Rockstar may have pulled a Fortnite dances on a few people, as Florida Joker expresses his disapproval.
As reported by TheGamer, real name Lawrence Sullivan, made a video reaction to his likeness appearing in the trailer of Grand Theft Auto VI.
Lawrence says:
“You know they got that character with the face tattoos, you know who they got that inspired by. By me, just look me up, Florida Joker, Miami Joker, you know what I’m talking about. GTA, we gotta talk.”
You can say what you want about Sullivan and his character based on how he ended up earning his infamy. But for Rockstar to be clearly referencing him, and other real life people who went viral, without getting in contact with them, much less talking about some sort of compensation, just isn’t right.
This is a similar situation, as I had noted above, to Epic taking dances from places like Tiktok and adding them to Fortnite, without getting in contact with the people who did those dances. As it turned out, of course, some of those folks created those dances themselves.
We understand Rockstar’s intent clearly here. They wanted to give people an immediate idea of the game’s setting. While there are going to be some fans who will remember Vice City, they wanted them to immediately visualize Leonida as their version of Florida. So they looked up a few viral videos coming from Florida, home of the mythical “Florida Man,” and referenced some of the most famous videos for the trailer.
But Rockstar is also a billion dollar company, perhaps even worth more than Epic Games. There is no way they can get us to believe that they could not have paid the people who they had referenced in these videos, in some way or form.
It certainly doesn’t help that they selectively used these clips to create this idea that Leonida is this crime infested city, filled with never-do-wells. That heavily hints at Rockstar’s belief that this is exactly what the real life city of Florida is. While we’re all very familiar with Rockstar’s brand of satire of American politics and society, this in particular hits too close to home.
But we’re not looking for Rockstar to change their attitudes on America, at least not in this case. This situation is mainly about stealing, and the thieves we’re talking about certainly aren’t the people in these videos.
Grand Theft Auto VI will be releasing on 2025 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
