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Gang dress code is no joking matter.
"Also, what kind of a city is held hostage by disco roller skaters? The people in that town are such pussies that their water faucets are labelled 'Breast Milk' and 'Massengil.'"

A gang or group of people who possess some sort of specific gimmick that sets them apart from the other gangs.

Gang differentiation is pretty necessary if you've got inter-gang politics. Otherwise you've just got some guys beating up some other guys. The simplest (and most realistic) might be a color scheme (the blue Crips vs. the red Bloods) or lifestyle group (Mods vs Rockers), but TV and video games often take this to ridiculous lengths, dressing in totally ridiculous outfits, or only using a specific weapon.

Occasionally, a Fictional Political Party can have a theme resembling this.

Compare Planet of Hats (where it's more than just criminals looking this way), Group-Identifying Feature (with which this may overlap) and Carnival of Killers (where the gangsters are not working together, and might even be in open competition). Incredibly, sometimes Truth in Television.

Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Most gangs in Air Gear have some kind of theme seen in their helmets and/or emblems(Dogs, Skeletons, etc.) One scene in the manga showed scouts for several gangs all on the two page snapshot at once, each of the dozen or so with a different helmet.
  • The Clowns from AKIRA definitely fit the trope.
  • Most of the armies during the Golden Age Saga of Berserk have an Animal Motif and a uniform armor that went along with it in some way. Such examples included the Black Rams, White Tigers, and Purple Rhinos. The Band of the Hawk, which our protagonists belong to, downplays this by only their leader Griffith wearing bird-themed armor and the rest only wearing insignia.
  • While most of the criminal organizations in Black Lagoon are organized along ethnic/national lines, the Church of Violence is a group of fake nuns who are Roanapur's top Arms Dealers. They're also a CIA front.
  • In Durarara!!, we've got the Yellow Scarves, who are traditional gang members who simply (wait for it) identify by wearing Yellow Scarves. Then we've got Dollars; the newest and biggest kid of the block; a gang formed over the Internet. Some members know each other in real life; but mostly only know each other by their online selves; and are summoned by PDA; most are extremely hardcore Otaku. Yes, it's a Weaponized 2channel. Be very afraid.
    • Curiously, the gangs overlap, since no-one's preventing a Yellow Scarf from joining the Dollars online.
    • Spoiler for the novels: Later on in the Blue Square, a group within the gang is formed who are identified by blue bandannas and balaclavas printed with a design, which resembles the mouth of a shark baring its sharp teeth. This group's purpose is to rid the Dollars of the members who use the name for whatever wrong-doings they feel free to commit. Apparently the Dollars does have rules, but they're completely unheard of by everyone except their founder.
  • Many of the teams in Eyeshield 21 have some sort of theme or gimmick: the Ojou White Knights have a knight/royalty theme, the Seibu Wild Gunmen have a cowboy theme, the Zokugaku Chameleons are literally a gang of delinquents, the Taiyo Sphinx are obsessed with ancient Egypt, and so on.
  • Several guilds in Fairy Tail. For example, Blue Pegasus consists of beautiful/flamboyant/fashion-conscious people and Quatro Cerberus of physically strong but not very bright men. Fairy Tail's Hat is not as obvious as the others to outsiders, but certainly obvious to its members: Most members are very destructive and constantly get into fights with each other. Despite that, they are probably more caring and more like a family than any other guild.
  • In Fist of the North Star, a fair amount of these are at large, especially in the early story arcs. More notable ones include the Golan army and the Fang Clan.
  • In Gintama, Yakuza groups are differentiated by hairstyle, such as All-Back and Punch Perm.
  • Similarly to the example above, a lot of the opposing teams in Inazuma Eleven, especially in Season 1, revolve around one gimmick. Occult is a team of kids based on monsters, Nose is a team of kids who look and behave like animals, Mikage Sennou is a team of brainwashed kids who rely on technology, Shuuyou Meitou is a team of Otakus, Sengoku Igajima is a team of ninjas and Zeus is a team of wannabe-gods.
  • Numerous teams in the World Robattle tournament in Medabots, with the most obvious example being Team Mexico, which is made up of 3 guys that look exactly the same, and only say the word "amigo."
  • In My Hero Academia, the Shie Hassaikai, a small Yakuza gang run by Overhaul, all wear plague doctor masks. The gang members think it's a theme for identification, but it's actually because Overhaul is obsessed with cleanliness and doesn't want to breathe the same air they do.
  • A lot of the pirate crews of One Piece are like this. To name just a few examples, Buggy the Clown's crew dresses like circus performers, Captain Kuro's Black Cat Pirates all wear little cat ears, and Arlong's crew consists of humanoid sea creature "fishmen" dressed like Japanese street punks.
    • Except for the Straw Hats, all of the 11 Supernovas are this. Eustass Kidd (and Killer)'s are all Heavy Metal punks, Basil Hawkins' are mystics, X. Drake's are musketeers, Trafalgar Law's are all kung fu jumpsuit guys (except himself), Scratchmen Apoo's are Chinese people, Jewelry Bonney's are all fat guys (except herself), Capone Bege's are mafia suits and Urouge's are priests.
    • The Foxy Pirates all wear identical masks, except for Foxy himself. Implicitly, this "uniform" is one of the ways Foxy keeps order among his incredibly massive (and constantly growing) crew.
    • A non-pirate crew example is the Tontatta dwarf tribe of which all members — even the ones who otherwise seem fairly intelligent — have extreme gullibility as their hat.
    • Of the crews belonging to one of the Four Emperors, most key members of Kaido's Animal Kingdom Pirates use Zoan Devil Fruits, including Kaido himself.
  • In Tokyo Ghoul, Ghouls that organize into gangs typically have a theme that unites them. Examples include the mysterious Clowns, the Black Dobers (black trenchcoats and doberman masks), the Apes (white parkas and kabuki-styled ape masks), the White Suits, and the Gas Masks.

