The scene: Grand Theft Auto Viconic city of Los Santos. People roam outside an apartment building, probably planning crimes. Nothing seems out of the ordinary – except for a lonely figure. Dressed in suffocatingly tight leather pants and a bulletproof vest, he looks ready for anything and nothing at the same time. He also looks like Keanu Reeves. He approaches a nearby man and asks – practically begs – for a cigarette. “I need my shit … I need my dose,” he says in a hoarse voice. Then it stops when it slips repeatedly in a T pose while repeating the same phrase over and over. “I need my … I … I … I … I …” Grand Theft Auto RPG, and nowadays, is a little different than what you remember.
GTA RPG is exactly what it sounds like: players run GTA VThe immense open world and pretend to be policemen, criminals and everything, living daily stories of their own creation. GTA VThe player-made “No Pixel” RPG server never left, but the high delusionals of 2019 GTA Boom boom feel like a distant memory. However, on the back of No Pixel 3.0 update (launched last Friday) and the general popularity of RPG on Twitch, GTA PR is back and bigger than ever. Namely: in March 2019, at the height of the trend, GTA V peaked at 304,053 simultaneous viewers. Last Sunday, reached 438,350 simultaneous viewers. Even yesterday, which was not as remarkable a day as Sunday, still hit the high point of March 2019 for almost 100,000 viewers.
It’s not hard to see why: first and most obviously, Twitch’s overall audience is much larger now than it was in 2019, which means that an insignificant number of viewers are probably coming in. GTA PR for the first time. As in 2019, big names joined the regular squad of police and thieves, with the controversial megastar Félix “xQc” Lengyel representing the will of Twitch’s collective id, while at the opposite end of the spectrum, Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris resurrects his subtly brilliant character from the last time, Kevin Whipaloo, the man who refuses to commit crimes in a city where basically the only thing anyone does is a crime. Streamers who have seen their star rise since then, like the political giant Hasan Piker, also joined the fray after the upsets in the undisciplined barriers of Rust RP (Piker plays a character with an amateur Italian accent who “disguises himself” using an amateur Texan accent).
The appeal is more or less the same as last time: streamers stage their own chaotic microdramas, and you never know when a big name or notorious character might make a cameo on your favorite streamer’s show. It is absolutely 100% garbage television; Troubled stereotypes and caricatures abound, as well as scenes from dramas similar to Jerry Springer. It is impossible to look away, even though you spend the same time laughing and cringing.
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But on the contrary Rust or Minecraft, which are much better at facilitating the rampant punch of trees in the game than RPG, No Pixel 3.0 includes more RPG-specific features than ever before. Crime and policing are far from the only real options; now players can also be driving instructors, mechanics, dealership owners, judges and more. Morris’s character, Kevin, runs a diner that has basically functioned as a real diner, with customers, employees and everything. This may seem boring, but then Someone playing a wizard appears in the parking lot to sell Kevin a “potion” that is really just a bottle of high fructose corn syrup, and the entertainment value of running a restaurant in a city that has gone crazy is crystal clear.
The single greatest example of this dynamic is Burn, a streamer who spent the last few days playing the character of Keanu Reeves from Cyberpunk 2077, Johnny Silverhand. To like Vader last time GTA PR exploded, Burn is the star of this season’s getaway. His pastiche is excellent; he preaches Reeves’ schmaltzy but credible intensity, turning even mistakes – like stabbing an ally – into excuses to complain about how he won’t stop for nothing to bring down the “body scum”.
Burn shows everything about Reeves’ performance and Cyberpunk until 11, generously spitting out phrases like “this is cyber-fuckedIn a perfect Keanu Reeves voice, although it somehow didn’t break the character to laugh about how ridiculous he looked. In what is now his second most popular clip of all timeBurn takes this joke to its conclusion (logical?), Telling an officer of the corrections department the name of a person who can help him bring down the diabolical Arasaka corporation: Howard. The official, another player, says he doesn’t know Howard.
“Have you never met Howard?” says Burn, like Johnny. “How about … Howard Deez Nuts?”
“Oh my God,” says the officer, who walks away.
Burn then makes his Johnny avatar turn and look at the camera, like the badge Cyberpunk 2077 the theme song suddenly swells up.
“Yes,” he says, using an emote to make it look like Johnny is taking off his sunglasses, “I’m Johnny Silverhand and you just turned into cyber punk.”
It’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen in my life, and it made me laugh so hard that I’m sure my neighbors two floors up heard me.
Burn is not just Johnny Silverhand; he’s Johnny Silverhand, from the notoriously buggy video game Cyberpunk. This means that he also moves out regularly, barking half phrases continuously while using an emote to pose T. It’s not exactly an original joke right now, but what sells it is Burn’s execution and timing, as well as the games willingness to play together. After all, no Pixel shouldn’t exist. It is not official and made by players, which means it is also subject to exaggerated comic craziness.
One of the most popular clips from all over Twitch in the last few days sees Burn crash a truck into a mailbox, at which point Lengyel, who was walking in the back, flies out into the street.
“What the hell is that?” Lengyel screams.
Burn starts to say “You cyber-fucker, boy”, but stops and starts doing a T pose while saying, “You, you, you, you, you”.
“I think we broke it,” says Lengyel.
But then, without missing a beat, Burn starts walking normally and moves to get back to the truck. “I’m perfectly fine,” he replies in a poisonous, petulant tone. “Just get in the fucking car.” Your character then sits outside the car and floats in place. Burn made the joke, but it was the game that gave the final result.
Rust and Minecraft may have gotten over it, but GTA PR has never gone anywhere and is now here to remind everyone who is the real king of absurdly stupid and somehow good performance art. In fact, we’ve all been cyberpunk and are better for it.