Every time a blockbuster game has a female protagonist, male gamers go feral. I’ve made this claim in the past and people have emailed me to object, saying that I’m generalising gamers or failing to see the bigger picture, but one look at Reddit shows that I’m not making this stuff up. Whether as a joke or completely in earnest, every time a big video game has a remotely diverse lead character (apparently women being 50 percent of the world’s population still makes them diverse) people start acting like they were raised by animals.
Obviously, as everybody and their mother now knows from the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, we have a female protagonist in the upcoming sequel. Her name is Lucia, she’s Latina, and she’s a woman. She’s also hot. I made the mistake of going on the GTA subreddit after the trailer dropped. As expected, everybody is talking about Lucia. Strangely, many people are arguing over whether a girl in a bikini in the trailer is Lucia in disguise, as they have a passing resemblance. There are multiple threads in the subreddit where people are debating the evidence for and against, including both characters’ mole placements, hair colour, and breast size. In itself, it’s a little strange, but hardcore fans of any series, especially GTA, are prone to conspiracy theorising.
They’re also being pervy
More concerning is the fact that there are a ton of posts about Lucia being an attractive young woman, except people aren’t putting it nearly as politely. As one commenter put it, “Rockstar really just wanted our balls as full as they could be.” Another said, “Guys, someone please mod her into GTA 5 And Cyberpunk Wearing the White Bikini as in the picture while we wait for GTA 6”. I don’t really want to link more of these posts, because they’re gross, so I won’t – but this meme, posted to the subreddit, about sums up the reaction to Lucia.
I’m not the only one reacting to these comments with disgust – one commenter said, “This shtick is so creepy to me. Some of you are joking, but most of you really need to go out and talk to girls.” In essence – touch grass. Of course, it’s not like the entire fanbase is frothing at the mouth. Many gamers are entirely normal people, contrary to popular belief, but those people aren’t the ones who are terminally online, and therefore aren’t drowning out the weirdos posting incessantly on the GTA subreddit about butts.
Posting a lewd comment about a video game character online is, in the grand scheme of things, not the worst thing in the world. Though it creates an unhealthy boy’s club vibe in gaming, this is par for the course when it comes to Reddit. What’s more worrying is the number of people who are crying woke.
Oh No, It’s The Woke Agenda!
I cannot believe we’ve gotten to a point where Grand Theft Auto, a series that has a notoriously contentious relationship with women, is getting ‘go woke go broke’d over having a female protagonist. People are saying the words ‘white replacement theory’ in the YouTube comments of the trailer because the diverse population of Miami is being accurately represented. They are transvestigating Lucia, despite there being zero reason or evidence to believe her character is trans. Twitch streamer Sneako was screaming on stream about “soyboys” and begging Rockstar to “wake up”.
It’s all nonsense, because of course it is. It’s the same old story – a studio acknowledges that there is diversity in the real world and freaks everywhere start tweeting about the gay agenda and woke brainwashing. Am I surprised? No. Am I disappointed? Yes! A series where you can infamously hit sex workers with your car has joined the leagues of countless other triple-A games being derided as woke, but thankfully, all this whining won’t actually have an impact on sales. Whether it’s actually woke in any conceivable way or it just has a woman in it is yet to be seen. Either way, GTA 6 is just the woke game of the week. I’m sure we’ll see gamers do this all again the next time a big budget game with a female protagonist drops a trailer.
What Are The Chances We Can Talk About GTA 6 For A Decade?
GTA 5 launched 10 years ago and we’re still talking about it. Will GTA 6 have the same kind of longevity?
Leave a Reply