Back in March, Epic Games announced a “Boogie Down” contest where players submitted dance videos for a chance to have their moves added to the game as an emote. Winners were announced, and a champion was crowned. The community seemingly hated the results, though.
In first place came Twitter user @Populotus:
Per contest rules, Populotus would become immortalized in Fortnite. However, Epic also published a wider list of runner-ups who would enjoy other prizes. In twenty third place came this humble little entry from @Kid_Fortnite12.
While the Twitter video warned of a potentially embarrassing dance, Fortnite players loved it. The original video has been viewed 1.12 million times as of this writing, and has been retweeted over 18,000 times, and that’s not counting re-uploads. Compare that to the number one winner, which has only been viewed 232k times and retweeted only 405 times. Perceiving a mass injustice, Fortnite players uploaded all sorts of memes, Reddit threads, and YouTube videos in protest, most of which were kicked off by this video by Dolan Darker titled “The problem with Fortnite #BOOGIEDOWN.”
Since then, Fortnite players have been talking about this almost as much as the extremely hyped comet event. The “Orange Shirt Kid,” as he was dubbed, had his dance put over hilariously intense songs, and many of these jokes garnered hundreds of thousands of views:
But for all of the jokes and viral videos, Orange Shirt Kid did not win. Everyone was sad. Except this morning, Fortnite got a big 4.0 update and lo and behold, the dance still made it into the game. It’s called “Orange Justice,” and you can get it on tier 26. If you buy the Battle Pass, you pretty much get Orange Justice right away. “It’s also a great exercise move,” reads the flavor text. As you can see in the GIF of the top of this post, just like Orange Shirt Kid, the emote goes pretty hard.
We reached out to Epic to inquire about how the emote ended up in the game, but did not hear back in time for publication. Orange Shirt Kid seems thrilled, though:
Fortnite players, meanwhile, are rejoicing. “We, the people, have today shown the power of protest,” one joked. “We must be proud.” “JusticeServedForBoogieBoy,” another chimed in.