Coca-Cola GTA Ad

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About

Coca-Cola GTA Ad, officially known as Video Game, is a 2006 3D-animated Coca-Cola commercial inspired by the Grand Theft Auto video game series. In 2021, the commercial gained widespread use as source material for image macros and other memes.

Origin

In 2006, American advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy launched "The Coke Side of Life" advertisement campaign for Coca-Cola.^[1]^[2] The campaign included a 3D-animated commercial, titled "Video Game," inspired by the Grand Theft Auto series. In the commercial, a tough-guy character subverts viewers' expectations by helping people around him as he walks down the street while drinking Coca-Cola. On August 31st, 2009, Coca-Cola uploaded the commercial to its YouTube^[4] channel, where it gained over 119,000 views in 12 years (higher quality reupload shown below).

[This video has been removed]

The commercial was shown during half-time of Super Bowl XLI^[10] in February 2007 and won the Gold Lion award in the film category at the 54th Cannes International Advertising Festival in June that year.^[3]

Spread

The video did not see use in memes until March 2nd, 2021, when TikToker^[5] the.anwaros posted the video, captioned "happy life" and set to a mashup of "Write This Down" by SoulChef and "Dead Wrong" by Notorious B.I.G. The video (shown below) received over 1.7 million views and 261,000 likes in four months.

Prior to March 5th, TikToker dirtymikekickingdikes posted the first meme based on the the.anwaros' upload, captioning the video "How i feel when a old lady says im a strong handsome young man" (post no longer available, reupload^[7] shown below). On March 5th, Redditor PolarCaptain posted a cropped version of dirtymikekickingdikes' TikTok to the /r/OneyPlays^[6] subreddit, where it received over 1,500 upvotes in four months.

On April 24th, iFunny^[7] user Barricaded reposted dirtymikekickingdikes' meme, with the post gaining over 230 smiles in two months.

The video did not see viral spread until on May 28th when an unknown user posted a meme in which the video, set to Grand Theft Auto IV main theme, was captioned "the people who don't start drama on Twitter" (reupload^[8] shown below).

On June 2nd, 2021, Twitter^[9] account @TheFunny_mp4 reposted the meme, with the repost gaining over 745,000 views, 16,000 retweets and 97,600 likes in one month.

In the following weeks, the video gained notable popularity as source material for memes.