Epic Games multiplayer shooter Fortnite is a massively successful game. This is proven in the fact that there are more than 125 million people playing it around the world, in the way that fans perform the game's emotes in real life, and how it seems to trend on Twitter every time there's an update. But these are far from the only indicators that the game is officially in the mainstream.
The latest evidence that Fortnite has blown up is that the game was the butt of the joke in the latest episode of South Park. In the season premiere of the show (Season 22, Episode 1, "Dead Kids"), Cartman faces a dilemma. He explains to Butters that if he fails another math test, his mother is going to "ground" him from playing Fortnite. Other scenes in the episode - which takes on the topic of school shootings - see Cartman try to blackmail Token into letting him cheat. In another, Cartman and Token must run through a hail of bullets in order to make it to class in time.
The official South Park Twitter account also tweeted about the Fortnite mention, garnering a huge response from fans of the game and the show alike. Several South Park viewers said that they "knew" that the new season of the show would mention Fortnite in some capacity and they saw this coming a mile away. Other replies to the tweet, meanwhile, call for the Comedy Central show to do a full episode about the game. South Park has taken on free to play games and let's play videos in the past, so fans will be hoping that Fortnite is able to get the parody treatment, too.
The South Park Fortnite mention is not the only instance of the game getting a hat tip on national television in the last week. Over the weekend, the season premiere of Saturday Night Live also featured a Fortnite skit. It seems as though every comedy writers room spent the hiatus playing the hit multiplayer title, or at least reading up on it for the sake of relevant references.
In addition to mentions on popular TV shows, Fortnite has also been played by some of the most famous celebrities in the world right now such as Drake and Travis Scott. Fortnite dances have also been performed at the World Cup, and the game has even been debated on Good Morning America. While there's little doubt that Fortnite is now mainstream, the question is: who will reference the game next?
Fortnite is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and iOS devices. A beta is currently taking place on Android.