    Comic Books 
  • Astro City has lots of these, usually serving as Mooks and background color. There are even criminal cliques who've become addicted to being sharp-dressed coordinated crooks.
    • The Sweet Adelines are a gang who dress like members of a barbershop quartet.
    • The Dopple Gang are shapeshifters who commit crimes as celebrities.
    • The Menagerie Gang are bank robbers who wear animal-head masks.
    • The Dominos are mob enforcers who wear black full-body suits adorned with dots.
    • The Robber Barons commit crimes while dressed in black robes and Victorian powder wigs.
    • Ace High and the Gambling Men are robbers dressed in western gambler outfits.
    • The Mount Rushmore Four are four criminals disguised as US Presidents
    • The Skullcrushers are a high-tech group of mercenaries in skull-shaped Powered Armor.
    • The Mime Gangs are mimes who commit robberies.
    • The Screampunks are basically a gang of horror movie monsters with supertech (although it's ambiguous whether they're actually monsters).
    • The Chessmen, who all dress like chess-pieces. By the time of the Vertigo series however, due to turnaround and the odd spot of usurpation, they've undergone serious Motive Decay, and no longer have anything to do with chess outside the costumes.
  • The comic Gotham Underground features a gang war between The 100, who all dress in black, and various gangs under the wing (so to speak) of the Penguin, who are all based on different existing DC Comics villain groups (the New Rogues copy the looks and powers of Flash villains, the Dead End Boys base themselves on the Suicide Squad and so on). A flashback to 19th century Gotham, "before the masks arrived", fits the trope even better, with various gangs based on ethnic groups, most of which are indeed wearing distinctive hats.
    • One of the Legends of the Dark Knight stories features a Joker fan club called The Joy Boys, they wear white masks and lavender t-shirts or mock-leather jackets and dye their hair green.
    • Another story features The Anti Batz a motorcycle gang united in their hatred of Batman. Their backpatch shows Batman's chest logo crossed out.
    • The Mutants in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are very distinctive, multicoloured clothes, bald heads, bleached (or made-up) white skin and wraparound shades (at night!)
      • After breaking up they form different cliques: Sons of the Batman, with bat facial markings; Nixons, with Tricky Dick masks and grey suits; and Joker wannabees with green hair and lipstick. Two join up with the Joker's missus, who has taken to wearing Nazi-fetish gear, so they wear brown shirts and jackboots.
    • Batman, Inc. introduces Joe Average and the Average Joes, themed after blue-collar work. A vaguely similar French gang, Les Stereotypes, is also briefly seen.
    • The Mad Hatter once (seemingly) headed the Wonderland Gang, an all-star cast of career criminals he'd convinced to play into his "Alice in Wonderland" theme. These included the March Hare, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Lion and the Unicorn, and the Walrus and the Carpenter. It turned out to actually be the Tweedles' idea; when Tetch had complained it was a bit obvious, they used his own mind-control tech on him.
  • Blue Beetle gave us The Professionals, a gang who dress and act like 1980s businessmen.
  • Get Jiro!:
    • Bob runs International, a chain of rich, high-dining restaurants that values efficiency, minimalist design and "international cuisine." All of their employees wear traditional chef hats and jackets and have very high standards when it comes to "authenticity", one of their hitmen taking the time to shame a taco vendor for using sour cream and cheddar on their tacos.
      Jean Claude: The Global Affiliates. They are more powerful. The Second Ring... most of the Big Boxes... are theirs, so that they are better capitalized. And there are more of them, too, of course. They have no principles to hold them back. They are only about business and... pleasure. Their own pleasure.
    • Rose's establishment The Farm is a Bourgeois Bohemian vegan establishment that (allegedly) grows its own produce. They all dress in casual wear (mainly hippie shirts, shorts and gardening attire) and all have some sort of piercings on their person.
      Jean Claude: Rose? The vegetable people... the healthy people... the locals, the communists, the survivalists... the fruitopians... the freegans... the organic whatever... the farmers... the hippies. They don't even know what they are from one week to the next. All they have in common is hate — of Bob and what he represents — and fear.
  • Frequently played for laughs in The Goon. The Goon himself and his sidekick Frankie are basic blue-collar thugs from an old comic strip, engaged in a mob war with The Nameless Priest's gang of zombies, hags, and assorted other monsters, though as the story goes on, the Goon's own side acquires more and more strange monsters of their own. There's also Fishy Pete's gang of Fish People who control the docks, the Chinatown Celestials, the Cannibal Tribe of hobos, the more classic Italian-American families of the Black Hand who appear in the backstory (of whom the Goon's gang are the last remnant), and others.
  • The Humans is about an outlaw biker club in a Planet of the Apes inspired setting. The Humans and their main rivals The Skabbs and The Madfuckers are fairly standard outlaw clubs (other than being great apes), however most of the other gangs follow some sort of gimmick:
    • Flex Trucking is a mob like organization with the cover of a legitimate shipping business
    • The Thrill Killers are stereotypical hippies who run the LSD and weed trade in San Francisco
    • The Haterz are an all gorilla gang based in Oakland, they are politically active and wear Black Panther Party style outfits with berets and leather jackets
    • Los Muertos M.C. are Las Vegas based bikers with cholo / greaser fashion, many of them wear sugar skull makeup
    • Finally there are Satan's Minions, Mad Max looking Satanists with Viking undertones
  • The Justice League of America miniseries "Justice Leagues" had a villain called the Advance Man cause the entire world to forget the Justice League existed, but things went awry and people remembered the words "Justice League of A". The result was that the senior members of the Justice League each formed their own team in response to various global threats, and each had a particular theme in the heroes they recruited. Wonder Woman formed the Justice League of Amazons (an Amazon Brigade), Plastic Man formed the Justice League of Anarchy (a group of comical Anti-Hero types), Aquaman formed the Justice League of Atlantis (his aquatic allies, including his wife Mera), Zauriel forms the Justice League of Apostles (divine/supernatural heroes), The Flash formed the Justice League of Adventure (unclear connection, possibly fun-based heroes), Batman formed the Justice League of Arkham (various villains from his Rogues Gallery whom he press-ganged into helping him), Martian Manhunter formed the Justice League of Aliens (heroic aliens; this included Superman, making him the only member not to lead his group) and Green Lantern formed the Justice League of Air (heroes with Flight powers). Of course this didn't last and they went back to being the Justice League of America (and other groups) at the end of the miniseries.
  • Marshal Law features Gang Green, a gang of combat veteran superhero toughs who all wear green (except a member called Overdose, who wears black). They all seem to have personal gimmicks as well.
    • There are several superhero Gangs of Hats in this series, others include the all-bionic California Bastards and the all-female Ammo-Zones.
  • Marvel 2099 actually features a murderous band of Elvis Impersonators! There's also the Fenris, who dress like cheap Conan the Barbarian impersonators (they apparently got the idea from all the Thor worship that's sprouted up in the year 2099).
  • The real life Mods and Rockers are awesomely parodied as the Originals and Dirt in the graphic novel The Originals.
  • In Paperinik New Adventures, gangs are usually shown as typical "punks" with leather jackets and shades and the like. But one issue has a fight between two gangs dressed like 50s rockabillies and Roman soldiers respectively. The leader of the latter band even dresses like Caesar.
  • The Big Jackets in 20 Fists wear... big jackets.
  • Twisted Toyfare Theatre parodied this when they showed the Warriors in the modern world as Wall Street traders. The traders all unite under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, who is murdered by Gordon Gecko, who pins the crime on the Warriors. They run afoul of such groups as the Mutually Assured Destruction Fund (Communists; capitalism is "but one of the MANY positive aspects [they] are experiencing under Perestroika"), the Bear-Stearns Stern Bears, the Voodoo Economists, the ninja Night Traders, the Closing Belles...
  • Watchmen's manual describes how urban gangs and vigilante groups wore distinctive uniforms, a custom which directly inspired this world's superheroes. The only one we see active in the story is the Knot-Tops, who wear their hair chonmage style and dress in black-sleeveless-vest and white-shirt-with-kanji ensembles.
  • The Hellfire Club in the X-Men. What started out as a gentlemen's club was eventually turned into the mutant version of The Mafia. All of the major members of the club dress like 18th century British aristocrats and refer to each other as royalty with a chess motif.
  • In Y: The Last Man, the Daughters of the Amazon (the core group at least, there are various wannabes) take this to the extreme with ritual mastectomies. Needless to say, having a mutilated/missing breast rapidly becomes a Red Right Hand in post Gendercide North America.
    • Velvet's group does not do the mastectomy, with the result that outsiders often will not believe she is a "real" Amazon.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The generic gangs in Joel Schumacher's Batman films qualify (see especially in Batman and Robin during Barbara's street race scene); you might even be able to include the various Mooks who work for certain Batman villains: Joker's men all wear purple or dress as clowns, Two-Face's men all wear two-colored masks, etc.
  • The films 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape 2000 borrow heavily from The Warriors (along with Escape from New York), and take the theming even further.
  • Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange wear identical outfits, including codpieces, hats (bowlers, top hat and beret), and canes. This is intended to be the current fashion of his lifestyle group, as evidenced by fellow patrons of the Korova Milk Bar. Billy Boy's gang wears Nazi regalia and ruffled silk dress shirts. In the films used for Alex's treatment, we see a number of other gangs wearing strange and identical uniforms.
  • Played with in The Dark Knight with The Joker's henchmen wearing clown masks during the bank heist scene. The masks carry a theme but have practical uses like keeping the robbers anonymous and allowing The Joker himself to hide among them.
  • In the original Death Race 2000, each car has a theme that is carried over to the driver and navigator's dress and persona. The remake used ethnic prison gangs instead, due to its 20 Minutes into the Future setting.
  • In Dredd, the three gangs that dominated Peach Trees before the Ma-Ma Clan's takeover each had a distinctive look of its own, including one — The Judged — that dressed in improvised Judge outfits. The others were the Peyote Kings (who liked psychedelic and voodoo imagery) and the Crimson Dragons (all about Chinese dragon tattoos).
  • The Mexican, partying Rojos and the European, dignified Baxters in A Fistful of Dollars.
  • The gangs in Gangs of New York show signs of this. In fact the gang name (and slang term) "plug ugly" comes from their hats. "Dead Rabbits" comes from a Gaelic word that means something around the lines of "tough guy", but someone misheard it and it stuck. It's also Truth in Television (or literature and (later) film) — the gangs in the novel are Flanderizations of actual gangs from the 19th Century. The Dead Rabbits would actually carry a dead rabbit on a stick when they invaded a rival gang's turf. That's how you knew they were there for blood.
    • Much more disturbing is the fact that the Hell-Cat Maggie character (that girl in the film with the teeth filed into points and who would fight with iron talons tied to her fingers)... is almost straight Truth in Television. She didn't routinely bite patrons' ears off and keep them in a jar behind the bar, though. That would be Gallus Mag's schtick. Old school gangsters did not fuck around.
  • There a group of Black Marketeers in Jingle All the Way where everyone is either dressed as Santa Claus or one of his elves. They make several other Christmas references as well, even when under duress (when the cops show up, they refer to them as the Grinch).
  • In Kill Bill, O-Ren's gang The Crazy 88 all wear identical black suits and black domino masks. The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad counts to a much lesser extent, because they appear to only follow a theme in their code names. Elle Driver, however, does use a black mamba snake as a murder weapon at one point.
  • The Axe Gang in Kung Fu Hustle all wield axes and perform choreographed dancing in perfect unison. This is more due to Brother Sum's personal style than any consensus among the membership.
    • The Axe Gang also appears in a lot of older kung-fu movies, from as early on as Boxer From Shantung (1972), and the latest being Ip Man (2008).
    • One prominent fight scene in Legend Of Drunken Master featured a horde of axe gang members attacking Jackie Chan and Lau Kar Leung in a tea house.
  • In The Last Dragon Sho'Nuff, the "Shogun of Harlem" leads a gang with overt Japanese influences. His people wear martial arts outfits with red and black coloring, and Sho'Nuff himself wears football padding set up to resemble samurai armor.
  • The movie Mystery Men has several such gangs: the Disco Boys all dress as disco dancers, the Frat Boys are all college fraternity members (known for their lethal hazings), etc. The scene in which Casanova Frankenstein rallies the different gangs together is a parody of a scene from the film The Warriors. When the heroes are attacked by the Disco Boys, they tease them for their hat-inappropriate weapons (guns, a lead pipe).
    Mr. Furious: What? Guns? That's your power, you shoot guns?
    The Blue Raja: There's no theme at all here.
    Mr. Furious: Weak.
    The Blue Raja: At best.
    [a Disco Boy wields a pipe]
    The Shoveller: And who are you supposed to be, the Disco Plumber?
    Mr. Furious: See, you've got a chain, I would at least make it a gold chain. That's just off the top of my head.
    Disco Boys: [beat the shit out of the Mystery Men]
  • The Cleanheads in Red Heat are a gang of Scary Black Men with Balds of Evil.
  • The Road Warrior, of course. Leather and black-clad mohawked punks versus the mostly white-clad defenders!
    • This carries over into the other Mad Max movies as well, particularly Mad Max: Fury Road, with Immortan Joe's Half-Life Warboys and their ashy-white makeup and elaborate rituals, the more feral and spikey Buzzard gang, the motorcycle-riding Rock Riders, the more businessman-styled Gas Town faction lead by the People Eater, the militaristic Bullet Farmers, and the old lady biker gang the Vuvalini.
  • While not gangs per se, the various racing teams in the Speed Racer movie all had themes (the Viking team, the snake team, the military team, etc.) and they even had silly hats too.
  • In Suicide Squad (2016), The Joker's gang appears to wear an assortment of Halloween masks and costumes, including but not limited to: a baby, a goat, an eyeball, a panda, and even a cartoony Batman.
  • In Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, the guys are molested by a gang that is a parody of the gang from A Clockwork Orange, complete with similar theme music. In the DVD commentary, the filmmakers stated they considered parodying The Warriors before settling on Alex and his droogs.
  • Name any gang from The Warriors. Each seems to have a gimmick. Also notable for the sheer number that were planned: for every gang you see in the movie there's another that only made it into the video game, and three or four that only existed in the scripts (all of them have names). Some of the gangs downplay this trope just by wearing similar clothes (e.g. the Orphans all wear brown jeans and green t-shirts), others, such as the Baseball Furies, take the theme to an extreme.
  • An Israeli short film called West Bank Story parodies this (West Side Story in particular; see below), with Israelis and Palestinians as the "gangs". Like Kung Fu Hustle, the makers of that film seemed to realize that any group with its own dance number cannot be Serious Business. And did we mention that the "gangs" are actually fast-food restaurants? With almost exactly the same menus? With ridiculous alliterative names ("Kosher King" and "Hummus Hut")? And ridiculous hats?
  • Why Don't You Play in Hell? features a Mob War between two rival clans of yakuza. Early on, one of the clans decides to dress in kimonos and live in a castle. This helps distinguish the two clans for the rest of the film.

