The viral Florida videos in the GTA 6 trailer

A woman twerking on the roof of a car on a highway, an alligator walking into a store and a man arrested with a face tattooed like the Joker: almost everything weird in the first GTA 6 trailer really happened, and almost always in Florida. Rockstar has never confirmed it, but within hours of the premiere the internet had found the original video behind every scene. Here they all are, with what really happened, when and where, and what each one tells us about Leonida.

Why GTA 6 is full of «Florida Man»

«Florida Man» is one of the internet's longest-running memes: real headlines that start with «Florida man…» and end in the most absurd way possible. The explanation is fairly mundane: Florida has very broad public records laws, so police reports, mugshots and camera footage reach the press far more easily than in other states.

Rockstar has spent the whole series parodying the United States, and with Leonida, its version of Florida, the material was ready-made. The first trailer, released on 4 December 2023, a day early because it had leaked, devotes much of its middle minute to phone videos and security camera footage, just as we see them on social media. Within hours, comparisons like this one, among the most shared, were everywhere:

Scene by scene: what really happened

The woman twerking on a car

It is probably the most memorable shot of the trailer: a girl dancing on the roof of a car speeding along a Vice City highway while someone films her from another vehicle. The original dates from March 2017, in the middle of spring break, on the MacArthur Causeway, the highway linking Miami and Miami Beach. Filmmaker Billy Corben shared it with a comment that says it all: «because Miami».

The alligator in the pool

In the trailer, a wildlife officer pulls an alligator out of a backyard pool. It happens so often in Florida that the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has a programme to remove alligators that wander into gardens, garages and pools. The comparisons pair it with a report from local TV station WPBF, but there are dozens of similar cases: in March 2021, for example, an East Lake couple drank their morning coffee watching an alligator over two metres long swim in their pool until officers arrived.

Alligators are among the animals seen most in the GTA 6 trailers, and not by chance: we cover it in our story on Leonida's wildlife.

The alligator that walks into a store

A shot filmed as if from a security camera shows an alligator coming through a store's door. It has a very famous precedent: in June 2018, someone left an alligator almost a metre long inside a Wawa, a chain of petrol stations with shops, in Lakewood Ranch. Police ended up arresting a 17-year-old who had found it on the street and let it loose there as a prank.

The «Florida Joker»

In one of the trailer's news reports there is a man under arrest with dyed hair and a face covered in tattoos. Fans identified him straight away: he is the spitting image of Lawrence Sullivan, known as the «Florida Joker», whose mugshot went viral in 2017 for his resemblance to the Batman villain.

Sullivan was quick to notice too. He posted several TikTok videos saying the character was him and ended up asking Rockstar for between one and two million dollars: «y'all took my likeness, y'all took my life».

The neighbour watering the garden naked

A man in a thong waters the front garden of his house, completely unbothered. It recalls the local news reports about «the naked neighbour», like the one aired by WPBF, which also shows up in the comparisons: one of those «Florida Man» headlines that get shared again and again.

The dirt bikes and ATVs on the highway

In the trailer, dozens of dirt bikes and ATVs take over a highway doing wheelies. It is the classic image of «Wheels Up, Guns Down», a gathering held every year on Martin Luther King Day in South Florida that forces Miami-Dade police and the Highway Patrol to deploy helicopters and close access roads. Since July 2024, taking part in a street takeover with ten or more vehicles is a felony in Florida.

The hammer woman… who wasn't from Florida

A woman in a nightdress, with a hammer in each hand, confronts a car. The video that inspired it is from June 2020, but it was not filmed in Florida: it was in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, where a woman smashed her neighbour's car with hammers and hurled racist insults at her. The Florida connection is almost a joke: the car's owner was in Florida for work when it happened and posted the video from there.

Can anyone sue Rockstar for appearing in GTA?

They can. Winning is another matter. A character looking like someone is not enough: the law protects parody, and what Rockstar does is exaggerate a type of character, not reproduce a specific person. There are also precedents with GTA V: Lindsay Lohan sued Take-Two because she believed a character was based on her, and Karen Gravano, from the series Mob Wives, did the same over another. In 2018, New York's highest court dismissed both lawsuits.

Even Rockstar's actors weighed in on Sullivan's case. Roger Clark, the voice of Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, advised him to make the most of the fame rather than fight the studio, because «they know exactly what they can and can't do».

What they tell us about GTA 6

Beyond the meme, these scenes leave clues about what Leonida will be like:

Social media everywhere. Almost every scene is filmed vertically or framed like a phone video, as if uploaded to a social network. Rockstar has not shown what it will look like yet, but it is hard to imagine a Leonida without its own version of TikTok.
A world that goes on without you. The alligators, the neighbours and the bike gatherings happen without the player stepping in: they fit the idea of a Leonida full of life that Rockstar described in the Extended Look.
A satire with an owner. Just as GTA V made fun of Los Angeles, GTA 6 takes what the United States has already turned into a meme and exaggerates it a little more.

If you are interested in the geography, the neighbourhoods, beaches and swamps Rockstar has copied from the real Florida, it is all in the real Florida locations that inspire the map. Here is a good video summary from GameSpot that mixes both:

References

Frequently asked questions

Which real videos appear in the GTA 6 trailer?

Among the clearest: the woman twerking on a car on Miami's MacArthur Causeway (2017), the alligator let loose in a Lakewood Ranch Wawa (2018), the «Florida Joker» Lawrence Sullivan, alligators in pools, the neighbour watering naked, the «Wheels Up, Guns Down» bikes and the Los Angeles hammer woman (2020).

Has Rockstar confirmed it was inspired by those videos?

No. The connections were found by players comparing the trailer with the original videos. Rockstar has not commented on any of them.

Who is the GTA 6 Florida Joker?

Lawrence Sullivan, a Florida man whose mugshot went viral in 2017 for his facial tattoos. After the trailer he asked Rockstar for between one and two million dollars; the studio has not responded publicly.

Are all the scenes from Florida?

Almost all. The big exception is the hammer woman, filmed in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, although the car's owner was in Florida when it happened.

The viral Florida videos Rockstar put in the GTA 6 trailer