The Internet's Freaking Out Over Lady Gaga's Fortnite Tweet
Everyone has heard of Fortnite, right? The game got so big, so fast that it was hard for anyone — even those outside of the gaming industry — to ignore. And its addictive gameplay (so addictive that its been compared to cocaine) has spread to the ire of parents and the delight of players everywhere.
Fortnite ballooned to nearly 250 million players this year, an eye-popping number that has broken records. Yet somehow, despite two years of constant fanfare and news coverage, some people have managed to be totally ignorant as to what this whole Fortnite thing is. One of those people, it turns out, is Lady Gaga.
One of the most famous names in the world proved that she knew nothing about one of the most famous games in the world, tweeting, "What's fortnight," with no idea she'd spelled the name of the game wrong, and no idea what she was getting herself into.
It's likely that the singer/songwriter/actress/superstar heard of the Epic Games hit thanks to the latest development involving Fortnite. Seemingly out of nowhere, the map of the battle royale shooter was sucked into a black hole, leaving players with black screens and anxiety attacks. The map had been drastically altered before with glaciers, volcanoes, and other types of new terrain for new seasons. But never had something so dramatic happened inside the game.
It turned out that this disappearing act served as a kind of viral announcement for Fortnite: Chapter 2, which felt less like an update for the game and more like a reboot.
Anyway, it's likely that Lady Gaga caught a bit of news about Fortnite: Chapter 2, and took it upon herself to ask the Twitterverse what the hubbub was all about. Following her fateful tweet, the replies started rolling in. Very few of them, as it turned out, were actually focused on educating the singer on the Fortnite sensation that's been sweeping the nation. Rather, her tweet made for a great platform for joke replies like, "two weeks" which is technically the correct answer to what a fortnight is. Other one-liners included, "the length of my longest relationship" and "It's another word for two weeks, aka the longest we should have to wait for the lead single to LG6 [her upcoming album]."
Former IGN personality Alanah Pearce tried to help explain Fortnite in this way: "Ok so it's like Bayonetta but instead of a sexy goth chick with foot guns you build forts dressed as a neon unicorn or something."
And Tyler "Ninja" Blevins even replied, saying, "Call me on the Telephone. I'll give you a Million Reasons to play. You and I."
Hilariously, out of all those who responded to her tweet, Lady Gaga chose to tweet back at Ninja, but not to line up a play date, apparently. She simply directed one sentence toward Ninja that said, "who are you." Ouch! Imagine tweeting one of your favorite singers, actually getting a response, and then seeing that response is little more than confirmation that they have no idea who you are. If that isn't a brutal reminder that "internet famous" is not necessarily "world famous," we don't know what is.
Not everyone was nice, though. Lady Gaga got dragged a bit on Twitter, with some people suggesting that she was purposefully trolling. Others, with the fervor of the most dedicated of conspiracy theorists, suggested that this was actually a cryptic clue as to when her next album will drop. Whether either one of those is true, we honestly can't say. Perhaps we'll wake up in a couple of days and discover this was all one big puzzle that needed to be solved in order to download a new Lady Gaga single or something.
But it should be noted: Lady Gaga is actually something of a gamer. Maybe she just wanted some help getting in on the new hot thing!
Last year, Little Monsters woke up to the news that their mama monster, Lady Gaga, had stayed up late playing Bayonetta until her thumbs hurt. She was having trouble with the Chapter 13 boss, The Cardinal Virtue of Prudence, or as she called it, "this damn dragon with the face that I have to kill with my weave." Sounds about right for a Bayonetta game. The series' over-the-top nature and Bayonetta's own outfits and sass are totally reminiscent of a good Lady Gaga music video, so it made sense for Gaga to have been playing that one.
And as for Fortnite, there are plenty of other celebrities who do know what Fortnite is, and in fact, play it themselves. The obvious name that comes to mind is Drake, who teamed up with Ninja to play a couple rounds. Drake is far from the only celebrity Fortnite fan, though. Joe Jonas has been known to play alongside Chance the Rapper, Finn Wolfhard, and even Lakers small forward and shooting guard Josh Hart. And there are tons more actors, actresses, singers, and athletes who play the game.
Will Lady Gaga become the next famous Fortnite player on the list? We'll have to wait and see. Gaga's tweet about Fortnite combined with her response to only Ninja has this feeling like some kind of weird marketing strategy. Perhaps we'll see a Lady Gaga skin show up in Fortnite. Or maybe she'll hold a Marshmello-like concert and perform some songs from her new album in the game. If we hear anything more related to Lady Gaga's new curiosity about Epic Games' battle royale shooter, we'll be sure to update.