    Literature 
  • The novel Aiki by John Gilbert includes a number of gangs based around martial arts themes as well as a gang of Drag Queen Warriors.
  • The Areas of My Expertise parodies this with the various overly-fancy, New Wave-ish hairstyles worn by New York street gangs during the early 20th century. The book also advises anyone with henchmen to get them all matching satin jackets with a picture of your face embroidered on the back.
    My feeling is that if it is good enough for the Joker, it should be good enough for you.
  • In the second Circle Opens book Street Magic, Briar comes across a number of gangs that use different ways to identify themselves. The main antagonists of the novel belong to a gang that uses a garnet nose ring for identification (provided by Big Bad Lady Zenadia).
  • In the book version of A Clockwork Orange, Alex emphasises that he and his gang all wear a uniform of the latest fashions. When he forms a new gang after recovering from his ordeals, they wear a completely different outfit due to changing fashions.
  • Exterminator! by William S. Burroughs: In the section "From Here To Eternity," order has broken down, and people form costumed gangs.
    Crowds are looting the museums for weapons... Stone axes, Fijian war clubs, Samurai swords, crossbows, bolos, boomerangs... They put on costumes to match. Militant queens snatch up krises... "LET'S RUN AMOK DUCKS IT'S FUN."... They hit the street in loincloths.
    Drunken Yale boys put on armor and charge down Fifth Avenue on horseback skewering the passers-by.
    A World War I tank with cheering doughboys is driven off a museum pedestal.
    […]
    The dreaded Baseball Team 5000 burly athletes in baseball uniforms all with special bats erupt into a crowded street . . :
    "BEAT YOUR FILTHY BRAINS OUT . . ."
  • In The Girl from the Miracles District, the Bears are a biker gang where every member has a bear-themed nickname, like Ursa, Panda or Yogi.
  • In Bruce Bethke's novel Headcrash, the protagonist runs into a gang dressed as high school athlete stereotypes, called the Letterjocks.
  • The gangs seen in the last book of The Night's Dawn Trilogy are good examples of this. Banded together to defend London from the possessed, there are Blairs (in business suits, named for Tony Blair), macho lesbians with silver eyes and some others.
  • The Basemen in The Well of Moments, whose code names derive from the Who's on First? comedy routine. Except when they show up, nobody laughs. They're Blood Knights who live a strange ritualized combo of baseball and a wolf pack, and specialize in tracking down paranormal objects.
  • In The Witchlands, a gang by the name of Nines marks its members by cutting off their left pinky finger (hence the name). It has the added benefit of making things easier for anyone looking for an assassin who's missing his left pinky.

    Live Action TV 
  • The Amazing Extraordinary Friends has the Gentlemen Callers; a street gang with tailored suits and excessive personal grooming.
  • Henchmen on Batman (1966) always have themes related to the Special Guest Villain. In the case of frequently-recurring villains, the theme may be more related to the villain's latest scheme than to the villain's own motif. For example, in "Catwoman Goes To College," her henchmen wear Gotham City University sweaters and "freshman beanies," and are named Penn, Cornell, and Brown.
  • Exaggerated in the classic Doctor Who episode "Paradise Towers", in which the color of their outfits and hair is the only distinguishable difference between the Red and Blue Kangs.
  • Game of Thrones has a rather literal example of this; soldiers of honourable House Stark wear noseless bascinets, soldiers of the bellicose House Baratheon wear burgonets, rich House Lannister wears fancy custom helmets based off the Japanese kabuto, ruthless House Bolton wears cabassets, the oriental House Martell wears turban helmets, sea-raiding House Greyjoy wears cottonwool caps and light sallets, and Daenerys' Unsullied Army wears zischagges.
    • In House of the Dragon: As both an indicator of the house's wealth and their martial disposition, the armors of Velaryon leaders are elaborately engraved, with both plate armor and metal scales that evoke the house's maritime affiliation. This motif is even shared by their foot soldiers, helping contrast them to the drab armors of House Greyjoy (the only other naval power of Westeros seen previously in Game of Thrones).
  • High&Low has 10+ gangs, and so to help everyone keep them straight they each have a very specific aesthetic. They often take the tropes associated with their groups and Exaggerate them, making them quite easy to differentiate.
  • In Peaky Blinders, the eponymous gang's hat is literal hats with razor blades sewn into the brims. They also like Savile Row suits and penny collars.
    • Alfie Solomons' gang tend to don traditional Jewish headwear and, on occasion, prayer shawls.
    • The Italian gangs — the Sabini Organization and the Changretta Family — often sport pinstripes and silk suits. Luca Changretta, upon first meeting Tommy Shelby, boasts that his own suits are nicer.
    • The Billy Boys are like a Violent Glaswegian version of the Baseball Furies: a gang of murderous fascists who go around singing Rangers F.C. chants. They're actually really scary.
    • The Ulster Volunteer Force guys who show up in the second series' finale all wear matching grey suits and flatcaps, and in a later scene, matching shirt-and-suspenders outfits, apparently reasoning that their iconic black-and-tan uniforms would stand out a bit too much.
    • Refreshingly, the Chinese gangsters featured in the fifth series, lead by the Historical Domain Character Brilliant Chang, do not wear conical straw hats! Chang himself, as seems to be consistent with the actual history, favours a bowler hat and fur-collared coat.
  • Witnessed in Power Rangers RPM, although, apart from the Mob that Ziggy once tried to join, they mostly seem like a bunch of sad sack clowns. Probably justified in that most of the world was essentially nuked in the Back Story; powerful crime syndicates just wouldn't have the support structure they need in Corinth.
  • The original Planet of Hats, Sigma Iotia in Star Trek: The Original Series doesn't draw attention to it, but if you pay attention one might notice that the three gangs shown wears different kinds of hats — Oxmyx's gang all wear fedoras, Krako's gang all wear boaters, Mirt's gang all wear bowlers.
  • The various teenage tribes on the post-apocalyptic soap opera The Tribe are identifiable largely by costumes and color schemes (Locos wear red and black; Demon Dogs wear silver; Mozquitos are all female and dress like dominatrices with insect masks, etc.), except for the main tribe, the Mallrats, who all wear very individualistic costumes, being a Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits.
  • The PCH Bike Club from Veronica Mars. All Latino bikers from the wrong side of the tracks, all high schoolers (or at least high school age).
  • The tongs featured on Warrior (2019) all have specific uniforms for easy identification.
    • The Hop Wei wear western-style black three-piece suits with red lining and pocket squares, and no tie.
    • The Long Zii wear more traditionally Chinese menswear, usually in grey, and sport Manchu haircuts.
    • The Fung Hai wear loose-fitting brown robes, and usually have lots of tattoos.

