Follow TV Tropes

Following

Gangbangers
aka: Gang Banger

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gang_bangers.png
Hangin', chillin' and a fair bit of killin'.

''"I keep ya weak! Comin' from the streets of the ghetto,
At the end of the week, I get to keep your dinero!
You're fast asleep when I sneak in your casa.
Now you're bankrupt, your life sucks and I'm laughin'.
You can't trust me, ese, because I'm Latin!
I don't care if you don't like me, everybody wanna fight me."''
One of the verses of Can You Feel The Heat, known to WWE fans as Eddie Guerrero's heel theme

The Mafia... FROM THE STREETS!

Members of a youth street-gang whose behavior usually involves various criminal activities, including drug dealing, killing members of other groups, and vandalizing buildings by painting graffiti tags. May or may not commit rapes note  as usually members of youth gangs have little trouble getting girlfriends who like the excitement and danger, some of whom are in girl gangs and killing their competitors too.

Gangbangers often fill the same role as The Mafia, but fit into a different archetype. Gangbangers are usually poor criminals, disorganized mobs who patrol ghettos, selling crack and getting into fights with rival gangs just for the hell of it, whereas Mafias are professionalized, more wealthy, diplomatic, often have connections to "legitimate" authorities, and typically engage in more covert or complex schemes such as assassinations and racketeering rather than petty crimes. The two can overlap, but the distinctive dress will usually make the difference clear; Mafiosi wear suits, ties, sunglasses and (if period-appropriate) fedoras, while gangbangers tend to wear bandanas (on their heads, around their faces, around their legs, in their rear pockets, or some combination of the four), baseball caps or beanies, wifebeaters (some will instead opt for hoodies, flannel shirts, American sports jerseys, or tall tees), baggy jeans with varying amounts of damage, and either Timberland boots or sneakers.

Levels of organization and professionalism can often vary, and frequently do in more realistic works; gangs often run the gamut from reasonably well-run organizations who at least make a show of protecting the neighborhood and doing what they don't trust the police and city to do (and often are pretty serious about it), all the way to Stupid Evil ragtag bands of idiots who care way more about killing people, acting on and cultivating beefs, selling hard drugs and firearms to anyone who wants them with no regard for the consequences, and committing low-yield, high-visibility crimes just because it's the thug life.

The Irish Mob can be either depicted as period-appropriate gangbangers or as a kind of Mafia (though don't ever call them that), depending on time period, location, and the creator's opinions. For instance, the Irish gangs (and all the other gangs, for that matter) in Gangs of New York were the 19th-century equivalent of today's Bloods and Crips (they did wear top hats, but toppers were not considered highbrow in the 19th century and in fact carried the opposite connotation). The Irish Mob in The Departed, however, was much more Mafia-like.

Mafias will typically be composed of Italians, Jews, Russians (or some other post-Soviet Ethnic nationality), or occasionally Chinese, Japanese or British, whereas as the street gang is made up of African-Americans and Mestizo Hispanics—or more recently, poor Asian-Americans (typically Filipinos and/or Hmong)—with Unfortunate Implications all around (although American producers can be forgiven, as this is often Truth in Television for the most infamous gangs, especially since an all-white gang fitting this description would almost certainly be labeled as Skinheads or something similar instead). May occasionally overlap with Biker gangs, though they usually fall into their own category.

As a nod to the lack of precision or training, they will typically use their weapons Gangsta Style. White Gangbangers is what happens when the Unfortunate Implications are avoided intentionally (and/or when it's a country where most of the population is white, like Russia—the Russian ones are called gopniki, singular gopnik, by the way).

Gangs separate themselves from each other with identifiers such as different coloured clothes and gang tattoos, which in extreme cases may make them a Gang of Hats. Often come from the Wrong Side of the Tracks. This is the alternative for most students in Save Our Students plots. Also a key component of the Hood Film.

