Florida Man vs. Grand Theft Auto VI
How the new trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI has affected the artistic vision of your dear Florida Man
Before I begin, I want to say that this article will not be my normal article. I take a meta-look at how Grand Theft Auto VI might inspire the future of Florida Man vs. The World and my larger creative ventures in the coming months.
I initially wanted to analyze more specifically the content of the new trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, released by Rockstar Games on YouTube on Monday, May 5. I will compose a separate article focusing on a larger, thematic analysis of the second trailer and the content that Rockstar Games posted on their website. I just want to separate this article out as it already got decently long with just my meta-analysis of this Substack publication and my overall online artistic presence.
Florida in Visual Media
I’ll just say it. If GTA VI maintains the energy that Rockstar has presented us in its two trailers so far, I predict that GTA VI in 2026 will be the greatest artistic depiction of the Floridian ethos in visual media.
We have some really great depictions of Florida in cinema: Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983), Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2012), Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016), and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (2017). In Midnight Cowboy (1969), director John Schlesinger only visually depicted Florida for the last few minutes of the film, but the sun-drenched dream of Florida hangs over the entire film as Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) and Joe Buck (Jon Voight) trek through grimy 1960s Manhattan. As for television, we have Dexter (2006-2013) and Miami Vice (1984-1990), part of the reason that Vice City has its name. We even have Rockstar’s original visit to Vice City in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City from 2002.
Some people may see my prediction about the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI as ludicrous and premature. I get it. We only have two trailers, but — based on the fact Rockstar filmed them from real gameplay and cut scenes on an actual Playstation 5 and Rockstar’s three-decade track record — I have great confidence. Now, shockingly amazing graphics alone cannot exalt this game to the status of greatest piece of Florida visual media. I have a tangible reason for my prediction. For the first time, at a grand scale, we are getting a piece of media that depicts ALL of Florida — not just one city.
Most of the films and series that I mentioned focus solely on Miami: Scarface, Moonlight, Dexter, and Miami Vice. Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers focuses on St. Petersburg, and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project focuses on Orlando. On the other hand, Grand Theft Auto VI will be giving us fully realized versions of many different parts of the Florida. Even in 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, we pretty much could only explore Vice City, the fictionalized and satirized version of Miami.
Those pieces of media are not really depictions of Florida. They are depictions of Miami. Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is just a depiction of the Gulf Coast. Sean Baker’s The Florida Project is just a depiction of Orlando. None of them fully capture the Florida mythos, which unites all of these places.
How GTA 6 Ties to Florida Man vs. The World
With this Substack Florida Man vs. The World, I have attempted to capture this mythos in a non-fictional way. (Obviously, all of these pieces of media are fiction.) When I started writing here in earnest in June 2024, I might have thought that I would have focused more on Florida than I ultimately have. I have expanded into film, art, national and global politics — but I still try to steer most topics back to Florida somehow.
Florida Man on YouTube
I will have more ability to write and expand my Substack during the summer vacation, which starts in just two weeks for me. Since I am a teacher, I can only write so much during the school year, but — in the summer — I have much more bandwidth to pour my time into my creative hobbies and ventures. I plan on expanding my online brand in some way. I would like to return to YouTube in some form.
I did an “alpha” test of a video one month ago during March Madness. I created a bracket of all of the mascots of the 68 teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. (I ultimately crowned Tennessee’s Bluetick Coonhound Smokey as the best mascot of those teams.) I recently changed the name of the channel to “The Trapped Tourist” for SEO purposes. Too many other people reference Florida Man, and I am starting to see the archetype as overused.
I will likely maintain it as my Substack name as I do not see much reference to “Florida Man” on Substack. After all, Substack is many orders of magnitude less saturated than YouTube. Google’s video-sharing platform has 14 billion hours of videos, which add up to 1-2 exabytes (or 1-2 million terabytes) of cumulative video data. When people in my life ask me about Substack and why I choose to post on here, I often analogize it to YouTube in its beginning circa 2007.
