Fortnite’s portfolio of bizarre collabs just took an even weirder turn – with the arrival of the Skibidi Toilet collab. For the uninitiated, Skibidi Toilet is a series of YouTube videos that feature the characteristic ‘NPC head in a toilet bowl’ performing weird antics.
The series has grown immensely in popularity for its absurd and whimsical nature, especially among the youth (for some reason). Many consider it as Gen Alpha’s first own generation of memes, and as a general look at absurdist humor.
Skibidi Toilet’s popularity drew it into talks for a full length movie/TV series production, along with the currently ongoing collab in Fortnite battle royale.
It would, however, appear that a large section of its playerbase has not taken to the collab kindly, deeming it off the rails, even for Fortnite.
Many players have been quoted to consider ‘quitting the game’ for good, and calling the collab as utter drivel and ‘cringe’ – clearly making their statements vocal.
Keep in mind that Fortnite is no stranger to collabs, especially of the strange variety – so this is absolutely in character for them. If anything, the collaboration shows how lighthearted and whimsical the game can be, which is not exactly a bad thing.
Many players have also come up in defense of the collab, lashing out at the rather overly reactionary response from the rest of the community – which seems to be a saner take in general.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. Personally, I think that Fortnite had a very deliberate reason to go with this collab – a large portion of its playerbase consists of those under 15 years of age.
This is coincidentally the same target demographic that Skibidi Toilet enjoys the most popularity in. As such, it would make sense to release a ‘collab’ with the viral meme in order to draw in the attention of new and existing players in an admittedly rather harmless way.
Another major point of interest would be in the technical legalities of the entire collab. After all, Skibidi Toilet bases its SFM models from Valve. It is unclear whether Epic has asked permission from Valve to make use of these assets, or if a legal battle might unfold in the future.
