Gaming

The Last Big Cringe Of 2018 Is A Crowd Refusing To Dance Fortnite’s Floss

by Amanda Yeo  2 January 2019
Ninja on New Year's Eve fortnite

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Nearly 40 million people play battle royale video game Fortnite every month. Around 100,000 people celebrated New Year’s Eve in New York’s Times Square. Apparently, the Venn diagram of these groups is two separate circles.

To ring in the new year, immensely popular Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins hosted a Twitch stream live from Times Square. In it played Fortnite, chatted to a few sports stars, and failed miserably at convincing the wet, cold, packed-in crowd to dance Fortnite‘s Floss.

In the incredibly awkward clip, Ninja stands on stage and flosses in front of a large, poncho-clad crowd, encouraging them to join in. “I want to see some movement!” he calls to the stationary mass as desperation begins to set in. “I’m not seeing enough movement.” The video has since spread throughout the internet in the way schadenfreude-inducing material is wont to do.

If there was anyone who could get the Times Square crowd to do a video game dance, it would have been Ninja. The 27-year-old is by far the most popular Fortnite streamer, with nearly 13 million followers on Twitch and almost 21 million subscribers on YouTube. In 2018 he earned USD$10 million, his income coming from both subscribers and sponsors such as Red Bull and Samsung.

However, it appears that on New Year’s Eve most of his fans were watching his stream from the comfort of home.

Though it was released in September 2017, 2018 was truly the year of Fortnite Battle Royale. The multiplayer video game has risen to incredible heights of popularity over the past 12 months, reportedly earning developer Epic Games a profit of USD$3 billion.

The game has quickly become a cultural phenomenon. Kids are teaching themselves to perform Fortnite emotes such as ‘the Carlton’ and the Backpack Kid’s dance, known to them as ‘Fresh’ and ‘Floss’. Parents are once again fearful that video games turning kids into little monsters. And streamers such as Ninja have turned Fortnite into the most watched video game on Twitch.

Still, despite Fortnite‘s pervasive influence, it seems it’s easier to convince adults to wear giant nappies than to do the Floss in the rain. There are just some things that dignity and comfort will not stand.