GTA Online Green and Purple Alien Gang War

Submission 16,708

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About

GTA Online Alien Gang War refers to a humorous Grand Theft Auto Online practice which involves groups of players dressing in identical alien bodysuits, usually green or purple, and griefing other players on the server. The trend later expanded into a war between green and purple alien gangs.

Origin

On December 11th, 2018, Arena War content update was released for Grand Theft Auto Online.^[1] Among other items and game modes, the update introduced green and purple alien bodysuits (called Green Martian Bodysuit and Purple Martian Bodysuit).

On July 19th, 2019, Redditor^[9] Toa_Firox posted the earliest known video of a group of players dressed in identical green alien bodysuits ganging up on a random player. The post received over 2,800 upvotes in six months. A similar August 3rd post by Redditor^[10] 1940248281 received over 25,800 upvotes in the same period.

The practice did not see major spread until on April 15th, 2020, Redditor^[2] StraightWhiteMale02 uploaded a humorous clip of himself and two other players, all dressed in green alien bodysuits, pulling up in a van to another player, beating him with baseball bats and driving away. The clip received over 27,400 upvotes in two weeks (YouTube reupload shown below).

Spread

The video inspired other Grand Theft Auto Online players, with multiple users uploading videos in which they griefed other players as groups of green aliens in the following days. For example, on April 15th, 2020, Redditor^[3] Ryanosborne3 made a post titled "gotta rep the alien gang" that received over 1,000 upvotes in two weeks. On April 16th, 2020, Redditor^[4] Scutarior posted a video of two alien gangs meeting each other on a server that received over 26,200 upvotes in two weeks.

On the same day, YouTube^[5] user Red posted an 11-minute video in which he and his friends griefed other players as green aliens (shown below). The video received over 256,100 views in two weeks.

On April 25th, 2020, TikTok^[6] account alien.type.shit was created, posting videos of alien gangs griefing. The account amassed over 351,200 followers and 2 million likes in five days. Starting in late April, TikTok^[7] user oh_this_lag_rp and other accounts joined on the trend (example videos shown below).

The trend proceeded to evolve into altercations between groups of players wearing green and purple alien bodysuits; an "alien gang war." For example, on April 27th, 2020, TikTok^[8] user @oh_this_lag_rp posted a video of a group of players dressed in green alien suits beating up a player dressed in a purple alien suit that received over 1.2 million views and 155,700 likes.