    Music 
  • Invoked and combined with a Warriors homage in They Might Be Giants' Venue Songs project, where the Deranged Millionaire controls "roving baseball gangs" that threaten Brooklyn.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Half of the stables seen in Professional Wrestling. For example, WWE has had The Spirit Squad (a gang of male cheerleaders) and Demolition (whose uniform included facepaint and bondage gear), WCW had The Varsity Club (a stable built like a high-school/college sports team) and The Dungeon of Doom (filled with ridiculous, horror-movie-style gimmicks), and TNA once had The Flying Elvises (a group of Spot Monkey Elvis impersonators).
  • The original Nation of Domination in the WWF was very much an aversion, as its members were a black supremacist and his protege (Faarooq and D'Lo Brown), a white biker (Crush), a Puerto Rican (Savio Vega), and two Pretty Fly for a White Guy rappers (PG-13). However, after they broke up and each member other than the rappers formed their own stable (The New Nation, Disciples of Apocalypse, and Los Boricuas, respectively), each of those stables fit the trope to a T. The original NOD in USWA also averted this by being a bunch of white guys trying to impress their black friends.
  • Dragon Gate is known for dividing its roster into stables, with unique color schemes to identify them. Most follow pretty loose themes, but significant to this trope are Tozawa-Juku (cram school students), the Deep Drunkers (alcoholic miscreants), the Florida Brothers (Fake Americans), Do FIXER (a dance troupe), and the Millennials (young Mexican luchadors who are mostly Japanese).
  • Daffney's All-Star Squad is a literal example. Daffney's hat has become their hat, tiny tilted top hats.

    Tabletop Games 
  • One of the coolest things about the Dungeons & Dragons campaign module "Night's Dark Terror" is that every one of the several tribes of goblins, orcs, gnolls and so forth is a Gang of Hats with its own distinctive garb, weapons, tactics, and territory. Even the culture of some tribes is described.
  • Games Workshop titles:
    • Mordheim, a skirmish-scale Gaiden Game for Warhammer, splits the different Empire warbands into distinct groups based on their home city or province:
      • Reiklanders are Combat Pragmatists with strong soldier traditions and military discipline; they disdain fashionable clothing for practical clothes and no-nonsense gear with coloured ribbons tied around the arms for identification.
      • Middenheimers are big, mean men who wear wolf pelts to identify themselves as worshippers of Ulric, the god of wolves and winter — by custom the wearer has to have killed the wolf himself, with his bare hands. You'll also be hard-pressed to find a Middenheimer who wears a helmet, preferring being bald and Manly Facial Hair.
      • Marienburgers are from the richest trade port city in the entire Empire. They come across as effete snobs to everyone else, and it shows in how the leaders dress: flamboyant dress and lots of jewelry on display. Poorer members of the warband might just wear simple shirts or leather jacks with bandanas, as many of them are former ship's crew and dockland thugs.
      • Averlanders are from a prosperous mountain province, so they wear fine, colourful uniforms. Many of them were former trappers or poachers and it shows in both their garb and their armament; outdoorsy cloaks and hoods are the dress code, bows and arrows are the weapon of choice and traps are also often employed to good effect in the Urban Warfare.
      • Ostlanders are from one of the most poor and isolated provinces in the Empire. The men are hardy folk, former hunters or mud farmers prone to drink and punch-ups, and often are all related. Because many of them have never seen coin in their lives, they spend it usually as soon as they get it: an Ostlander warband might look like a dozen men dressed in furs and peasant garb clustered around an elder with top-quality plate armour and a double-barreled rifle to match.
    • Necromunda, a Warhammer 40,000 Gaiden Game that centers around a gang war, is all about this this.
      • Goliaths: He-man muscle-men noted for body piercing and steroid use.
      • Delaques: Sneaky types with trenchcoats, bald heads and goggles (which actually do something — their eyes are sensitive to light).
      • Van Saar: Chronically ill tech-lovers dressed in overalls, or later on, advanced fancy-looking armor.
      • Escher: The Amazon Brigade with punky hair, knives and (from 3rd Edition) chemical weapons. Needless to say, they do not get on with the Goliaths.
      • Cawdor: Masked religious fanatics with a love of flamethrowers and a much lower-tech and post-apunkalyptic aesthetic and Reliably Unreliable Guns cobbled together literally from trash.
      • Orlock: Fairly generic street gangers with bandannas who look like they could just be a modern biker gang.
      • The expansions added even more: Redemptionists, Ax-Crazy religious fanatics who like to Kill It with Fire; Scavvies, twisted, deformed mutants, ghouls, and plague zombies; Ratskins, techno-barbarian Magical Native Americans; Wyrds, rogue psykers with a number of different powers; Spyre Hunters, elite fighters from noble Houses with enough advanced gear to become a One-Man Army; Pit Slaves, former cyborg gladiators and escaped slaves with industrial hardware instead of hands; Ash Waste Nomads, futuristic Bedouin who rely heavily on stealth and ambushes; Enforcers, super riot police recommended as an Arbitrator-only gang with the best overall starting gear for all their members who ignore resource rules that irritate the House gangs and make life a major struggle for the Outcasts, due to being supplied by their superiors.
    • Even Warhammer 40,000 proper gets in on this with the six great clans of the Orks, which have proliferated across the galaxy regardless of tribal or warband affiliations. They not only allow Orks to specialize in some type of combat, but the clan rivalries give the greenskins excuses to pick fights for want of a more interesting enemy.
      • Goffs wear all black, with maybe some black-and-white checks for decoration, and are no-nonsense fighters all about melee combat.
      • Bad Moons wear lurid yellow, and are the richest gits around (because their teeth grow the fastest). They pour their wealth into acquiring the biggest, flashiest guns and ostentatious armor and clothing to swagger about in.
      • Evil Sunz wear red (obviously) and are obsessed with racing about on supercharged warbikes and war trukks, both on and off the battlefield.
      • Snakebites wear brown and traditional warpaint, and disdain modern technology for simple close combat weapons and war beasts to ride upon into battle.
      • Deathskullz wear (or even paint themselves) blue, a lucky color they believe aids their looting sprees. When they're not stealing from other orks, they're scavenging from the battlefield and reclaiming enemy equipment, sometimes even during combat.
      • The Blood Axes wear camouflage instead of a dedicated clan color, even if it clashes with their surroundings. They've adopted un-orky tactics like retreating from a hopeless fight or selling their services as mercenaries to alien races, making the other clans consider them culturally-contaminated by the stinkin' 'oomies.
  • Mutants & Masterminds has the Looking Glass Gang who look characters in Alice in Wonderland, with powers to match.
  • Ninja Burger feeds off this trope, with the eponymous burger-delivering ninjas competing against other themed fast food delivery companies like Pirate Pizza, Samurai Burger, Banditos Burritos, etc.
  • Cyberpunk Tabletop Games like to use this. For example, Shadowrun had the Halloweeners (wore masks while committing crimes) and the Scatterbrains (who dressed like clowns). Cyberspace had the Models (young male models) and the Skateboys (ride skateboards).
  • And therefore parodied in Toon, where Toonpunk gangs have hats based different comedians, such as the Savage Grouchos and the New Stooges.

    Theater 
  • The Jets and Sharks of West Side Story. In The Movie and many stage productions, while there is no gang uniform, the Jets (and their girls) wear blue and the Sharks wear red. The Jets are made up of various white, mostly Catholic, ethnicities (largely Polish and Irish), while the Sharks are all Puerto Ricans. Aside from that (and the fact that the Jets seem to favor jazz music while the Sharks dance to salsa), there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two gangs - which is rather the point of the play.
    Jet: Spic!
    Shark: Mick!

    Toys 
  • Both the Autobot and Decepticon factions in the various incarnations of Transformers have fielded numerous themed squadrons, from big names like the ever-popular Dinobots to relatively obscure teams such as the Rotor Force. This was at its most common in G1 and G2, but never vanished completely.
    • More apparent in Beast Wars and it's corresponding toy line; the good guys, Maximals, were made primarily of mammals and birds, while the bad guys, the Predacons, were dinosaurs and insects.

