A Look At The Real-Life Florida Man Moments That Appear In The ‘GTA VI’ Trailer

Arguably the most important video game trailer in years dropped on Monday. The first GTA VI trailer was leaked on Monday evening and Rockstar Games quickly responded by releasing the full trailer on YouTube where it racked up 70 million views in the first 16 hours.

What we know so far: GTA VI will take place in Miami and this game appears to be violently Floridian. I mean that both in the traditional GTA sense and with respect to how over-the-top the Floridian Easter Eggs in this trailer are. As a born-and-raised Floridian, I thought we’d take a look at the most Floridian moments from the GTA VI trailer but first, here it is for those that haven’t seen it.

The Most Floridian Moments In The GTA VI Trailer

At 00:42, this isn’t even ‘one moment’ in Florida Man history, this happens like once a week:

I personally know at least two people I can think of off the top of my head that have had alligators in their pools at some point. Here is an incident I wrote about in 2019 where an alligator was found riding on top of an alligator pool toy. Just a normal day in Florida!

Then there’s a moment at 00:47 where an absolute UNIT of an alligator walks into a convenience store:

While this is certainly a nod to when an alligator tried to walk into Walmart and they were forced to lock their doors, I’ve experienced something similar in the past. Back in high school, I went to use the bathroom and there was a frickin’ alligator inside! It just up and walked indoors like it was people. Unreal. This, to me, is the ‘most Florida moment’ of this entire GTA VI trailer.

Iconic Florida Moments In GTA VI Trailer: Spring Break 2021 Gets Out Of Control

While that doesn’t appear to be a cop car, it likely a reference to Spring Break 2021 when everyone flew to Florida due to the lack of restrictions and Miami Beach was out of control. The iconic Florida moment above from the GTA VI trailer was when a woman twerked on top of a cop car in Miami Beach.

At 00:50 in the trailer, there’s a mostly-naked Florida Man being chased by an officer at a gas station:

This mostly-naked guy being chased by police? That happened.

The real-life incident took place in August 2022 when a (fully naked) Florida Man wielding a machete was accused of trying to steal another man’s clothes. This incident occurred in Deland, Florida.

At 00:54 in the trailer we see an elderly man wearing a visor, a thong, ankle-high socks, and nothing else:

This man is a reference to a 2018 incident in Stuart, Florida. That story showed up in ABC 7 Chicago with the headline ‘Naked Florida man doing yard work angers neighbors.’

Honestly though, while it points to a specific incident I’ve seen this so many times in every part of Florida that I didn’t even think twice about it.

At 00:55, we’ve got some country folk playing in the mud. This is a scene that unfolds every weekend anywhere in Florida that’s roughly 1-hour or more from the nearest beach. Also, this looks like 20% of my Instagram feed on any given weekend:

In particular, there’s a place off 301 northeast of Gainesville that does huge mudder meetups (or used to) that was an insanely fun place to go get your Jeep stuck… Speaking from experience.

Florida Man Branded As ‘The Joker

At 1:04 in the trailer, we see this:

This person is a nod to a 29-year-old who was arrested by the Miami-Dade police back in May, 2017. He was branded the ‘Tattooed Joker’ by Fox 5 Atlanta and was accused of pointing a gun at traffic. The face tattooed ‘Joker’ story got picked up by countless media outlets at the time and he became a legend of Florida Man news.

For me, just this scene of the flamingos taking off in the Everglades is an iconic Florida moment. Mostly because while there are some wild flamingos in Hialeah, Florida and that population has grown over the years and there were sightings on the West Coast during hurricane season this years, most of the flamingos spotted in the wild in Florida would be released exotic pets which mades their inclusion even funnier if it was intentional.

Others not included, at 00:53 we see a guy in a truck who is about to start ‘ghost riding the whip.’ There are also the dirt bikers terrorizing the city, something that’s happened in Miami multiple times in the past. We also see an old guy partying on a yacht with younger women, something that’s happening a thousand times over every day in Miami.

Honorable Mention

At 00:58 in the trailer we see this woman standing with two hammers:

If she was holding just one hammer it might be up to interpretation but she’s holding two. Interestingly, this is actually a reference to an incident that happened across the country in Chatsworth, California where she was dubbed ‘LA Susan.’ She went viral for smashing up a neighbor’s car with two hammers while telling them to ‘go back to Mexico,’ in a story that got global attention back in June 2020.

Every state has its fair share of crazy news but ‘Florida Man’ news has been in the spotlight for years, due in large part to Florida’s Public Records Law allowing the media to easily access crazy arrest stories that might be kept private due to privacy laws in other states.

That’s just one (major) factor for Florida Man news. I could honestly write a multi-volume book series on this at some point but I’ll distill it down to saying the state of Florida is a magnet for rash individuals for a variety of reasons. We’ll revisit this later when I have time to sit down and write a book.