The wait for Grand Theft Auto VI, set on the 19th of November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, generated a real cultural phenomenon before even playing the title. A simple look at Instagram, TikTok or YouTube reveals an explosion of meme, fan art, fast mounts and clips created with artificial intelligence. The aesthetics of the game – saturated colors, film lights, immediate references to the saga universe – has become a "visual language" accessible to all, even those who do not intend to purchase the game. The mechanism is simple and effective: creators and enthusiasts take personal images, videos, known faces or real places, and turn them back into scenes that evoke Vice City. You don't need a professional graphic team, just a phone and a little creativity. The result is a continuous production of content that keeps the attention high over time. The views of the official trailers testify to the scope of the hype. The first trailer, published on YouTube in December 2023, exceeded 294 million views, while the second one, released in May 2025, exceeded 180 million. The long wait between GTA V and this new chapter has amplified every detail, transforming even the smallest peculiarities into media events. On Instagram, the @nocturn.psd profile published a reel that imagines a realistic version of the everyday life of Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, the two protagonists of the game. A round of scenes trying to imagine how those characters would be if they really existed outside the screen. Communities also help keep the wait alive. The @grandtheftauto6 profile shares news, curiosities, anticipations and, above all, screens of comparison between the different iterations of the saga, highlighting how changed over time the models of the characters and the care of the details. There are also more playful drifts, such as the video by Daigiaste that imagines a GTA VI populated by players and coaches of the Italian Serie A. The artificial intelligence generated further fueled this phenomenon. In recent months, the habit of transforming normal photographs into images reminiscent of covers or saga loading screens has spread. The process is accessible to everyone: just upload a portrait to ChatGPT or another model and use a prompt that requires a digital and semi-realistic style, with marked contours, intense colors, cinematographic lights and atmospheres inspired by the settings of the game. They are born true collections of commands, on the TikTok platform @phototvo profiles feed the trend. VERDETTO: MISTO Il fenomeno dei meme e dell’AI prima ancora del rilascio di GTA VI è un riflesso della sua immensa popolarità e dell’estetica immediatamente riconoscibile del gioco. La capacità di appassionati e creator di trasformare il quotidiano in scene iconiche Vice City è, senza dubbio, una dimostrazione di creatività e coinvolgimento della community, amplificata dall'accessibilità degli strumenti di AI generativa. Tuttavia, la dipendenza da un fenomeno meme per alimentare l’hype, soprattutto considerando la natura intrinsecamente "guidata" dell'AI in questo contesto (prompting, reinterpretazioni), solleva alcune domande sulla profondità del coinvolgimento rispetto a una semplice riproduzione e trasformazione di elementi preesistenti. Il fatto che Jason Duval e Lucia Caminos siano diventati soggetti di interpretazione meme evidenzia un certo livello di attenzione verso i personaggi, ma anche la tendenza a trattarli come icone piuttosto che come figure complesse. La proliferazione di queste reinterpretazioni suggerisce, forse, una certa superficialità nell'analisi dei personaggi all’interno del gioco, concentrandosi sull'aspetto visivo e sul potenziale memeizzante piuttosto che sulle sfumature della trama o dello sviluppo del personaggio.
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