    Video Games 
  • Batman: Arkham Series:
    • In Batman: Arkham City, the various prison gangs all have distinct styles of dress. Late in the game, some of the gang members change allegiance, and alter their existing uniforms accordingly. Poison Ivy and Mad Hatter's brainwashed henchmen are poached from other gangs and, as such, retain their respective uniforms (although Hatter's goons wear white rabbit masks.) Riddler's informants glow green when Batman observes them, but are otherwise indistinguishable from other gang members.
      • Hugo Strange's TYGER security personnel wear tactical gear with black or red berets.
      • Joker's men either wear spraypainted hoodies and clown masks or sweaty undershirts and facepaint. Armored Joker thugs wear makeshift metal armor, and resemble toy soldiers.
      • Two Face's gang scorch one side of their prison jumpsuits and wear rubber masks with one side melted.
      • The Penguin's gang wear military fatigues, parkas, and ski masks with penguin patterns.
      • Unaligned inmates wear orange Blackgate prison uniforms, similar to those worn by the High Security Henchmen in the previous game (Some also seem to have the Arkham logo branded onto their chests or backs.)
    • The practice continues in Batman: Arkham Origins. Once again, Mad Hatter's goons are regular thugs that wear rabbit masks, while Enigma's Data Handlers again appear glowing green to Batman but otherwise are indistinguishable from other thugs.
      • Unaligned criminals wear heavy jackets and other thuggish accessories.
      • Blackgate inmates wear the same orange jumpsuits they did in Arkham City.
      • Hostile GCPD officers mostly wear blue and black SWAT gear, though several non-SWAT officers can be encountered inside the GCPD headquarters.
      • Black Mask’s mobsters wear black suits together with skull-shaped masks, similar to the one of their boss. Some of them speak with distinct Italian-American "wiseguy" accents. Unlike other mooks subtitled as "criminal", they are typically listed as "mobster".
      • Anarky’s men wear hoodies, red armbands, and white masks. Some of them also have the Circle-A symbol on their uniforms.
      • Penguin's troops wear winter garb with the Penguin's symbol somewhere on their clothes, similar to their appearances in Arkham City; they also speak in British accents, usually Cockney.
      • Joker's thugs wear black suits together with clown masks, much like how they looked in The Dark Knight. This is because Black Mask has actually been Joker in disguise. Once the Joker abandons the charade, his mooks change their masks to reflect their true allegiance. His elites in multiplayer take the appearance of clowns crossed with punk rockers, though they can be customized to the tastes of their players.
      • Bane's hired mercenaries wear black and gray tactical clothing, and speak with Hispanic accents. His elites in multiplayer dress the same way, though they're also customizable.
    • Batman: Arkham Knight:
      • The Scarecrow's henchmen wear Halloween masks because of both their boss' fear gimmick and that holiday being when the game takes place; their masks are outfitted with gas mask rebreathers to protect them from their leader's signature Psycho Serum, and they complete the look with hooded coats like the one Scarecrow himself wears.
      • The titular Arkham Knight's militia wear red-and-black tactical gear.
      • Harley Quinn's henchmen wear red-and-black uniforms and clownish face-paint like their boss.
      • The Penguin's new henchmen were recruited from the Street Demonz biker gang, and as such they wear typical biker accessories like sleeveless jackets and spiked helmets along with gas masks.
  • BioShock Infinite has the Fraternal Order of the Raven, which is either an expy of the KKK or the Columbian branch of it, wearing black hoods instead of white. They're even more racist than the average citizen, to the point that their headquarters has a golden statue of John Wilkes Booth in its lobby, and an un-ironic painting of the heroic Booth shooting a devilish Abraham Lincoln in Ford Theater. The group is also zealously loyal to the Prophet and his family, to the extent that some of them have chained coffins to their backs as penance for their perceived failure to save Lady Comstock from an assassin. Their trademark ability is the "Murder of Crows" vigor, which allows them to turn into a murder of crows and unleash swarms of corvids against their enemies.
  • Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, being a love letter to Jet Set Radio, has rival gangs sporting a unified motif, including:
    • The Franks: A gang of Frankenstein's Monsters stitched together by their leader, the Flesh Prince
    • Eclipse: An all-female gang of fortune tellers and diviners with an astrology theme
    • DOT EXE: A gang of cyborgs who upgrade themselves extensively for breakdancing competitions. All members have a TV head with a billiard ball marking on the screen
    • Devil Theory: A gang with samurai-style clothing and a strong Oni aesthetic, their graffiti prominently inspired by classic Japanese art
    • Futurism: DJ Cyber's gang, whose members are all female and decked out in chemical warfare gear, with gas masks and Y2K-inspired clothing
    • The Oldheads: Elderly gangsters dressed like wizards who serve as impartial mediators for the other gangs' conflicts, so respected that going against their decisions is considered a violation of the Code of the Street
  • Many of the bandit and scav clans in Borderlands have a common dynamic. There're bikers, pirates, Irish hooligans, rednecks, mental patients...
  • Bully, being essentially GTA in High School, naturally uses this too, with the various 'factions' of Bullworth Academy. The Preppies all wear Aquaberry-brand sweaters, the Jocks all wear letter jackets or letter sweaters, the Greasers slick their hair back and wear leather or denim jackets, the Nerds are all either underweight or overweight and wear garish green sweaters, the Bullies all wear white polo shirts with no vests, and the Townies wear street clothes.
  • Champions Online isn't much different in that regard. The five gangs of Westside are sometimes referred to as the Tsoo Rejects (Cult of the Red Banner), the Hells Angels Rejects (Cobra Lords, bikers whose ranks are based on various dangerous animals), the Asylum Rejects (the Maniacs), the A Clockwork Orange Rejects (who also have elements of the Royal Flush Gang from Justice League), and the Old-Timey Mobster Rejects (or just Reject Rejects, i.e. those who were rejected even by the other reject gangs for not having enough flavor).
    • And then there's the "gangs" of Vibora Bay. In the low-level instance of the city, the Dogz are just street thugs that call the various ranks after various canines and canine-related mythological figures, and sometimes use canines in fights. The Sovereign Sons are voodoo practitioners. The Gemini gang all wear the same black and yellow outfit (though that's because they're all dupes of the leader, Mr. Gemini). Then the apocalypse hits, and ground zero is Vibora Bay. The Dogz become full-on werewolves; the Sovereign Sons' rites start granting real power; and three more "gangs" move in—a cabal of vampires, a group of fallen angels, and a cult that worship the angels and are also big into mutilation and other body modification.
  • City of Heroes and City of Villains fall under this: Each of the gangs has a distinct gimmick (which is also the source of their varying supplies of metahuman powers). For example, the Skulls are nihilists who wear skull-masks and wield netherworld powers, the Hellions are Satanists with fire powers, the Freakshow are Cyberpunk anarchists who modify themselves with Psycho Serum and Artificial Limbs, the Warriors wield medieval-style weapons with a classical Greek and Charles Atlas Superpowers, the Tsoo are covered in magical tattoos or dress like Ninja, and so on...
  • And speaking of Crackdown, the first game has The Volk, who are The Mafiya trying to look and act like a militant organization of Renegade Reds With Rockets, and the Shai-Gen, the high-tech private army of a powerful East Asian MegaCorp. Ironically, despite being mentioned above, Los Muertos actually don't qualify as they are just an absurdly powerful Hispanic street gang/drug cartel hybrid with no real gimmick.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 has numerous themed gangs that each have a presence in the six districts of the Night City, as well as the Badlands outside its borders
    • Maelstrom are technophiles that want to eliminate the distinctions between man and machine, see cyberpsychosis as religious enlightenment and undergo extreme body augmentations.
    • The Valentinos are a gang with a predominantly Latino membership who love God and the Santa Muerte as much as gold everywhere.
    • 6th Street are a gang of pro-NUSA and Second Amendment vigilantes-turned-racketeers, identified by their Star-and-Stripes motif, military gear and stereotypical American apparel such as aviator sunglasses and cowboy hats.
    • The Voodoo Boys have Haitian and Caribbean members, and a focus on hacking, with little reference to Hollywood Voodoo.
    • The Animals are a gang of bodybuilders who use steroid cocktails to grow obscene amounts of muscles. They also tend to be Punch Clock Villains who get hired as bouncers or muscle on other people's behalf, with some drug dealing on the side.
    • The Tyger Claws are an Asian gang half-Yakuza half-Japanese Delinquents that tend to use Japanese weapons, cars and martial arts.
    • The Moxes are composed of sex workers or other exploited folk who have ganged together for protection.
    • The Wraiths and Aldecados are two nomad gangs who live out in the Badlands, with the former consisting of rogues, while the latter is a large organised clan.
    • The Scavengers are an East-European gang focused on kidnapping people to harvest for their cybernetics and other stuff considered less-than-savory even for Night City standards such as snuff movies.
    • Finally, Edgerunners are a loose collective of mercenaries, which includes the player character V, who operate out of the Afterlife bar. They are a gang in so much that they won't find membership with any of the others since they will work with anyone if the price is right and have the attitude, reputation and skill to bear the title.
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a few, whose respective Hats are all based on their stance towards augmentations. Detroit's Derelict Row Ballers are a "normal" street gang that absolutely hate augs and "hanzers" and rely on strength in numbers. The Motor City Bangers see augmentation as an extension of "bling culture" and have pimped out gold-plated cybernetic limbs that make them tougher and stronger. Needless to say, the DRB's and the MCB's don't get along. The Harvester in Hengsha, however, have fully embraced augmentations and transhumanism and worship The Singularity, have modded themselves up with lots of scary looking industrial prosthetics and 'harvest' augments from hapless civilians in a manner similar to Organ Theft.
  • Dishonored: brings us many different gangs with their own style. The aptly named Hatters all wear large battered top hats, wear either a red or white shirt and wield a machete and pistol. The Bottle street Gang are based in a whiskey distillery, and thus use a highly volatile alcoholic firebomb as their ranged weapon alongside a machete, but otherwise have bland clothing. The Dead Eels are river pirates with lots of piercings and tattoos, use cargo hooks in a melee and bottles of acid from the local mollusc population as throwing weapons, and are also the only regular gang to recruit women. The Butchers dress for their job in bloody white aprons and use either machetes or disc saws. The Whalers are dressed entirely in thick leather coats and creepy gas masks used in the whaling industry for protection, and use long knives, wrist mounted crossbows and black magic. Finally, the Brigmore Witches are the only gang to consist entirely of women, have vines and plant-like markings on their bodies, turn dark green when aggressive, use thorn-swords and magic in combat. Naturally, the army, city watch, and Overseers have their own uniforms as official organisations.
  • Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons has its four gangs plus the forces of the final boss:
    • The Killers, ex-military goons who wear combat gear
    • The Royals, with hair dyed gold and purple, muscle shirts, and golden pants
    • The Triangle Gang, who wrap themselves in mummy-like bandages or wear Egyptian clothing
    • The Okada Clan, a yakuza group who wear red, with men sporting pompadours
    • The "Mayor"/Mysterious Warrior's private army, who wear black riot gear
  • In Dragon Age II, there are a few gangs in each act, each having staked out a different part of town and each with a different modus operandi and general appearance. You can wipe them out for some money and XP, but if you don't they are still replaced from act to act, and each successive gang is apparently stronger and more dangerous than the last. In Act 1, the Guard Pretenders wear city guard uniforms and apparently waylay unsuspecting night travelers in Hightown; the Sharps Highwaymen, to judge by their name, have moved into the city from the countryside; and the Redwater Teeth are a gang lead by a blood mage. In Act 2, the Dog Lords are Fereldan expats that fight alongside Mabari warhounds; the Undercuts are a group of dwarves trying to stake a claim on the docks; and the Invisible Sisters are an all-female gang of cutpurses and assassins. In Act 3 the Slave Hunters may well be official Imperium slavers, wearing the full masks and armor of Tevinter soldiers, going out into the night and enslaving anyone they can beat down at he docks; the Crimson Weaver Bloodragers are a group of rebel blood mages; and the Followers of She are all cultists of a mysterious figure who turns out to be a desire demon.
  • Fallout has a lot of post-apocalyptic factions fitting this trope:
    • The classic Fallout lore mentions the Vipers, a gang of snake cultists with a love for poison; the Jackals, a bunch of cowardly, opportunistic cannibals; the Blades, who dress up in leather and wield knives; and the Rippers, who are quite fond of knife-sized chainsaws. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, only the Blades actually appear in-game, but the rest are at least mentioned. The Vipers and Jackals later show up in New Vegas, but by that point they're just petty marauders with no visible theme who are overshadowed by the other factions.
    • Fallout 3 has Sudden Death Overtime, an "icegang" who follow a Cargo Cult based on their understanding of ice hockey.
    • Several factions in Fallout: New Vegas wear very distinctive outfits, and while some like the NCR Rangers' Gas Mask, Longcoat and the Powder Gangers' repurposed prison clothes are to be expected, others...
      • Caesar's Legion is an attempt to recreate the Roman Empire, and as such its legionnaires have made their best attampt at Roman lorica and weapons using scavenged sports equipment and makeshift throwing spears and swords.
      • The Great Khans' name and emblem are evocative of the Mongol Empire, though their fashion sense is more "biker gang" than "steppe nomads." They're little more than an unusually-organized raider gang that has been reduced to drug dealers after a series of defeats, but the Courier has the option to pass their leader a book on the Mongol Horde, inspiring the Khans to move east and carve out a mighty empire.
