Grand Theft Culture

Life exceeds parody.

The trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI is here, and it displays a decidedly different parody of America than what was featured in previous games. In fact, one can no longer really call Grand Theft Auto a work of satire.

This character appears in every single piece of media now; we will call her Shaniqua of Willendorf.

The second character, Lucia, is in an orange prison jumpsuit. This way, we know that she is a badass bitch.

On the beach, we see physiognomies never before imagined.

Twerking, ethnically ambiguous women, and more twerking. Women with hips so wide it is a wonder they don’t topple over.

What do we make of all this? Do we complain about “degeneracy,” LARPing as Anita Sarkeesian from the right, or do we over-analyze all the “go woke, go broke” aspects of the trailer? Neither. In fact, it is too boring to dedicate further words to. Grand Theft Auto is boring now, because the real world has accelerated past any parody its developers could possibly contemplate.

In 2002, murdering hookers in Vice City and getting your money back was a funny gag. In 2004, shooting up the Burger Shot in San Andreas after ordering a meal from the polite employees was brutal to the point of hilarity. In 2023, no one is laughing anymore. There is no wanton violence, forbidden sexual vice, or Dionysian spectacle that is too ridiculous to imagine. Grand Theft Auto is now merely a sad reflection of reality rather than the satire of gangster movies that brought it to the pinnacle of sandbox entertainment.

Rockstar Games, like all other studios, has followed the path of Bioleninism as though it were a physical law of the universe. In the word of Carl Johnson, “I hate gravity!”