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Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

Same goes for certain types of lead characters in things like American Psycho, Fight Club, Mad Men and Wolf of Wall St. These are seen as aspirational instead of cautionary tales.

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And, famously, Michael Lewis's first book, "Liar's Poker":

> Despite the book's quite unflattering depiction of Wall Street firms and many of the people who worked there, many younger readers were fascinated by the life depicted. Many read it as a "how-to manual" and asked the author for additional "secrets" that he might care to share.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker#Reception

I go to a restaurant where the owner has recently hung a sign reading “The World is Yours” as though Tony Montana from Scarface should be regarded a fount of wisdom.

If you want to deify Tony Montana, there is one quote that is the John 3:16 of his proselytizing, and the world is yours is not that quote. I guess you can't put it in a restaurant.

There was a recent article in NYT about Grand Theft Auto and the author mentions that their friends became a little more racist after playing it as kids. My takeaway was that these forms of media aren't for children because they probably won't understand that it's satire. Then I realized that many adults don't understand that it's satire either.

Edit: article in question: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/arts/grand-theft-auto-isl...

The framing and cut scenes in GTA may be satire but the gameplay where you actually immerse yourself in the game in get into the character's shoes mostly aren't. Those parts are largely just shooting people.

I guess you could argue that it's some other kind of satire than being anti violence.

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