      • The Kings are an altruistic gang of Elvis Impersonators trying to keep order in the poorer section of New Vegas, though due to decaying holotapes only their leader has learned to imitate the Elvis accent.
      • The Fiends are a raider gang known for their rampart drug use and, due to taking over a Vault, their better-than-average weapons. So they're running about in leather-and-cow-skull armor fighting with a mixture of low-tech improvised weapons and energy rifles.
      • There's also the Three Families of New Vegas. The Chairmen all emulate the Camp of the Rat Pack, including speaking like them. The White Glove Society are all pompous Upper Class Twits who believe they're better than others and wear White Masks of Doom for the mysterious allure (when in actuality, it just makes them really creepy). The Omertas are essentially The Mafia and are all rude and foul-mouthed.
      • The tribes from Honest Hearts have this to an extent. The Dead Horses, taking their name from where their camp is set up, use clubs and .45 pistols and are more focused on autarcy as hunters and scouts. The Sorrows, descendants of children stranded in Zion who were guided by their godly "Father" (actually a lone survivalist) to be kind to everybody, hunt yao guai and use their claws as hand weapons. The White Legs are descended from a hodgepodge of tourists and survivors who adopted a scavenger and raider mindset at the cost of every other survival skill, stealing what they can't forage and leading wars against other tribes and cities for their resources.
    • Fallout 4 continues the trend. Some, like the security force of Diamond City using baseball equipment as weapons and armor, make sense, as the city was built in the ruins of Fenway Park. Others are less explicable.
      • The Minutemen naming themselves after the historical militia who defended towns and villages during the American Revolution isn't so far-fetched, given the game is set in Boston. Choosing to dress in 18th Century costume and calling their home-made laser weapons "muskets" definitely is going a bit far towards cultivating the image of their namesake.
      • The Gunners are a pseudo-militaristic mercenary company that otherwise behaves like another raider gang, while the Rust Devils introduced in the Automatron DLC use heavily-modified robots as support units, and scavenge robot parts for armor and weapons.
      • The Neighborhood Watch of Goodneighbor dress in pinstripe suits and fedoras, and carry tommy guns. The Triggermen are similar, but outright mobsters instead of a local security force.
      • The Atom Cats are a minor faction whose hat is "greaser car nuts," except instead of souping-up hot rods, they mod Powered Armor.
      • The Children of Atom are a Church Of Evil who worship radiation and see nuclear fission as reaching nirvana, look like sick hobos (dur to the massive radiation poisoning they show as a sign of their devotion) using radioactive weapons and only inhabiting radiation hotspots. And they keep Glowing Ones as icons.
      • The Nuka-World DLC introduces three distinct gangs of raiders in an uneasy alliance. The Disciples are spiky, sadistic Psycho Knife Nuts who raid for the carnage and mayhem, the Operators are well-dressed aristocrats only in it for the caps, while the Pack are Proud Warrior Race Guys with an Animal Motif, running around in brightly-colored fursuits.
  • The goons of the different mafia families in The Godfather videogame wear color-coded trenchcoats.
  • Zig-zagged across the Grand Theft Auto games.
    • The original game has pretty nondescript organized crime.
    • Grand Theft Auto 2 has a circus of gimmicks. The Zaibatsus are a Megacorp that operate in all three sections of the city, the Yakuza are, well Yakuza, the Loonies are all completely insane, the Rednecks drive pickups and operate out of a trailer park, the SRS Scientists are a faction dedicated to gang violence For Science!, the Russian Mafia are mobsters from Russia and the Hare Krishna are a group of pacifists that have turned to gang violence.
    • Grand Theft Auto III heavily distinguishes its gangs as well. To name a few, the Triads are identifiable by their blue jumpsuits and black bandanas, The Mafia all wear black suits, ties, and gloves, and the Red Jacks and Purple Nines, two feuding gangs on Shoreside Vale, identify themselves with the colors they're named for.
    • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has ethnic gangs that emphasize the ethnic part, most prominently the Haitians and Cubans.
    • In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the Grove Street Families, Ballas, Varrios los Aztecas, Los Santos Vagos, and San Fierro Rifa all identify by color scheme. This is also the first game where the different ethnicities aren't united as one gang (for example, there are several Black and Latino gangs vying for territory control and power).
    • Downplayed in Grand Theft Auto IV. Gang members dress a bit more nondescriptly here, but are still distinguishable if you know which character models to look for. Also like with previous titles, they're usually of a single ethnicity.
    • Grand Theft Auto V harkens back to the color-coded gangs of San Andreas, with the Families, Ballas, Vagos, and Aztecas all making a return.
  • A literal example exists in the Henry Stickmin Series game Infiltrating the Airship with the Toppat Clan, whose members all wear various top hats.
  • In Hunt Down, we have several:
    • The Hoodlum Dolls are punks and leathermen.
    • The Misconducts are Hockey hooligans.
    • The Heatseekers are Hoverbikers.
    • The No.1 Suspects are black Japanophiles.
  • inFAMOUS:
    • The first gang that Cole fights, the Reapers, all wear hooded sweatshirts (red for the standard goons, white for the superpowerd Conduits) that completely obscure their faces.
    • The second gang, the Dust Men, wear armor that's mainly made out of garbage and scrap metal. And they wear trash bags on their heads.
    • The final gang, the First Sons, due to being more of a cult or paramilitary organization than an actual gang, wear coats and gas masks.
  • The various enemy gangs from Jet Set Radio definitely qualify. The Love Shockers are all (female) jilted lovers, the Poison Jam are all huge guys who are really into monster movies (to the point where they all wear monster masks), and the Noise Tanks are all techies who mess around with electronic and mechanical gadgets.
  • MadWorld's Varrigan City is home to a bunch of gangs. The stages in the first area consist of punks and thugs, Asian Town (mishmash with Japanese and Chinese cultures) is home to guys in martial artist gear and ninjas, Mad Castle is a full on Monster Mash (zombies, psycho killers, and grim reapers), Area 66 has soldiers, robots, and aliens, and almost all of them appear again at different intervals at Casino Land.
  • The various gangs of Manhunt (the Skins, the Smileys, etc.) are a less light-hearted example.
  • Several localized criminal organizations in Overwatch ascribe to a theme: the Deadlock Gang of Southwestern America seems to be exclusively comprised of cowboys using moderately-upgraded Spaghetti Western tech, and the Los Muertos of Mexico clad themselves in skeleton-themed phosphorescent body paint. The neighborhood of Kanezaka, Japan, has the Yōkai Gang, a group of vigilantes who style themselves in ornate costumes based on Youkai mythology.
  • Pokémon:
    • Team Magma and Team Aqua from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. Team Magma's outfits have hoodies incorporated into the design, while Team Aqua's go for a pirate aesthetic.
      • Frequently lampshaded by the gang members - "Who do you think has cooler outfits, Team Magma or Team Aqua?" "You can't be a member of Team Magma, you're not dressed the part!"
    • Pokemon XD Galeof Darkness: Almost all the evil teams wear the Dark type hat, except Cipher. Their type of choice is usually Shadow.
    • Pokémon Black and White: Even in-game (which doesn't tend to call attention to the uniforms of Team Rocket or Team Plasma), characters often make a point of how odd the uniforms of Team Galactic are. They're frequently compared to spacemen.
    • Pokémon X and Y: Team Flare dresses in stylish red clothing, red sunglasses and red hair. The higher ups either wear white clothing, different colored hair (or no hair at all), and even more stylish sunglasses that aren't necessarily red or both. All these are quite fitting for a team whose goal is to create a more beautiful world.
  • Predator: Concrete Jungle: This is played fairly straight, with King Willie's voodoo gang Les Serviteurs, the drug addled Deadmen, a classic Mafia and more.
  • Pursuit Force has five different gangs causing trouble, which you are tasked with taking down. They include:
    • The Capelli Family, The Mafia who deal in extortion and corruption
    • The Warlords, a paramilitary group attempting to overthrow the government
    • The Convicts, prison escapees sowing chaos in their wake
    • The Vixens, an all-female cabal of cat burglars and robbers
    • Killer 66, a Yakuza group dealing in smuggling and drugs
  • Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice has five gangs as well, including:
    • The Warlords and the Convicts, both returning from the previous game
    • The Raiders, modern-day pirates from the Deep South
    • The Syndicate, a British criminal organization
    • The Viper Squad, an anti-riot mercenary force that later attempts to take over the country
  • Red Dead Redemption 2:
    • The Van der Linde gang revolves around Equal-Opportunity Evil and Dutch's idiosyncratic anarchist ideology. Though few in number, the members are very tightly knit despite having different ethnicities, backgrounds, ages and even genders.
    • The O'Driscolls are The Irish Mob. Green accessories that celebrate their shared heritage are common. Beyond that, they tend to dress in conventional cowboy gear.
    • The Lemoyne Raiders are a neo-Confederate militia that relies on moonshine and gun running along with simple robbery to finance their war effort. They all wear grey Confederate uniforms.
    • Angelo Bronte's gang are all Italians or Italian-Americans. None of them are seen without an exquisite tailored suit. They're very much a proto-Mafia.
    • The Murfree Brood are a band of horribly inbred yokels who cruelly torture, rape and cannibalize their victims, comparable more to a band of savages or animals than a criminal gang. They are hardly ever seen wearing a shirt, displaying their deformed bodies.
    • The Night Folk of Lemoyne's swamps wear primitive clothes, smear themselves in occult-looking paint, and use only bows and melee weapons. They never speak and some wonder if they're even human.
    • The Del Lobos are stereotypical Mexican Banditos, with big mustaches, sombreros, and ponchos.
    • The Laramie Gang act as hired thugs for wealthy ranchers. Fine clothes and red identifier neckerchiefs are the dress code.
    • The Skinner Brothers are a multiethnic gang of sadists who live in the woods of Tall Trees and sadistically hunt and skin human beings. Their attire is very rugged and outdoorsy, tending toward the furs of the Mountain Man, and many of them have big beards.
  • River City Ransom. For each gang, all members wear the same color of shirt, and their names tend to follow a trend implied by the name of the gang. More so in the GBA remake, where each gang has a specific set of lines used in battle that reflect their theme.
  • The Saints Row titles follow intentionally and increasingly absurd variants of the color-coding scheme for the various street gangs. From the second game on, you can even choose the Saints' hat, though their color will always be purple.
    • In the first game, the 3rd Street Saints (a multi-ethnic coalition of Saint's Row locals [initially, at least]) go up against Los Carnales (Hispanic drug dealers and gun runners who wear red), the Vice Kings (a mostly-black collective of pimps, gamblers, corporate sharks, and run-of-the-mill gangbangers who wear yellow), and the Westside Rollerz (a mostly-white gang of suburban wannabe-gangstas who traffic in auto theft and street racing and wear blue).
    • In Saints Row 2, the three rival gangs are the Brotherhood (white-trash metalheads and outlaws who sell weapons and like monster trucks, piercings, tribal haircuts, and excessive tattoos), the Ronin (mostly Asian pimps and casino owners who wield katanas and drive fancy sports cars and motorcycles), and the Sons of Samedi (Hollywood Voodoo-worshipping college stoners who sell drugs).
    • In Saints Row: The Third, the Saints have to face off against the red-wearing Morningstar (a combination between the Mafia, pimps, and BDSM enthusiasts) who run the Steelport sex trade, the green-wearing Luchadors, who are all Masked Luchadors who run drugs and casinos, and the blue-wearing Deckers, who are a British hacker collective that dress like Cyberpunk goths. The Saints themselves are experiencing something of an identity crisis between the hats of pop culture celebrity sellouts and badass ubercriminals.
  • These make up a few early game encounters in Shadows Over Loathing. The standouts are the Doughboys, Always Male bakers who wield bread-themed magic, the Tin Lizzies, Wrench Wenches that fight with blowtorches and (literal) grease guns, and the Glocklins, goblin gangsters that channel magic through glockinspiels.
  • Spider-Man (PS4): Mr. Negative's henchmen, the Inner Demons, are Chinese gangsters/terrorists that all wear black suits and black-and-white Chinese opera masks that resemble hideous demons, and wield weaker versions of Mr. Negative's dark energy powers.
  • The different chapters of the Inferno gang in Spikeout, a "white trash" crew, a gang who all wear camouflage trousers, a group who are all sturdy guys in motorcycle leathers, an all-black-all-poser crew, a bunch of guys in Hawaiian shirts, an all-Chinese Kung Fu gang, an all-Japanese Yakuza gang, a gang dressed in sports gear etc.
  • Starbound: Each gang you face in the bounty hunter quests has its own hat, literally. Some criminals will attempt to bribe you with said hat when apprehended.
  • This Is The Police 2: The Neckties are a drug-dealing gang whose hat is... really expensive, high-quality business suits. This is deconstructed when one of the Neckties turns informant because he is sick of being relegated to ironing out suits every day instead of, you know, drug-dealing.
  • Twisted Metal: For multiplayer purposes, the 2012 reboot gives each main driver their own themed gang. For example, Needles/Sweet Tooth has gang of fiery-headed clowns, Dollface has a gang of women wearing doll masks, etc.
  • In Urban Rivals each clan has their own hat. The All Stars are all sports jocks, Roots are hippies, Montanas are Italian mob, Ulu Watu are surfers....
  • The orc clans in the Warcraft series all have something separating them from the others: the Frostwolves live in cold regions and form bonds with the native wolves, the Blackrock forge powerful weapons and armor, the Thunderlords are hunter-trappers, the Bleeding Hollow are savages that use blood magic, the Shattered Hand all have Badass Transplants, etc.
  • In addition to countless generic bandits, in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt the Free City of Novigrad's underworld is run by the Big Four, four mob bosses who's gangs have hats of ranging gimmicks.

