If you haven't played GTA 5 online yet, that's fine, this probably still will make sense to you.

GTA 5 online is fantastic, despite being a user interface disaster. The most interesting part is the "freeroam" mode. There are plenty of non-violent ways to interact with other players in GTA 5 online freeroam, but generally the only thing everyone does is kill each other immediately on sight. You get some small amount of money for killing another player, but not enough to explain the rampant violence. People just do it because they're mostly animals. Mostly insane. Mostly Trevors.

So last night, I'm playing online and I've found a place to get helicopters pretty easy I wanted to see if someone would get in the helicopter with me so I take it and land it in front of someone. Unsurprisingly, I'm shot and killed and they take my helicopter. It's no big deal though since I can get a new helicopter pretty quick, so I do this again a few more times to the same end - acquire a helicopter, land, get shot, get helicopter stolen, repeat. After about 6 or 7 times of this happening, someone finally decides not to shoot and rob me. Instead, very timidly and cautiously, they approach the helicopter and get in with me. I take off.

I like to think of myself as more like Michael. More of the sentimental type. So I take my new friend/guest/hostage around the map with me to all the cool places I've found. I show them how to rob liquor stores super easy and escape from the cops in my helicopter. I take him to the top of a mountain, to some construction sites, to the wind turbine farm, to the amusement park, we go all over and he genuinely seems to enjoy the experiences. At each stop, he gets out and politely looks around, as if in appreciation, and then gets back in the chopper with me. No words are exchanged at all since neither of us has a microphone, but nothing needs to be said.

After about 15 minutes of this going on, I take him to the top of the tallest building in the game. He goes to the edge and looks over the city. It's sunset, and it's beautiful. He's enjoying the view. It's serene. Before I know it, I have my pistol out and pointed at the back of his head. I ask myself "am I really different than all the other animals playing online here?" And as his limp body tumbled off the roof, I chuckled to myself and thought, "no, no I'm not any different."

I wonder about what the other player must have thought as he saw his character betrayed on top of that building. I like to think it was a learning experience for both of us. I learned that really, we're all Trevors.