We Played So You Don’t Have To

The pre-match Fortnite lobby was filled with a bunch of other players wearing a variety of different outfits. One was wearing a white puffer jacket and dancing in front of me for no discernible reason. Another stood motionless, looking like a rockstar wearing a bright purple vest and an animal mask with a matching mohawk. The whole lobby looked like a group of high-school misfits. There was not one single person wearing the exact same thing, and so any feelings of embarrassment about wearing a toilet with a head popping out of it on my back were washed away. It truly felt like a judgment-free zone where everyone could just be themselves.

As of 2024, Fortnite has approximately 650 million registered players, which is an astronomical number, beating out other juggernaut franchises like Call of Duty. Due to its popularity, Fortnite has evolved from simply being a game to being a content platform itself, including performances with megastars like Eminem and Snoop Dogg. In 2020, Fortnite hosted “Astronomical,” an in-game live event with a giant Travis Scott performing some of his biggest hits, like “Stargazing.”

Fortnite’s Skibidi Toilet collaboration is the latest example of the game using its platform to constantly bring in new audiences and keep itself in the cultural zeitgeist (it also is probably the best example of brainrot to date). The game is home to silly internet references and memes, so it was only a matter of time before Skibidi Toilet made its way to the game. Are your eyes glazing over in some kind of YouTube-induced trance? Don’t worry, we have you covered.

What is Fortnite?

Fortnite has several different modes, but it’s famous for the battle royale, where a hundred players are dropped into a map to face off against each other with the goal of becoming the last person standing. A storm closes in every minute or so, making the map smaller and smaller so as players get eliminated, the last few remaining have a much higher chance of encountering each other, bringing the match to a close. In Fortnite, players can purchase a variety of different items, such as skins, emotes, and accessories for their character. Skins are simply just alternative costumes, and the developer of Fortnite, Epic Games, has done collaborations with many different companies to produce special skins, including some with Disney (Star Wars, Marvel), and even the NBA for a LeBron James skin.

That’s why you’ll sometimes see characters like Spider-Man — not because Spider-Man himself is a character in the game, but because Epic Games worked with Marvel to add a skin. Emotes are movements that players can perform, like activating a positive dance after victory over an opponent. The “Get Griddy” emote is one of the most popular emotes, which is a dance where someone taps their heels and swings their arms back and forth. It went viral on TikTok in 2019, and has had long-lasting staying power as a meme. 

What is Skibidi Toilet?

Skibidi Toilet is a YouTube series created by user DaFuqBoom, also known as Alexy Gerasimov, on Feb. 7, 2023. Its popularity as an internet joke has skyrocketed the channel to reach almost 45 million subscribers. The series primarily appeals to Generation Alpha (those born after 2012). Despite Skibidi Toilet’s audience being young kids, it has a surprisingly dark premise. The show, which has dropped about 77 episodes so far, is about a conflict between two factions: The first one are the Skibidi Toilets, which are singing toilets with human heads sticking out the bowl. The second faction is made up of Cameramen and Speakermen, which are humanoid figures with cameras with CCTV cameras, speakers, and TVs for heads.

In this saga, the Cameramen and Speakermen conduct a strike mission on the Skibidi Toilets and manage to defeat their second-in-command, Scientist Toilet. However, only one person survives the operation: a Cameraman named Plungerman, whose signature weapons are literally two toilet plungers.

While the absurdity of Skibidi Toilet can be baffling to many (including Gen Z), its cultural impact has been so significant that Gerasimov is in talks with director Michael Bay to adapt a movie and television series. Skibidi Toilet is seen as one of the first, if not the very first, distinctive formation of Gen Alpha internet and meme culture. As James La Bella from the theatre firm the Civilians put it, “The popularity of Skibidi Toilet and Elf on the Shelf communicate loud and clear: Gen Alpha feels surveilled.”

Fortnite and Skibidi Toilet

This collaboration was first hinted at on Tuesday, by prominent Fortnite leaker SpushFNBR. The official Fortnite account seemingly confirmed the leak by posting three emojis: a toilet, a plunger, and a camera.

On Wednesday night, the bundle finally dropped, and it includes a Plungerman skin, Plungerman LEGO style skin, Plungerman Plunger Pickaxe, Skibidi Pack, and Skibidi Toilet Backpack. The package costs 2,200 V-Bucks (a little under $20 USD), but it’s only available until Dec. 28.

The titular Skibidi Toilet Backpack is the exact model of the first episode’s thumbnail, nailing its iconic look. It simply just rests on the player’s back, with its creepy wide eyes and grin staring back. The rest of the items are related to Plungerman, including a skin featuring his black suit as well as a LEGO version of it. The Skibidi Pack is Plungerman’s rather plain black backpack and his plungers can be used to dig for building materials during a match or as melee weapons to hit opponents with.

Most of these items can be worn together, with the exception of the Skibidi Toilet and Skibidi Pack. Only one backpack can be worn at a time. The Plungers will also replace the default pickaxe that players have at the start of a match.

In Fortnite, skins are purely cosmetic and only impact your character visually, so they don’t offer any gameplay advantages. They’re there to allow players to express their own interests and creativity. Players can even mix and match unrelated skins and items. In a show of irony, it’s possible to equip an Eminem/Slim Shady skin while wearing the Skibidi Toilet backpack. In his recent raps, Eminem claims to be canceled by the younger generation, although the opposite seems to be true.

At first, it was a bit disappointing to see that there weren’t many other players rocking the Skibidi Toilet items, but then again, Fortnite is a platform all about self-expression. After all, Fortnite has over 600 million players, so you’re bound to eventually meet someone who’s wearing Skibidi items, too.