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Mastering Fortnite would make me the coolest dad, but I can’t even work out the controls
The game Fortnite has just started its 10th season, and my children have become impossible to understand. They say things like: “There’s been a drop near the eye of the storm,” and “This guy using the Twistie skin is such a blatant noob.” They also seem to think my wife and I have some sort of contact with the makers of the game, as this morning my second son asked me if I could sort out the Fortnite servers. I said I would, and left the room to make a sandwich. When I returned, the servers had been fixed and my son thanked me. I accepted his gratitude, as my level of understanding is so minimal that for all I know all it needed was for me to make a sandwich.
I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn’t like them. The other day I said to my son: “I’m taking ya missus, nah brother I’m joking,” because that is a song by Jay1, who I know kids love, and my son told me that a) that might have been impressive if I had done it four months ago, and b) what I was doing was obvious and pathetic. But I find Fortnite completely impenetrable, and I now have to listen to my kids talk about great Fortnite players with more affection than they do their parents. I constantly walk past their rooms to the sounds of, “Aw man Ninja 120 is the absolute best”, or “Alpha Bum posted up a video of him killing 12 enemies with just a crossbow!” I can feel the common ground between us disappearing. Continue reading...