One Last Ride On The Road To GTA VI 📅 109 Days to launch
Fame Turns People Into Collectibles
Nigel and Mrs Thornhill don’t really see celebrities as people. They see them as collectibles.
Their rubbish, clothes, bathroom products, even the things they’ve thrown away become valuable simply because a famous person touched them.
Trevor initially wants absolutely nothing to do with it. Until Nigel mentions there’s money involved. That’s the interesting satire.
Celebrity culture can turn an ordinary object into something apparently priceless simply because of who owned it. The object hasn’t changed. The perceived value has. Sometimes we’re not buying the thing. We’re buying the story attached to it.
The bit I particularly like: Trevor initially looks at these two and thinks: “What the bloody hell am I looking at?”
Then Nigel says: “We could do with some help.”, and Trevor’s entire attitude changes. That’s Trevor’s entrepreneurial brain kicking in again.
He doesn’t understand Nigel’s obsession. He doesn’t share it but he immediately recognises a business opportunity.
That’s becoming a recurring trait with Trevor. He doesn’t necessarily understand other people’s motivations, but he’s remarkably good at recognising when someone’s weirdness can be monetised.
And there’s another great layer: Nigel and Mrs Thornhill have come to America because they believe celebrities are somehow different from ordinary people. They say: “They’re not like you or me.”
And that’s exactly the illusion Rockstar is satirising. They’re not. They’re people. They eat. They sleep. They throw rubbish away. They have terrible days. They have embarrassing moments. They buy things. They make mistakes, but celebrity culture transforms ordinary human behaviour into content, gossip and merchandise.
Fame doesn’t necessarily make someone more interesting. Sometimes it just makes ordinary things more valuable to other people. That makes Nigel and Mrs Thornhill a brilliant pair of characters. They’re ridiculous enough to be funny… but they’re really just an exaggerated version of something we’ve been doing for decades: turning famous people into products.
Trevor is about to discover that there is apparently a lucrative market for other people’s rubbish.
With Grand Theft Auto VI on the horizon, I thought it was the perfect time to revisit one of the greatest games ever made. Over the days leading up to the launch of GTA VI, I’m returning to Los Santos for one last ride through the narrative.
In this new collection I’m analysing the story in the comments to tell you what I think is going on. Disagree with what I say? Get in there! My challenge is to get the whole game covered by GTAVI launch.
Link to full GTA playlist here:
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