    Webcomics 
  • In Autumn Bay, there are various street gangs in Autumn Bay (evidenced by graffiti and dialogue), each of which has a theme, credo, or other distinguishing trait. Specifically, we have heard about the Unwanted (and their motto, "give me your poor, your tired, your broken, beaten, and damned") and the Morlocks (whose turf is the Elysium subway station).
  • Various urchin gangs in Guttersnipe, including the Junior Repunchicans (a gang of young conservatives), the Skunk Tops (who all sport black and white mohawks)and the Vajazzlers (apparently an all-female roller derby based gang).
  • Both the Midnight Crew and the Felt of Homestuck have very specific themes for each group, but both gangs mainly stick to gambling motifs (card suits, slang terms for billiards and dice, etc). The Felt also all have specific abilities related to time travel or manipulation, and actual hats with their Numerical Theme Naming's numbers (and ball colors) on them.
  • Parodied in Sluggy Freelance when the Canadian Mafia (run by an expy of Snidely Whiplash) sends an 'army of sixty' to tackle the assassin Oasis...when we actually see them, they're all in identical black outfits with "ARMY OF 60" written on them.
  • The various street gangs in Tales of the Questor: The Vipers, the Royals (who wear purple) and the Redcaps (you have three guesses).

    Web Original 
  • ASH Universe: The New York Macoute have a pseudo-voodoo theme going. The Cyber-Nostra are a gang of cyborgs as are the Rust Brothers and, as for the Jolly Molecules, they're best described as junior MadScientists.
  • In Equestria Divided all the factions have a theme or two:
  • Fire Emblem on Forums:
    • Whereabouts Of Drink and Coin: The gangs opposed by the Wharf Street Warriors tend to be these, themed around this, such as the wannabe Ninja that comprise the Asher Street Rogues or the metalheads in the Messiahs.
  • In Red vs. Blue, the Red and Blue armies wear, respectively... red and blue. Big shock, right? The only characters with armor colors outside of this is the medic working for both armies (who wears purple), the colorblind recruit who accidentally goes to the wrong base at first (in yellow), and the Freelancers, who are... definitely not red or blue.
  • Survival of the Fittest usually averts this with its gangs, even in the Wretched Hive Denton where the gangs are literally everywhere. The only two gangs with a real "hat" are the evangelistic Knight Templar Prophets, who dress in priest robes and terrorize the "unfaithful", and the Ax-Crazy Jackals who're collectively insane enough to make The Joker shit himself, and at any one time just want to cause as much mayhem and chaos as they can. They're often said to be more like animals than men.