Because of the nature of the medium of writing, I do not think that it can ever reach anywhere near the level of YouTube, but I have a greater chance of making a greater impact here over time. Nonetheless, I still want to create content for YouTube. Something about the visual medium of video editing entices me. The medium of writing has many creative limitations.
My “Mission Statement” of Florida Man vs. The World
As I already mentioned, I started posting regularly and frequently on this Substack in June 2024, almost exactly a year ago. In my June 7 article “Florida Man vs. Disney Adults & Splash Mountain”, I wrote a “mission statement” of Florida Man vs. The World, which does mention Grand Theft Auto VI.
Before I start pontificating about a princess cartoon made for children, I want to explain how this topic relates to the broader theme of this Substack publication Florida Man vs. The World, for which I posted the first article back in November. The article that you are reading right now might serve as a “hard launch” of this Substack publication. Yes, I already have posted four articles on here, but – in retrospect – I see these articles as “soft launches” in a way. (This characterization, especially, applies to the four initial articles that I published in November.)
Why do I see this as a hard launch? Well, the topic of Disney World quite comfortably falls under the umbrella of the exact sort of content that I want to cover on this publication of mine. With Florida Man vs. The World, I seek the encapsulate the mythos of the Sunshine State. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I think that Florida has reached a level of significance to the cultural zeitgeist of the United States in a way that it never had before.
We can identify many reasons for this increased relevance to all other Americans – e.g., the population boom since 2020, the controversial policies of Governor Ron DeSantis, and the impending release of Grand Theft Auto 6 – perhaps the most anticipated video game release in history) – and I do not see this relevance waning any time soon. Nate Silver elaborates on this in a recent Substack article of his about Florida. Perhaps the relevance will plateau, but it will likely not wane.
Considering our status as the third most populous state at 22.2 million people, Florida does not have the media that it needs: both fictional and non-fictional. Sure, there are plenty of exogenous stories about Florida from outsiders, but we need more Floridians commenting on the state. The editors at the new magazine The Miami Native have tackled this objective extraordinarily well so far. They released their first issue in November, and they are releasing their second issue this month. Nevertheless, Miami is just one metropolitan area in Florida, and my upbringing in Naples is very different from people who grew up around Miami.
I hope to fill the gaps for the other parts of the state. (Specifically, today, I will be discussing issues in Orlando.) This is my goal with this publication Florida Man vs. The World. For decades, we haven’t been taken seriously, and perhaps we behave in a manner that doesn’t deserve serious treatment. I get it. For the social media age, the meme of the Florida Man demonstrates the unserious reputation of the state nowadays. Definitionally, I am a Florida Man – in other words – an adult male who lives in the State of Florida, and I sincerely do not think that I am properly represented by the Florida Man about which you see in those sensational headlines circulating on Twitter and Facebook. Not only do the happenings in Florida have implications on the rest of the country, but also the Sunshine State itself serves as a microcosm of America. Florida will define the United States for the 2020s and beyond, and somebody needs to document it – ideally, a Florida Man.
Again, the school year limits me from fully making attempts at expanding my Substack and, eventually, my YouTube channel. I will likely begin posting more frequently in the next three weeks or so. This summer will also have one major difference from last summer. We will not be going through a presidential election, which consumed much of my attention. I can have a much broader focus on culture, and — hopefully — I can steer more toward my true interest of Florida.
Maybe I can become more of the Florida Man that I want to be, and this new trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 has reinvigorated my love for our zany Sunshine State. From what I have seen through the two trailers and Rockstar’s posts on their website, Grand Theft Auto VI is visually depicting the full extent of the chaos of Florida beyond just Miami. Yes, Miami might play the most important part, but we cannot forget the Everglades. We cannot forget the Keys. We cannot forget the Florida crackers of Central Florida. We cannot forget the roadside tourist traps. We cannot forget the sleazy motels.
In visual media, we forget so much about Florida. I want to document what we overlook about Florida. Perhaps my YouTube channel can eventually visually capture it, but somehow someone needs to capture the chaos. Why not a Florida Man? Why not now? Sometimes, it truly seems like it’s Florida Man vs. The World — and Grand Theft Auto VI can serve as my artistic lodestar.