About

Grove Street World GTA Filter, or GTA Filter, is a Snapchat augmented reality filter by Nikita Treshalov that digitally places four gang members arguing or discussing something from the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas anywhere you point your camera, making it appear as if they are there IRL. Videos using the filter took off on TikTok in May 2021.

Origin

Around May 5th, 2021, Snapchat user Nikita Treshalov released the "GROVE STREET WORLD" filter on Snapchat,^[1] a filter that superimposes four Grove Street gangsters from the PlayStation 2 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over whatever the camera is pointed at using augmented reality.

On that day, TikTokers began uploading videos set to the San Andreas theme song in which they depict themselves in various situations interacting with the Grove Street gang members. For example, on that date, TikTokers^[2][3] @halaltech_ and @dc4static posted videos using the filter, gaining over 657,000 views and 726,000 views respectively in a week (shown below, left and right). It's unknown who first used the filter on the platform.

Spread

TikTokers continued to find success with the filter over the course of the next week, resulting in numerous videos (examples shown below, left and right).

On May 6th, YouTuber^[4] Viral Kingdom posted a tutorial on how to get the filter. On the same day, TikToker @crizzyfresh posted a video using the filter, garnering over 500,000 views in six days (shown below).

On May 10th, TikToker @vonky_vonky posted a video using the filter with their cat, garnering over 1.1 million views in two days (shown below).

On May 11th, PopBuzz^[5] and HITC^[6] published articles on how to get the "GTA filter."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References