See The Yardies for the British equivalent and Japanese Delinquents for a loosely-equivalent Japanese version (most Japanese Delinquents are just punks with little to do with organized crime).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Various gangs in Banana Fish, some more ethnically diverse than others. In particular, protagonist Ash runs a gang that includes white, black, and Asian members, which is noted as being unusual.
  • Black Lagoon: Chaka and his followers are a more street gang styled thugs for the Washimine Yakuza family who decide to stage a coup against the groups more traditionalist leadership of Yukio and Ginji.
  • Peepo Choo has as a major character a deranged Yakuza boss named "Rockstar" Morimoto, who is obsessed with his own pop-culture-derived idea of the African-American Gang Banger lifestyle and seeks to imitate it in every way.
  • K has HOMRA, a superpowered group with members that style themselves this way. Interestingly, they don't engage in fights against rival street gangs, instead they take on organized criminals on two occasions.

    Comic Books 
  • The Blood Syndicate from Milestone Comics were a Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters variety.
  • Sin City has street gangs that pop up from time to time. Considering this is Frank Miller, the street gangs are sometimes Nazis.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): The Purple Dragons were a New York street gang. They would later appear in many of the Turtles animated series.
  • Since it's set in The Big Rotten Apple, gang bangers feature prominently in the Marvel Comics miniseries, NYX. Protagonist Kiden Nixon's police officer father is killed in front of her by one in a drive-by shooting when she's a child. She later runs afoul of Hector, a student at her school with gang connections. A Corrupt Cop manning the school's metal detectors is a member of the same gang, and is bribed into letting Hector smuggle in a gun with which to try and kill her, and which really starts the main plot in motion. Bobby Soul is strongly implied to have been one in the past, though he's trying to escape that life. Lastly, this sort makes up a large majority of Zebra Daddy's gang when he sends them to collect one of his runaway prostitutes, and it's revealed in the finale that Daddy himself was the gang banger who gunned down Kiden's father.
  • Regularly appear in The Punisher, though they understandably get very little development before their grisly deaths.
  • Batman's Gotham is host to pretty much every variety of organized crime and in Robin (1993) most of the gangs Tim Drake deals with are small youth gangs like the Sprang Bridge Soldiers or the Blackgaters when he's not dealing with the tangled web of intrigue the The Triads and the Tongs & the Ghost Dragons have going in Gotham's Chinatown. The Gotham borough known as the Hill is completely overrun with this type of gang rather than the more organized mafia and related groups that run the eastern section of town.
  • All-New Ultimates: The Serpent Skulls, a street gang that seized a Roxxon ran lab, and has a drug that gives superpowers.

    Fan Works 

    Film 
  • The Ur-Example is probably 1963 film The Cool World, in which a young gang member is desperate to get a gun to make himself a man; the climax comes when his gang ambushes another gang in the park.
  • Starting from the 1980's Hollywood produced a number of "Hood Movies" like Colors', Menace II Society and Boyz n the Hood''.
  • The Warriors, features the titular gang from Coney Island, who have to fight their way back home from Bronx against a number of other gangs, many of which have gimmicky outfits. Being made in the 1970's and in New York, the gang style is more tight jeans and leather vests than baggy pants and sports jerseys.
  • Subverted by American Gangster. Frank Lucas' gang is well-organized, reasonably disciplined, innovative, and entirely made up of African-Americans. It's actually a minor plot point that a law enforcement agent giving Richie a hard time didn't buy his story because he refused to believe that a black organization could outperform the Italian mafia. He then called Richie a kike.
  • Killers on Wheels features a band of Badass Biker punks who spends their days terrorizing a coastal town, partaking in illegal street racing, having public orgies on beaches and being a general nuisance.
  • Mr. Nice Guy, starring Jackie Chan, had a posse of gang bangers called the 'Demons' that run afoul of Jackie and the Mafia, getting their asses kicked by the first, and then ground up by the latter over a dispute of some stolen merchandise.
  • CMB from New Jack City are a street gang who opt for a more classy style of dress.
  • Sin City: Even has a gang of hookers.
  • The War: The're too young to be a true gang but the kids are on the threshold where they will become gangs if something doesn't change.
  • Most of the characters of City of God are part of a Brazilian gang living in the favela slums of Rio De Janeiro.
  • One group of gangbangers at the beginning of Die Hard with a Vengeance sees McClane wearing a sandwich board with a racist slur on it and respond with violence. Only by Carver's intervention does McClane make it out of there alive.
  • In Fast Five, a reasonably well armed gang try to move on Brian and Mia-and later Hobbs' team-when they enter the favela. First time, Vince (who's presumably a close associate if not in the gang himself) calls them off. Second time, Hobbs and his crew just flash their military grade fire power and the gang wisely backs off.
  • Boulevard Nights: The Chicano gangs of 1979 East Los Angeles. Raymond, the good brother with ambitions of opening a car repair shop, is desperate to stop his loser brother Chuco from getting caught up with the gangs and gang violence.
  • In Bridge of Spies, Donovan encounters these in East Berlin, who steal his coat.
  • City of Industry: Odell Williams (Michael Jai White) and his black gang, who first appear to sell Skip Skovitch some illegal firearms, and are later hired by Skovitch as muscle for a sitdown with the Triads.
  • They Cloned Tyrone: the protagonist Fontaine is a drug dealer in The Glen, where he is rivals with another dealer, Isaac, and both men have their own crews. Later, we see Tyrone one of Fontaine's clones who is a Crip in Los Angeles. The Conspiracy clones gangbangers to keep the quality of life down in the neighborhoods they want to control.

