It was only a matter of time. The headteacher of a primary school in Ilfracombe in Devon has banned ‘Flossing’, the dance craze linked to the video game Fortnite, on the grounds that it’s being used to ‘intimidate’ other children. ‘Fortnite is about mass killing of other human beings and being rewarded by a dance of celebration if you are successful,’ she told the Telegraph.
This is the latest example of the moral panic surrounding Fortnite, a video game in which up to 100 players compete against each other, either individually or in ‘squads’, to see who can be the last man standing. So far this year, the National Crime Agency has warned that it is putting children at risk from online paedophiles, Matt Hancock has condemned it for ‘damaging’ children’s lives and the Daily Mail ran a story about it under the following headline: ‘Girl, nine, is in rehab after becoming so addicted to Fortnite video game she “wet herself to continue playing and hit her father in the face when he tried to take
away her Xbox’’.’
The panic shows no signs of subsiding. Fortnite was released by a US company called Epic Games last July, but only took off when Epic released a free-to-play version called Battle Royale. It now has 40 million players worldwide and that number looks set to grow, thanks in part to the World Cup. Dele Alli, the Tottenham midfielder now in the England team, busted out a Fortnite dance when he scored England’s second goal against Sweden last Saturday — in this case ‘Feed The Pony’ rather than ‘Flossing’. When Antoine Griezmann scored the opening goal for France against Argentina he celebrated by making an ‘L’ shape with his thumb and forefinger, grabbing his crotch and hopping from one foot to the other, a Fortnite dance known as ‘Take The L’.
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