I Left My Heart in Los Santos

Came across these two really wonderful videos tonight, and had to share ’em. As someone who bought GTAV when I was feeling really down, and got lost in the world of the game, it was a kind of salvation. Seeing these older people play it for the very first time was endearing, revealing, and fascinating. Each one of them I can somehow relate to.

But I think this really shows the magic of human creativity, and how alive we all really, truly are inside. This game, Grand Theft Auto Five, is not the best-selling game of all-time for no reason. For better or for worse, it is extremely impactful, dreadful, awe-inspiring, hilarious, and OPEN! And madly cathartic. There are moments I spent in the virtual world of Los Santos, online with other players here in Japan, late at night and completely unknown, that were very visceral, cerebral, and heartfelt echoes of camaraderie and love from strangers lost in the same crushing “real world” as me, finally delivered into the soothing balm of a virtual existence, expressed rudimentarily and so gently in a second realm.

It’s a hard thing to relate. And I am not advocating escapism. But anyone who has played with awareness, knows. Anyway. Enjoy watching these “older people” flip out. I love the sensible ways in which they think. “They’re gonna cancel my insurance,” says the old guy who does the most absolutely mild thing there is in the game by crashing his car into a wall. And I especially love the white-bearded guy who says “get off of my sidewalk” and the other guy who acknowledges these games, as graphically and hilariously horrific and ironically evil as they are, don’t lead to violence — that that’s a cop out. And the beautiful woman in awe of the breathtaking (but non-noteworthy-for-jaded-gamers) roller coaster simulation on Santa Monica pier.

THIS IS WHY I LOVE GRAND THEFT AUTO. Honestly, it saved me from a kind of dark time. Because it is not only the game itself. But what the players bring to it. Big love from Voluntary Japan.

P.S. I also got a pretty cool band name out of it. I decided to name my crime syndicate “Nite Owl Works,” and it stuck! 🙂