    Literature 
  • The Jill Kismet series takes place in an Urban Fantasy Southwestern city called Santa Luz, so the gangs are mostly Latino. The barrio is noted as a place where it's not safe to be white like Jill, though the city's Weres (mostly of Native American stock) also inhabit the barrio and the gangs know better than to mess with them. In book four, Jill takes Gilberto, a gang member who lost his brother to a Dirty Cop in book three, as her apprentice.
  • Wars Of The Realm: Drew spends most of his time in the ghettos of Chicago as a vigilante, beating up these types to protect the innocent.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Day Break (2006): Hopper's informant Damien is a key member of the Latin Disciples, a hispanic street gang. It turns out one of their former members, Torrez, has started working with the conspiracy, running drugs, weapons, and a murder for hire racket with their blessing.
  • Hill Street Blues was one of the first shows to include them as a recurring plot element, as well as one of the more rounded portrayals.
  • Lincoln Heights has a black gang and a Latino gang. There was even one episode that had a white supremacist street gang based on the Aryan Brotherhood. Most likely an honest mistake, since the Aryans are a prison gang, not a street gang, and the fact that no white surpremacist gang would EVER set up operations in a black and Latino neighborhood.
  • Half the cast of The Wire. Subverted in that the gangs are not identifiable by any name, color or similar insignia. They are divided between East Side and West Side, and by who they sell dope for, with people changing corners as need be. Oh, and they have White Gangbangers shown in Season 2, much to the disgust of the Polish community and Nick Sobotka in particular.
    • After Officer Walker gets splashed with paint by Michael Lee, he claims he was jumped by "five Bloods with shotguns", something McNulty immediately spots as a lie, as that kind of gang affiliation is alien to Baltimore.
  • Similarly for The Shield, which featured multiple groups of gangbangers who ran the gamut from disorganized and easily dealt with to heavily organized and well-connected. Many of the recurring antagonists the Strike Team faced off against belonged to the latter camp.
  • The History Channel documentary series Gangland is devoted to Gangbangers.
  • In the The Walking Dead episode "Vatos", at first the trope seems to be being played straight, but it turns out that they're really just acting that way to protect an old folks home whose residents were abandoned by the staff when the zombie apocalypse hit.
  • The One-Niners in Sons of Anarchy, a series centering around a California based Outlaw Motorcycle Club. In later seasons they are co-opted by the Damon Pope syndicate, which is a more professional mafia-type organization.
  • In Season 11 of Degrassi Drew kills one who was attempting to rape Bianca, leading to the gang pursuing him.
  • CSI: NY had the Tanglewood Boys on two occasions. They're the sons of mafia members and still rather connected to it, but tend more toward typical gangbanger tendencies themselves. Based on a real group, though they're now pretty much defunct.
  • Appear occasionally as minor characters in the Paris-set cop show Engrenages, and then the fifth season heavily features a small group of racially-integrated female Gang Bangers who are just as violent and ruthless as the male variety.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985):
    • In "Teacher's Aide", the Inner City School where Miss Peters teaches English has at least two gangs, one of which is the Furies, who frequently get into knife fights with each other at the slightest provocation.
    • In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", two members of a youth gang mug Gaspar while he is visiting his wife Minna's grave but Billy Kinetta manages to fight them off before Gaspar is badly hurt.
  • Walker, Texas Ranger has plenty of these, whether or not they're the main focus of an episode.
  • Six Feet Under: in the episode "Familia", the Fishers accept a funeral for a dead member of a Mexican street gang, which many other funeral homes had already turned down, and there is tension between the parents of the dead man, and his gang brothers, as well as with Rico who has an issue with the image of Latino men as criminals, and bristles when the gang leader asks him "where you from". Ultimately the funeral goes off without a hitch, and the gang leader respects Rico's Armor-Piercing Response about being a hardworking family man from Puerto Rico.
  • The Get Down: The Savage Warlords are a local gang in the Bronx that the cast do their best to avoid. True to the era, the gang wear denim vests with their gang insignia painted on the b

