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A history of the Fortnite dance trend, and the top 9 Fortnite dances you should check out. - by Rhys McKay
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, you’ve probably heard of Fortnite. It’s made appearances all over the news, millions of children play it day in and day out, and it’s even gotten cameos in massive blockbusters like Avengers: Endgame. There’s no denying that Fortnite is one of the biggest cultural phenomena of our generation. In this article, we’re going to take a look at one of its most noticeable cultural artifacts: The Fortnite dances.
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What Is Fortnite?
Fortnite is a multiplayer third-person shooter video game by publisher and developer Epic Games. The game was released in 2017, and consists of three separate game modes: Fortnite: Save the World, Fortnite Battle Royale, and Fortnite Creative.
Fortnite Battle Royale is by far the most popular of the three modes. It’s a free-to-play battle royale game in which 100 players battle for survival in a large open-world map.
Players start in a ‘Battle Bus’ that transports them high above the battlefield. They can drop at any one of a variety of locations on the map. Once they hit the ground, they have to scavenge for supplies, build fortifications for defence, and fend off other enemies, all while being pushed ever inward by a storm that spells certain death for players caught in it.
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Fortnite has achieved mass popularity, with an estimated 250 million registered players. The game is available on virtually all current-generation gaming platforms, including Windows, Mac, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and even iOS and Android.
What Are Fortnite Dance Moves?
Like many multiplayer video games today, Fortnite features ‘emotes’, which allow players to pose their characters for other players. These emotes range from simple gestures like waving your hand, to complex animations that mimic dance moves.
Some Fortnite dances came with the game when it was new, and more have been added over the past few years. Each Fortnite dance can be purchased with V-bucks, an in-game currency that can be purchased for real money. They don’t give competitive advantages in the game, but they’re fun to pull off, especially when taunting your enemies.
Even without any real gameplay use, the dances have become an incredibly popular part of the game, and in last year’s ‘Fortnitemares’ Halloween event, players were invited to visit gargoyles throughout the map, where they’d strut their stuff with the game’s dance moves in order to complete extra Challenges.
How Did The Trend Start?
While Fortnite dances have been around since the game was launched in mid-2017, the trend of actually dancing these moves in real life only really came around in 2018.
It began on March 30, 2018, when Epic Games launched a contest called the ‘Boogiedown Challenge’, in which players would upload videos of themselves on social media with the hashtag #BoogieDown. The winner of the contest would get their dance recreated in the game as a dance emote, while other winners got V-bucks and cosmetic customisation items for their game characters.
Because of the contest, social media was flooded with videos of children and teenagers showing off their dance moves. Video game media outlets were first on the scene in covering the phenomenon, and then it exploded into the mainstream news.
Today, Fortnite dance videos are incredibly popular, with many dance challenge videos and GIFs of people trying to mimic new dances whenever they come out.
The Fortnite Dances You Need To Know About
Boogie Down
The Boogie Down emote is the winning submission to the Boogiedown Challenge by Twitter user populutus. This move is acquired by simply securing your Fortnite account with two-factor authentication.
Best Mates
With its wide, high-kneed steps and weird stance, Best Mates might look more like an exercise routine than an actual dance. Best Mates is based on a dance invented in 2016 by Viner Marlon Webb.
Flossing
The floss dance, also known as flossing, is exactly as its name suggests. Its swinging arm motions from back to front and side to side resemble the act of flossing a giant tooth. The dance was invented in May 2010 by YouTuber Ryan Mayall, and was popularised by ‘Backpack Kid’ Russell Horning, who performed it on an episode of Saturday Night Live alongside Katy Perry.
Turk's Dance
Fortnite’s default dance is known as ‘Dance Moves,’ and is lifted from the dance moves of the character Turk from the series Scrubs, who performs the funky dance in one episode.
Electro Shuffle
A classic street dance that made the rounds in Parisian nightclubs, the Electro Shuffle is one of Fortnite’s most iconic dances. It’s popular enough that Jimmy Fallon and K-pop group BTS actually performed it on air!
Robot
The jerky, mechanical, and highly flexible moves of the Fortnite Robot dance are a tribute to a dance of the same name that originated in the 1960s. The original Robot became popular when Michael Jackson performed it in 1973 as part of the Jackson 5.
Fresh Dance
Fans of the classic sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would instantly recognise Carlton’s wacky moves in Fortnite’s Fresh Dance. The Fresh Dance pays tribute to actor Alfonso Ribeiro’s original dance, which was inspired by Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Murphy’s moves.
Flapper
The Flapper dance is named after the flapper, a generation of women in the 1920s who disregarded the conservative norms of the era, rebelling with makeup, cigarettes, an extravagant lifestyle, and sexual liberation. Flappers were associated with a dance known as the Charleston dance, which involves wide arm movements in sync with dainty, carefree steps, just like the Fortnite Flapper dance.
Orange Justice
The Orange Justice dance was invented by ‘Orange Shirt Kid’, who submitted the dance as his entry to the Boogiedown Challenge. He didn’t win the actual contest, but his dance was vastly more popular on social media. After much clamouring by fans, Epic finally included the Orange Justice dance in a later patch.
Dance Off!
All these Fortnite dances are fun to pull off, and some require a surprising amount of coordination. You can never go wrong with a bit of exercise in your life, so if you’ve taken a liking to any of these dances, don’t be afraid to strut your stuff!
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