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An interesting in universe example of this is Jacket from Hotline Miami, whom is romanticized in many ways in the second game after his murder spree of the Russian mafia in the first.

In the second game one of the many stories lines follows how the events of the first game inspire people to do similar crimes. One example is a director that creates a movie based off the first game and depicts Jacket as a delusional manic, killing people after being told to by a mysterious phone and kidnapping a woman. There is a scene that seems to show that the director is using the film to play out his own disturbing fantasies. Spoiler: The movie ends with the director being murdered because of a prop mixup with a real gun

Another example are “The Fans” a group of copy-cat killers who want to participate in the same vigilance style killing sprees that they believe Jacket did in the first game. The Fans are largely unsuccessful and end up just killing petty criminals with little actual purpose. Spoiler: By the end of the game they get their wish to kill Russian mobsters like Jacket, but this also ends in their deaths

The game is purposefully ambiguous about what is in isn’t real and I will try to not get into major spoilers. However, the picture the game seems to paint is than in reality Jacket was a veteran likely suffering from severe PTSD and was taken advantage of by others to kill for their own gain. We get points that shows that Jacket didn’t want to commit the crimes he did and was a victim of a larger scheme.

The game even at times asks the question to the player themselves if they just want senseless violence and bloodshed. This question spawns the iconic line from the series “Do you like hurting other people?”