    Music 
  • The Gangsta Rap sub-genre of Hip-Hop music is all about this trope, with songs focusing on urban decay and the lifestyles of street gangsters.
    • In Gangsta Rap itself, we have the sub-genre called Drill Music, an even more extreme version mostly credited from Chicago. Mainly, because most of the artist are active Gangbangers whom brag in their songs about real murders against their rival enemy gangs. Law enforcement has since caught on over the years and have been using lyrics and social media post to go after artist whom incriminate themselves, usually with Rico cases.
  • R&B singer Jhené Aiko grew up around Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles, and was affiliated with local Crips. She has performed the gang's signature Crip Walk dance on stage, and shot the video for "Never Call Me" in her old hood.
  • Crops up a lot on songs by the Blue Öyster Cult.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • The spicy latino? It is seemingly becoming a forgotten trope in the continental United States. The Masked Luchador, those have been on the decline since the largest company in the country set out to unmask them all. This is/was the most common gimmick of 2000-2010+, going through at least one angle with heavy overtones of gangsterism seems to be a right of passage among Latin Americans who work in USA. As the page quote shows, not even Latino Heat was immune.
    • Not Rey Mysterio Jr.. either, as he was part of the No Limit Soldiers
    • Konnan, easily the most gangster member of The Three Live Krew and later of the Latin American Exchange.
    • Lil' Cholo, a long time attractive in the Californian circuit. His ring name is practically a shorthand for "gang banger", if a politically incorrect one, in case you didn't notice.
    • The entire Mexican American Stable (Super Mex Shawn Hernandez, Sarita, Rosita, Anarquia) had this vibe but had Nazi esque ambitions.
    • Former Mistico/Sin Cara Negro Hunico and Kamacho. They even briefly brought in Primo and Epico.
    • Carlito Colón, for a brief period where he stole John Cena's chain and hired street thug Jesus Anguilera to stab him in a bar fight.
    • The Puerto Rican princess Amber Rodriguez became the "The Boricua Princess", a box cutter concealing pickpocket in the NWA, even wearing "gangsta" on her tights.
    • Grizzled Youth went from a cool guy with an afro to a Puerto Rican gangster...which was still a step up from being a jobber surfer dude
    • Homicide, the stabbing man of FIP, Ring of Honor and Rottweiler fame
    • The Hit Squad Dan Maff and Monsta Mack, trainees of Homicide.
  • Lynx and El Niche, Los Fugitivos de la Calle, were examples of this long before they came to Future Of Wrestling in the continental US though.
  • Likewise "El Illegal" Chicano had been at it long before he showed up in the 50 states at Ring of Honor. After he was forced to turn pro by Puerto Rico's boxing commission, that became his gimmick instead.
  • The Gangstas New Jack and Mustafa. D'Lo Brown came later. Their gimmick being gang bangers who took to professional wrestling after they ran out of opponents to beat on the street, namely someone told them to go try and beat up The Rock 'n' Roll Express.
  • The WWE version of the FBI Full Blooded Italians, Chuck Palumbo in particular.
  • The nWo, while not always described in such terms, always carried themselves in this manner. The group consisted of a leader (Hollywood Hogan) who leads through use of charisma, promise of rewards and fear instilled by way of a few fanatically loyal enforcers. (The Outsiders, Hall and Nash) Its members wore colors and uniforms that held significance and were always identified with them. (Black and white) Its members were beaten if they failed (Buff Bagwell) or sometimes just as a hypothetical example. (Brutus Beefcake) In general, they celebrated a criminal lifestyle; to wit theft, vandalism, general destruction of property and assault, and would generally be seen as a corrupting influence on the industry as a whole.
  • There were also many derivative and imitations of the nWo, the latino World order being one of the earliest.
  • NWA World Tag Team Champions, AJ Steele and Murder-1, better known as "The Usual Suspects".
  • Kevin Steen of Pro Wrestling Guerilla's "Mount Rushmore" wrote ACH off as a "hoodlum".
  • The Premier Athlete Brand of Evolve and Dragon Gate USA accused AR Fox of being an example of this trope and were greatly dismayed that he was teaming with their desired prospect, Uhaa Nation.
  • The first thing we see of Los Rabiosos in the World Wrestling League? Their masked faces on a wanted poster. Granted, it was from seven years ago and they were much more politically minded than most examples. Mr. Big and Noel Rodríguez seemed to have had mostly moved past it, Dennis Rivera, not so much.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Spirit of '77: The Bopper role, either in the Exploitation Film style or more akin to The Warriors. Gangs can also be taken as allies.
  • Warhammer 40,000: A common feature of Hive Worlds such as Necromunda, which often sprawl into tunnel networks down into the earth and are far too large to effectively police. Gang members are often desperate, ruthless and accustomed to violence and so are potentially very good Imperial Guardsmen; the really tough hombres end up recruited into Space Marine chapters.

