The "Before GTA 6" meme, also rendered as the phrasal template "We got X before GTA 6," is one of the defining internet jokes of the early- to mid-2020s gaming culture. The format expresses incredulity, surprise, or bemusement that some seemingly improbable real-world event has occurred prior to the long-awaited release of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto VI. With Grand Theft Auto V having launched in September 2013 and GTA VI not officially announced by Rockstar until February 2022 — and not released until 2026 — the unprecedented decade-plus gap between mainline entries created the fertile cultural conditions for the meme to flourish (Wikipedia, 2026). This report examines the origins of the meme, its earliest documented uses, and the trajectory of its viral spread across X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, TikTok, and Facebook.
The phrase originated organically out of fan frustration with the unusually long development cycle of GTA VI. According to Wiktionary's (2026) etymology entry, the construction "before GTA 6" emerged as English internet slang used to "indicate surprise, incredulity, or bemusement about the occurrence of a seemingly unlikely event prior to the release of GTA 6." Wiktionary traces sporadic usage as early as 2019, with the earliest cited quotation coming from X user @ollotropitroz on 9 October 2019, who tweeted "Ps5 got announced before gta 6. Crazy" (Wiktionary, 2026). Know Your Meme similarly traces the proto-meme to scattered posts on Twitter and Reddit predating 2023, including a June 2021 tweet by @zomaterasu joking that "We deadass got a whole new ocean before GTA 6" in response to National Geographic's recognition of the Southern Ocean (Know Your Meme, 2024). A frequently cited early Reddit example came from r/GTA in early 2022, with a post titled "we really having WW3 before gta 6," coinciding with the outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine war (Know Your Meme, 2024). The meme's emotional engine was Rockstar's prolonged silence: fans grew restless after a 2020 GTA V re-release announcement provided no news on a successor (Wikipedia, 2026).
While isolated examples appeared in 2019–2022, the meme did not crystallise into its now-canonical snowclone form until mid-2023. Know Your Meme (2024) identifies a key inflection point following David Grusch's July 2023 congressional testimony about alleged UFO retrieval programs. On 27 July 2023, TikTok creator @jadendunn posted a video joking "We gonna have aliens before GTA 6," which accumulated over 260,000 plays and 36,000 likes; the same day, Facebook page Memeception reused the joke (Know Your Meme, 2024). A week later, on 3 August 2023, TikToker @piepop977 posted a viral entry claiming a cure for cancer had been found before GTA 6, gathering over 900,000 plays and 190,000 likes (Know Your Meme, 2024). These videos established the rhythmic, sardonic delivery — typically prefaced with "no way" or "we really got" — that defined subsequent iterations. Wiktionary (2026) cites @lilgnar's August 2021 tweet ("new covid dropped before gta 6") as one of the earliest uses that maps cleanly onto the modern template, demonstrating that the form had been incubating on X before TikTok amplified it.
The format exploded in late 2023, fuelled by the long-rumoured GTA VI trailer announcement. On 20 November 2023, X user @kirawontmiss tweeted "we really got to see a drunk dog before gta 6," accumulating over 90,000 likes (Wiktionary, 2026; Know Your Meme, 2024). By 10 December 2023 — just days after Rockstar released the official GTA VI trailer on 5 December 2023, which became the most-viewed non-music YouTube video in 24 hours with 93 million views (Wikipedia, 2026) — the meme had become so ubiquitous that Redditor u/post-death_Wave_Core posted a self-referential parody to r/okbuddyretard mocking its oversaturation (Know Your Meme, 2024). The meme's reach extended into mainstream coverage: IGN, GamesRadar+, and Der Spiegel each ran articles cataloguing the phenomenon, and Wikipedia's main GTA VI article explicitly notes that "anticipation spawned a meme indicating bemusement that other surprising events occurred 'before GTA 6'" (Wikipedia, 2026). Each subsequent Rockstar delay — including the May 2025 push to 2026 and the November 2025 delay to 19 November 2026 — reignited the format, producing waves of new variants such as "We got the GTA 6 trailer before GTA 6" and YouTuber RussianBadger's viral joke about his son being born before the game's release (Know Your Meme, 2024).
The "Before GTA 6" meme is a paradigmatic example of how prolonged corporate silence and consumer anticipation can be metabolised into self-perpetuating internet humour. Originating in scattered 2019–2022 tweets, crystallising through TikTok virality in mid-2023, and explosively spreading after the December 2023 trailer reveal, the meme has outlived multiple Rockstar release windows and become a cultural shorthand for the absurdity of waiting. Its longevity — sustained across X, Reddit, TikTok, and Facebook for over half a decade — illustrates the durability of the snowclone format and the unique position GTA VI occupies in contemporary video game culture.
Know Your Meme (2024) We Got X Before GTA 6. Available at: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-got-x-before-gta-6 (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2026) Grand Theft Auto VI. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_VI (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wiktionary (2026) before GTA 6. Available at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/before_GTA_6 (Accessed: 14 May 2026).