    Western Animation 
  • Batman Beyond:
    • The Jokerz are a bunch of loosely connected gangs all over Gotham who emulate the Joker (and referencing the Clowns from AKIRA). One is lead by a guy named J-Man who blatantly copies the Joker's appearance. The Movie had one of them run by the real Joker.
    • Their rivals are the "T"s, who all have tattoos of the letter T on their faces (oddly enough, making them look like the superhero Mr. Terrific) and names that end in "ty". Considerably lamer by comparison.
    • There are also a gang of cyborgs in one episode, and a gang of splicers in another.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
  • DuckTales (2017): "The Beagle Birthday Massacre!" introduces several themed variants on the "original classic" Beagle Boys including the Glam Yankees, the Deja Vus, the 6th Avenue Meanies, the 6th Avenue Friendlies, the Deja Vus, the Tumblebums, and the Deja Vus.
  • In El Tigre we have the Moustache Mafia, who commit crimes using their...moustaches. Yeah, it's a weird show.
  • Harley Quinn (2019) gives each prominent member of Batman's Rogues Gallery a dress-coded gang:
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Besides separating by species the gangs of Las Vistas all have their very own theme and musical motifs.
    • The primates (led by Scarlemagne) theme is classical music and dress in a Victorian era aristocratic style. Before Scarlemagne took over they were the Goth Apes.
    • Raccoons are exercise nuts and their theme are eighties music.
    • Mod Frogs are dressed like professional Gangsters, their music theme is a bit of an upbeat version of the Godfather.
    • Newton Wolves (as the names suggest) are lovers of knowledge and prefer to rap about everything they know.
    • Timber Cats (Again as the name suggests) are Lumberjack with a huge love of folk music.
    • Umlaut Snakes are Rocker girls, you can pretty much guess what their music preference is.
    • There are Glam Rock Hamsters whose name is pretty self-explanatory.
    • The rats run an amusement park/neutral ground where they want all creatures to be happy.
  • Every Motorcity gang sans the Burners have some sort of unique wardrobe motif: Excepting No. 2 and obviously Cyborg Dan, all of the Duke's grunts have sharp suits and hats, evoking the mafia boss motif of the Duke, the Skylarks wear formal suits with giant numbers on the back and sunglasses, the Amazons wear brightly-colored racing suits with matching helmets, the Momma's Boys wear overalls, the Electroblades all wear hockey uniforms (no one's been seen with their mask off), and the Weekend Warriors wear standard military garb.
  • The Gangreen Gang of The Powerpuff Girls. They all have inexplicable green skin.
  • An early VeggieTales episode, "The Story of Flibberoloo", involved a feud between the titular city, where everyone wears a boot on their head, and their neighbours in Gibberdilot, who wear pots and kettles on their heads. The story itself is a retelling of the parable of the Good Samaritan, in the style of Dr. Seuss.
  • The Ant Hill Mob of Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.

    Real Life 
  • Truth in Television: Real-life American street gangs use certain colors in their clothes to identify themselves. For example: Bloods and Norteños wear red, while Crips and Sureños wear blue.
    • Even truer back in the old days
    • More Truth in Television, in and around L.A.: The Grape Street Crips wear purple, especially Laker gear, The Avenues tend to favor Dodger hats, as the "LA" is supposed to stand for Las Avenidas, 18th Street wear any football jersey with 18, with the favorite having been Randy Moss's #18 when he played for the Raiders. MS-13, though, take this to a frightening level where the most hardcore of them cover their faces with gang tattoo, the most favored being the Devil Horns the gang adopted as their gang sign. In other words, the metal horns, or for college football fans, Texas' "Hook'em Horns" gesture.
    • Some schools in the United States (primarily in urban cities) have banned sports team related clothing, especially hats, as the team colors or logos can signify gang affiliation.
  • The Molasses Gang.
  • From Swinging London, the Rockers wore mostly leather jackets, jeans and boots, and rode motorcycles. Their antithesis, the Mods, wore bright, colorful suits and stuck to scooters.
  • The 1960s garage rock movement definitely had bands of hats. Because the music was simple, derivative and similar to each other, many bands wore gimmicky uniforms to stand apart and gain attention in the process. Examples included:
    • Paul Revere and the Raiders, who dressed like American colonists.
    • The Count Five, who dressed like Count Dracula.
    • The Monks, a group of American GIs stationed in Hamburg who played in a band dressed like monks.
    • Drummer Richard Starkey played in a group called The Raving Texans where the members (all Liverpudlian) dressed like cowboys and gave themselves cowboy names. While they moved on from the gimmick fairly quickly, Starkey kept his cowboy name, "Ringo Starr", throughout the rest of his career, even after joining The Beatles.
  • Cracked has some more examples.
  • The "West Side Niggaz", usually bowdlerized in western media to "West Side Boys" for obvious reasons, were a Sierre Leonian terrorist group who were influenced by American rap culture, particularly Tupac Shakur. Notably, they were already part of another terrorist group when their leader, a Pac fan, decided they would effect an American "gangsta" persona. Ironically, they were considerably more brutal than their American namesakes, employing Child Soldiers, forcing children to murder their own parents and buying heavy arms off corrupt UN peacekeepers with conflict diamonds. They achieved brief notoriety by kidnapping a patrol of Royal Irish Regiment soldiers during the British intervention in Sierra Leone. This proved to a fatal mistake, and the organization was all but annihilated by the SAS and British paratroopers.
  • The Juggalo subculture is an interesting example. Insane Clown Posse was originally the Inner City Posse, a small set of friends that could be classified as a gang. The style of the subculture is based on gang fashion, and many wear items such as colored bandanas that are read as gang symbols, and over the years, many members of the subculture have been involved with criminal activity, mostly involving drugs, and those in prison will look to other Juggalos for company and protection if they find them, which lead to a controversial decision for the FBI to classify "Juggalos" as a federally recognized gang, which infuriated the more law abiding members of the subculture, as designating the group as a gang, and their symbols as gang symbols would be a problem for many with their employment and child custody.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Clan Of Hats

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The 3rd Street Saints

The 3rd Street Saints were formed to combat the more violent and destructive gangs that rose to power in their home city of Stilwater. They succeed, but are disbanded a short time after and forced to start over from scratch in the second game. With the help of a former member turned leader, they retake Stilwater once again, though with much less noble goals this time around. As their fame and power grows, they slowly become celebrities and begin to lose touch with who they once were. By the third game, they begin to wonder if they have become sellouts and end up in a new city under the control of a massive crime organization simply called The Syndicate. Crushing the organization, the Saints eventually win the adoration of America when they prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on Washington D.C., only to be drawn into an intergalactic war against the colossal Zin Empire.

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