    Video Games 
  • In Atom RPG, one of the random encounters in the main wasteland map involves a band of bandits who will attack you as soon as you get near them. Since the game takes place in the Soviet wastelands and the setting is an Alternate History in which the Cold War turned hot, these bandits are gopniki and may have been loosely tied to The Mafiya. You also encounter a band of bandits right at the beginning of the game in a mandatorily scripted event after the tutorial level.
  • Summon your own! Masterminds in City of Villains can choose to major in Thugs, which gives the Player Character the ability to command multiethnic gangbangers in combat. Not to mention the wide variety of differently-themed NPC street gangs like the Hellions, the Skulls, the Outcasts, the Trolls, the Tsoo, the Warriors, and the Freakshow.
  • In Code 7, there are a lot of gangs in New Berlin, and nobody is brave enough to oppose them, not even the police. The one given the most focus, and whose hideout you eventually visit, is the Dark Dragons. They are one of the larger and more organized gangs, known for abducting Novi, reprogramming them so they become Killer Robots, and making them fight to the death.
  • Deus Ex Universe:
    • The Manhattan subways of Deus Ex are ruled by a gang called the Rooks.
    • Deus Ex: Human Revolution shows two rival Detroit gangs, the Motor City Bangers (pro-augmentation) and the Derelict Row Ballers (anti-augmentation). There are also the Hengsha based Harvesters who have a reputation for, well, harvesting augmentations from their victims.
  • The Kings in Fallout: New Vegas could count as one of these, as well as any of the raider groups.
  • The Bloody Chain gang from the F-Zero series are a street gang run by Micheal Chain. At one point in F-Zero GX they try to run Captain Falcon off the road.
  • Grand Theft Auto games:
    • CJ and his crew, as well as most of the early antagonists in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Families are loosely based on Lime Street Pirus (a bloods offshoot that wore green)note , the Ballas are based on Grape Street Watts Crips (a off shoot of the crips that wore purple), and the Vagos on the 18th Street Gang.
    • The Cholos in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, as stated by Phil Cassidy as "bunch of Mexican gang-bangers".
    • Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto IV is occupied by a few street gangs along with larger, better-organized groups. In the expansion Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Luis Lopez is a former gang member now working as a body guard for Tony, while his old friends from the block consider him a sell-out.
    • The Red Jacks and Purple Nines in Grand Theft Auto III. Who, though being stand-ins for the Bloods and Crips, happily walked around side by side and attacked the player if he attacked one of the other gang. These guys are actually sub-factions of the Southside Hoods; they're warring with each other due to disagreements with the distribution of SPANK.
    • Franklin from Grand Theft Auto V is a member of Chaberlain Hills Families, but also is in the process of spinning off to his own set, Forum Gangsters, wanting to remove himself from the old hierarchy of the gang where young members have to pay dues to older members, like his and Lamar's OG Stretch, who just got out of prison. Ballas, Vagos and Aztecas are also still around, as well as a new gang called Marabunta Grande. There is also a fictional documentary series called "The Underbelly of Paradise" where FIB agent Steve Haines narrates about the different gangs in Los Santos and Blaine County.
    • Grand Theft Auto Online keeps the gangs familiar from V, but adds a couple more, such as a Korean gang called Kkangpae and the Fooligans, who insist they are not a gang as they are Expies of the Juggalo subculture.
