Sitting at the computer screen, furiously concentrating on the battle at hand, is a familiar sight for many of us. Over the years, online video games have become an integral part of modern culture. Even the controversial esports community has begun to skyrocket in popularity during the recent years with teams such as OpTic Gaming and FaZe rising to popularity.

In July 2017, however, the game Fortnite Battle Royale took many by surprise, growing rapidly in popularity. Currently, the company who created Fortnite, Epic Games, is worth $8 billion as a result of the game’s success, according to their founder Tim Sweeney. But, with all this demand, people have differing views.

“It’s a very good game and the developers put a lot of hard work into it,” multimedia teacher Leo Salcedo said. “However, I don’t play it much and it’s just not for me.”

One flaw Salcedo points out is that Fortnite does not provide the number of updates that older, more dynamic games provide, resulting in some users gravitating toward those other games.

“Rainbow Six Siege and Call of Duty are games that have constantly been making changes for months,” Salcedo said. “For example, Rainbow Siege has lasted three years and it’s still going to succeed every three months [when] they release a new map.”

However, teens and children play Fortnite significantly more than adults and teachers. In fact, 53% of Fortnite’s demographic includes players that are under 18, as seen in a survey by Newzoo Statistics.

“I really like the game and it’s very unique,” sophomore Kevin Tran, a Fortnite player, said. “Although the community is very toxic [mean], the game has a great concept and high potential to get better.”

Although most of those who play Fortnite are high school students, not all teens enjoy the game, since some feel it is only useful when used as a joke.

“I don’t play the game at all. But it’s funny when the dances and emotes are used in memes,” senior Rowan Tran said.

The main aspect of Fortnite that has begun to influence the world, even spreading to people that do not play, are the dances that are present. Dances like Orange Justice, Floss, and Shoot all stem from Fortnite as can be seen in schools and on social media, indicative of the popularity surrounding the game.

“Everyone at my school usually laughs whenever I do the Orange Justice or Default Dance and they cringe whenever I post them on TikTok [a popular social media platform],” junior Royce Lee, a long-time meme creator on the Internet, from Fremont High School said.