Epic Games' juggernaut battle royaleFortniteis no stranger to incorporating content from its huge fanbase, most recently seen when itadded a skin based on popular streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. Today theFortnitedevelopers announced a contest in conjunction with the social media app TikTok for a lucky fan’s dance moves to become an official emote.
The contest, which will run between 12:00 a.m. on January 18 and 11:59 p.m. on January 24, involves players posting a 15-second-or-less video of themselves performing the dance they’d like to see “immortalized inFortnite” on TikTok with the hashtag “EmoteRoyaleContest.” Applicants must be 13 years or older and use one of twelve backing tracks available to download at the contest announcement page onFortnite’s website.
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Whoever wins the TikTok contest will also receive 25,000 V-Bucks,Fortnite’s in-game currency, and a physical prize pack with over $400 in toys and swag like hoodies, drones, and Funko figures.
This is not the first time the popular game has held a contest for player-generated emotes. In 2018,a dance by Twitter user Populotus won the “Boogiedown” competition and was added intoFortnite.
However the current rules page is very adamant about submissions needing to be comprised of entirely original content, which makes sense considering how many times Epic Games has come into legal trouble for basing their emotes off of popular dance moves. One of the most recent cases was in 2019when saxophonist Leo Pellegrino sued over the “Phone It In” emote.
TikTok, the video-sharing app that has become well known for creating viral hits the last few years, has had a host of video game-related content over that time. One more bizarre user-driven trend hadLEGO Star Warscharacters taking over people’s profile pictures.
The corporate-driven crossover hashtag has taken overFortnite’s presence on the app, which has over 33 million total views as of this writing. There are already a number of entries interspersed between generalFortnitememes and people reacting to the contest’s existence.
Love it or hate it,Fortniteis an inescapable black hole in modern-day popular culture (even if competitors likePlayerUnknown’s Battlegroundsare still going strong in its shadow). No matter where a person goes it will undoubtedly follow.
To have something incorporated into the game is a prize many will go after for the Internet clout alone, so expect to see plenty of targeted dancing on TikTok between now and Friday the 24th.
Fortniteis available for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, Xbox One, iOS, Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh operating systems.
