So can someone explain to me what makes Fortnite a "worldwide pop culture phenomenon"? It's being used to describe some game I know nothing about except it's I guess PUBG with dance offs, but I'm not seeing how it's a phenomenon. What's it done differently to change pop culture as we know it? You know what video games were pop culture phenomenons?
Super Mario Bros. Pokémon. Sonic the Hedgehog. Halo.
That's just a few titles right off the top of my head, but they affected pop culture in some way or another which is still felt to this day. Sure, they may have been written off as fads by the normie adults/outsiders who just "didn't get it", but there was something about those titles that separated them from everything else in their niche genre, and hence why they've continued to prosper outside of their decade of birth. Of those four listed, Mario and Pokémon are fucking household names up there with Mickey Mouse and Snoopy (well, Peanuts) in terms of recognizable characters. For fuck's sake, Five Nights at Freddy's is a bigger household name than Fortnite, which currently has roughly the same amount of attention given to it as FNAF did in its heyday, except I've been hearing more negative talk such as shitty kids stealing their parents' credit cards to buy custom suits or whatever, and then that one fuck from Florida who got caught soliciting underage sex.
Having a shitton of merchandise and YouTube videos dedicated to it doesn't automatically mean it's changing pop culture as we know it. When it came to something like Pokémon back in 1999, even though the parents didn't play the video game or even watch the TV show with their kids, they could at least tell you something about it and how it's affected their children (positively, at least--say what you will about the autism it attracts, it got kids socializing with each other and becoming black market dealers in-training). What about with Fortnite? Could you honestly pick out from a line-up of characters a face, a name from this game? Dances are just gimmicks, just like trading was just a gimmick for Pokémon, except trading was an important gimmick. What's the point of Fortnite's dances, getting kids physically active?
I just don't get it, but saying it's a "pop culture phenomenon" just rubs me the wrong way.