YouTube series Skibidi Toilet will soon appear in Fortnite as a skin—the news sparked surprise, disbelief and plenty of memes from Fortnite fans.
Fortnite is something of a media multiverse, a digital playground where all the popular franchises collide, from Dragon Ball to Family Guy; Skibidi Toilet’s entry to the Fortnite-verse perhaps marks its official entry into mainstream pop culture.
Rumors first started appearing on X (Twitter) that Fortnite would be incorporating Skibidi Toilet as a skin— leaker SpushFNBR reported that a skin for “Plungerman” with a Skibidi Toilet backpack, and a Plungerman Plunger pickaxe will all drop on Fortnite.
Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, confirmed the leak on X with a few teasing emojis, including a toilet, plunger and video camera, with the date “12.18.2024.”
What Is ‘Skibidi Toilet’?
Skibidi Toilet is an animated series featuring grotesque, singing toilet people that are engaged in a destructive battle with an army of mechanical men, who sometimes have cameras for heads.
Skibidi Toilet has proved wildly popular on YouTube, and has leaked through to the rest of the internet, inspiring homages, fan animations, and memes. Parents have often been bewildered by the popularity of the series, but Skibidi Toilet is simpler than it seems.
The series was created by Georgian animator Alexey Gerasimov, who posts each episode on his YouTube channel, DaFuq!?Boom!
Gerasimov started his story with an 11-second YouTube short, featuring a head emerging from a toilet, singing remixed lyrics to a Biser King song (which was originally sampled from a TikTok meme).
That simple short went viral, encouraging Gerasimov to expand the story, until it grew into a long-running saga of a fiercely destructive war. Gerasimov has cited Michael Bay’s Transformers films, as well as his own recurring nightmares, as major inspirations for his series.
From the very beginning, Skibidi Toilet has been created using Valve’s Source Filmmaker, an animation and editing tool which is filled with assets from Valve games, such as Half-Life.
Gamers Question The ‘Fortnite/Skibidi Toilet’ Collaboration
After the leaks were confirmed by Epic, fans reacted with hyperbolic horror, as though Fortnite embracing Skibidi Toilet was another example of internet “brainrot” leaking through to the mainstream.
Others questioned if the licensing deal could even go through at all, seeing as several Skibidi Toilet characters were built using Valve’s assets from other games.
It’s unclear if Fortnite will be altering the appearance of those Skibidi Toilet characters, but the leering faces of Skibidi Toilet might be altered at some point regardless, as there are plans to adapt the series into a cinematic blockbuster franchise in the near future.
In an ironic twist of fate, Michael Bay is said to be involved in the adaptation of the series, along with former Paramount president Adam Goodman, who reckons that Skibidi Toilet “could be the next Transformers or could be a Marvel universe.”
Whatever Skibidi Toilet grows into, it’s become big enough now to enter Fortnite, which has become the entry point for many younger gamers to encounter major pop culture icons.
