Fortnite tutors are a thing. And yes, parents are paying them

Caroline Blackmon | USA TODAY

It's turned kids into couch potatoes.

It's caused professional athletes to crash and burn at their jobs.

It's even infiltrated daily conversations with its own vocabulary.

Fortnite arrived on the scene last July as a free-to-play shooter by Epic Games. But it started off as less than a success when first released.

Then, in September 2017, Epic added a free-to-play "battle royale" mode, in which 100 players on a large island fight for survival.

That's when things went crazy.

It captured the Minecraft generation with its free play, bright graphics and ridiculous costumes. It even overtook Minecraft in March as the most-watched video game in YouTube history.

"In terms of fervor, compulsive behavior and parental noncomprehension, the Fortnite craze has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis and the ingestion of Tide Pods," according to the New Yorker.

What's so addicting about Fortnite Fortnite may be a free video game, but it earned $1 billion in 2018, as well as a cult following.

Now instead of pushing back against the addictive nature of the game, some parents are doubling down on Fortnite by hiring tutors for their kids.

Parents are paying up to $20 per hour to hire Fortnite coaches to teach their kids how to beat the game, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Besides weekly lessons, Fortnite has also taken over tons of different areas of life, including college football and dancing. Residents in metro Detroit have even made headlines in Fortnite news.

Getting in the game

The addictive nature of the game has forced athletes to choose between the video game and their future sports careers. Olamide Zaccheaus, a senior wide receiver at University of Virginia, had to delete the game from his Xbox in his effort to quit cold turkey.

Other teams are embracing the Fortnite culture and using it to connect with potential football recruits.

For the University of Michigan football program, recruiting graphics have been a staple for many years, according to The Michigan Insider. Quarterback commit Cade McNamara, as well as other uncommitted recruits, have posted graphics from the Wolverines depicting themselves winning Fortnite battles.

While players are allowing the video game to consume their time, coaches don't seem to be reading from the same playbook.

“I call a high school kid and ask, ‘You play that Fort Hill?’ I don’t even know the name of it,” said University of Pittsburgh football coach Pat Narduzzi, a former assistant coach at Michigan State. “It bothers me that people are that into it. But that’s the generation we’re in. They’d rather do that than work.”

Record numbers watch others play

It's not enough to simply play to quell the Fortnite mania. People watch others play to learn strategy and techniques that they can use to wow their friends.

Twitch is a live streaming website that is owned by a subsidiary of Amazon. The website primarily focuses on video game live streaming.

Over the past seven days, there have been more than 1 million people who have tuned into Twitch, watching for nearly 200 million hours, according to SullyGnome.com, a website that tracks Twitch traffic.

Get to know the jargon

With any true mania comes the need for a dictionary to understand all its terms. While there are plenty of slang words that come when playing the game, there are only a few related to Fortnite that everyone needs to know.

Battle royale: Its own genre of video game, battle royale games usually are competitive shooters where many combatants fight until there is one player left standing. The term was inspired by the 2000 Japanese film "Battle Royale."

In the video game world, games like DayZ, H1Z1 and Rust were some of the first to drop players into hostile territory and force them to rely on their wits to stay alive.

Normies: Normies are people who latch on to the latest social media or online craze without actually caring about the culture and are just doing it to say they are a part of it.

In Fortnite's case, it's referred to as the "normie invasion," alluding to the large influx of viewers on Twitch who aren't a part of the core culture. The most contentious of these invasions was when Summit1G, one of the most-watched Twitch streamers, played Jake Paul and some of his friends. Jake Paul and his brother, Logan Paul, are the definitions of normies.

Reeee: This is another term that usually accompanies normie. Reee is the verbal representation of a long, obnoxious, low-toned jeer, according to Urban Dictionary.When paired with normie, it refers to when someone is annoyed that they've caught a normie not truly understanding the meme they posted or the online culture they're talking about.

Collectibles are coming

The video game has also invaded the real world.

Funko Pop, a pop culture collectible giant, announced Monday they had a deal with Epic Games to produce a collection of Fortnite toys and collectibles, according to a news release.

The new Fortnite collection will feature more than 10 product lines, including action figures, key chains, apparel and more. It'll be the must-have gift of the holidays, as the company plans to release them around November or December.

“This collection will be a true celebration of Fortnite’s incredible popularity and cultural significance, and we believe our Funko Fortnite collectibles will strongly resonate with fans of the game," said Brian Mariotti, CEO of Funko Pop, in the release.

T-shirts, sweatshirts and pants depicting Fortnite characters and scenes already exist. You can find them on several websites, including Amazon, Redbubble and Etsy.

Meet a top local player

Tyler Blevins of Taylor, otherwise known as The Ninja, is a 27-year-old American Twitch streamer and internet personality. He makes $500,000 a month from Twitch subscriptions, according to Crain's Detroit Business.

Blevins has been a professional video game player for several years. He played Halo for a while until recently giving it up to make a career playing Fortnite in front of hundreds, according to Crain's. Audiences are willing to pay $5 to watch him play Fotnite on his Twitch feed.

In fact, Ninja livestreamed his Fortnite game against Drake in March, which crushed Twitch's concurrent viewer record with more than 630,000 people watching simultaneously at one point.

Oh, and don't forget to dance

If you're a Fortnite player, then you know that the different characters have unique styles of dance that echo the latest trends, including The Floss, Dabbing and the Carlton Dance.

Not only do the characters perform these jigs, but people have begun copying them and recording themselves dancing to them. And, of course, it's taken over YouTube.