  • In Growing Up, Jake starts a street gang before high school, initially as Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters to get rid of dealers and other petty criminals.
  • Lost Judgment: RK is a street gang that succeeds the Evil Power Vacuum left by the Tojo Clan following their disbandment in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Compared to the higher-class yakuza of previous games, who at least attempted to follow a code of morals, RK is a far more ruthless organization that has no qualms in targeting innocent civilians, and they can get away with all their crimes due to being created by the Public Security Bureau.
  • In Manhunt, you have to kill a shit-ton of these, plus the cops!
  • In Mass Effect, a Commander Shepard with the Earthborn background managed to get out of this life. His/her gang was apparently called the Tenth Street Reds, and at one point in the first game his/her old gang leader Finch will try to blackmail Shepard into using his/her Spectre status to get another member, charged with hate crimes, out of a turian jail.
  • The plot of Max Payne 3 is kicked off by favela thugs trying to kidnap Max's principal. They come back for seconds and Max keeps clashing with them, though they eventually get superseded by better-equipped foes.
  • Mother:
    • EarthBound Beginnings has the Bla-Bla Gang (or B.B. Gang) of Ellay, led by the Delinquent Teddy. They attack when spoken to in Ellay if Teddy isn't in the party, and Teddy himself is introduced barging in to ask who's been beating up the members of his gang. They're subject to some Bowdlerization in the English version and later Japanese versions: They no longer smoke cigarettes in their battle sprites.
    • The Gang Zombie enemies in EarthBound Beginnings are the reanimated, malevolent corpses of these. Their sprite was Bowdlerised in the English version (and subsequent Japanese versions) as well, with them losing the bullet holes riddling their chests and no longer having the blood-stained shirts they have in the original Famicom version of the game.
    • The Sharks of EarthBound (1994) are something of a Lighter and Softer version of this; they're a group of "ruffians" (comprised mostly of children, as it seems) led by Frank Fly that cause trouble in the protagonist's hometown Onett, barring the entrances to certain places and serving as the main enemies for the protagonist, Ness, to fight at the beginning of the game.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: The Robbo Gang is pretty much Mario's take on this trope. True to what the blurb states, the have their base of operation in the East side of thew town, which is noticeably dirtier and rundown compared to the West side, controlled by their hated rivals: the very mafia-esque Pianta Syndicate.
  • In PAYDAY: The Heist and its sequel, when you're not dealing with cops, you're dealing with these.
  • Pokémon of all games now has them. Team Skull, the villain team of Pokémon Sun and Moon are a mish-mash of this, Punk culture and Japanese Delinquents. Their gesticulation, speech patterns, and attire, as well as their more informal tone compared to previous villain groups, make them resemble American street gangs. Specifically, their tanned skin tone, as well as the fact that Guzma and Plumeria are named after plants prominent in Central and South America, gives them a resemblance to Latino street gangs from the West Coast. Unlike most villain teams of the series, they are far less ambitious in their villainy, being primarily failed trainers who commit petty crimes (usually Pokemon theft) in order to survive and are largely seen as annoyances more than anything.
  • Saints Row is a game where you actually become a Gang Banger.
