he doesn’t regret it a bit. After all, he went out as a result of his own actions and did so without any betrayal: “The only way I could have got someone to pick up the phone is if I snaked my friends in there, and I wouldn’t have done that.”
Where is Husnain Asif Today?
Although a native of Middlesborough, Husnain was actually in London studying Accountancy-Finance at Queen Mary University when a spontaneous decision turned his world upside down. That’s because he’d started “making TikTok content as soon as the first lo ckdown hit [back in 2020 owing to covid-19], purely because of boredom,” unaware he’d go viral almost immediately. One of his first videos was about how to get a free nose job from the NHS (National Health Service), and he “woke up the next morning to over 200,000 views, so from there, I just started uploading more.”
Husnain even went viral in 2021 by sporting a high-vis jacket to come across as a Covid Marshall and freak people out near his university halls, the concept of which was then reproduced by others. “The Marshall thing was just to scare the other students because we could see them breaking Covid rules and getting scatty about it from our accommodation windows…,” he once said. “It didn’t take any prep at all really – aside from the Morrisons logo I scratched out at the back… we just thought of the idea on the spot and then winged it. Most of my TikToks are like that to be honest.”
It thus comes as no surprise that once Husnain was done with his studies, he decided to continue expanding his career as a TikToker/Public Figure rather than opting for a traditional corporate job. The fact this industry opens up innumerable opportunities — like an edge to land a spot in ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’ or more basic things such as brand deals plus traveling — while also allowing him to spend quality time with family was likely a massive point of consideration for him too.
So, of course, Husnain chose to go down this path, and from what we can tell, he appears perfectly content with it. In fact, it seems like the Englishman has been enjoying the fruits of his labor alongside his loved ones right in the States for the past three months. As for his time in the Netflix original series, he has expressed, “I don’t feel like I ever really left. I stayed in peoples’ heads rent-free, even after the show.”
Read More: Darius: Where is the Squid Game Player Now?