    • The first game features a four way gang war between the protagonist Third Street Saints, the car enthusiast Westside Rollerz, the Colombian backed Los Carnales, and the Vice Kings, who run the gambling, prostitution and pornography rings.
    • Saints Row 2 has the Third Street Saints trying to reclaim the city from three new gangs. The Brotherhood loves tattoos and monster trucks, the Sons of Samedi are run by a Haitian warlord and a voodoo priest who deal in Loa Dust and the Ronin are a Yakuza inspired gang that ride motorcycles and wield katanas.
    • In Saints Row: The Third the Third Street Saints move to a new city run by a group called The Syndicate, which itself is composed of three groups that act like street gangs. Morning Star acts like The Mafia, the Deckers are hackers who dress like they're from TRON and the Luchadores are, well, you can probably guess.
    • Returning to the series' roots, the reboot Saints Row (2022) once again has the player joining the Third Street Saints and taking down three rival gangs, the Los Panteros, who love their cars, the Idols, who are violent anarchists, and Marshall Defense Industries, which is actually a mercenary group.
  • Early mobs in Shadows Over Loathing consist of roving gangs of street thugs belonging to rival, er, gangs with an overarching theme to their faction. The Tin Lizzies are based on Rosie the Riveter (and use wrenches and welding torches as weaponry), and the Doughboys are based on bakers (they use loaves of bread and clouds of gritty flour). You also fight actual mafia torpedoes in story missions.
  • The Water Street Boys gang and the Jade Gang in Sleeping Dogs (2012) are two such rival gangs within the Sun On Yee, although the Water Street Boys are more "purely" so. Their in-game profile states that their leader Winston Chu and his minions lack the brains to actually accomplish anything more than street-level crimes, which puts them below other Sun On Yee officers who are involved in bigger ventures.
  • The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has bandits whose modus operandi has them act typically this way, though there are no instances and/or implications of raping in the games. Since the games take place in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, these bandits are gopniki and have loose ties with The Mafiya. They do have charismatic leaders who act like stereotypical avtoritets, making them a rather moderately organized quasi-Mafiya outfit.
  • The gangs of lower Taris in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. One was more focused on honor and gang loyalty than usual for the trope, the other was mostly a bunch of berserkers with little other ambition. Older members of the second gang will tell the player they used to be more like the first until a recent leadership change.
  • The whole web game Urban Rivals is about gang wars, but the Bangers clan fits most of the gangbangers tropes.
  • In Watch_Dogs, there's the Black Viceroys, who embody the look of an African American street gang but operate on a much more complex level, having transformed an abandoned set of apartment blocks into a labyrinthine base of operations. In Watch_Dogs 2, the 580s fulfil the same niche, but on a more realistic scale.
  • In Yakuza, street thugs are the most common enemies fought along with the typical Japanese Delinquents.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • In The Gamer's Alliance, the Nightstalkers are a gang of young thugs with big plans for rising up in the Maar Sulais criminal hierarchy.
  • ASH: there are lots and lots of these, some with themes like "all-cyborg" or "voodoo-esque powers". Pretty much all of them have exclusively paranormal membership. Hard to compete with people who can shoot lightning and throw cars when you can't.

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Gang Banger

Top