You are scrolling through your social media feed, and a post from FireMonkey, the official Fortnite account, catches your eye. The image is plain and has a note saying, “18 years later, they are together.” Just feelings and nothing more. And the photo? It is obvious that two characters from Fortnite are in the midst of a dance together, one of them is clearly Hatsune Miku, the famous virtual pop singer. The other one? A person doing a very recognizable and funny dance with a… leek? Wait a minute! If you are not older than a certain age or just not acquainted with the early 2000’s internet culture, you would probably find yourself lost. However, it is already too late for the entire generation of gamers and anime fans—the incident in Fortnite was a nostalgia freight train. It was an instant recall of a meme that is already older than some of the current Fortnite players. This thing is similar to a historical artifact—it even has a Wikipedia page dedicated to it. Let us once again analyze together why this is a big, weird deal.
The first image presented the Hatsune Miku and the another character attempting to do the ‘Leek Spin’ emote together. The ‘they’ in ‘they are together’ does not signify a ship but rather the two legendary internet memes finally meeting in the same digital space. The joke that sailed over a number of heads in replies connects meme 1 and meme 2 of distinct yet related viral moments from the mid-2000s. The ‘Leek Spin’ meme has its origin in the anime series Bleach. There is a character named Orihime Inoue who, in one episode, spins a leek (yes, a vegetable) around. It was a weird, funny little scene that got out of context and then became one of the most well-known clips on the early internet—forums, YouTube, you name it. It was huge in Russia and France, even before memes had been referred to as such within the mainstream culture.
Hatsune Miku was a different story altogether and the leek incident turned into a pun of her Japanese name (‘negi’ sounds like a part of her name), so soon people started linking her to leeks, too. Therefore, the second meme was born: Miku dancing with a leek. For almost two decades, these have been like sibling memes in cultural consciousness. They were uniting in essence but not at the same place. Until now that is Fortnite, the great digital collaboration melting pot, has finally put them in the same lobby. The legendary leek-spinning duo is now reunited after 18 years. It’s the kind of internet-history-referencing, deep-cut move that makes one say, ‘huh, neat.’
The reactions to the tweet are a hilarious mix of confusion and celebration. There are players like ‘dixon mayaz’ (unknownrototo1) who completely miss the point, claiming ‘No. They were never together. Not a joke. Not real.’ On the other hand, there are people like ‘Ellie PixBit’ who practically feel old telling younger folks ‘You must be too young to know the meme. I’m 23 😅👵🏻’. It is a perfect illustration of an online culture clash. One user, ‘S k A’ (KnowNasShreyasH), is seemingly on a total mission in the comments, spamming links to the Wikipedia page of the Orihime leek spin meme, to enlighten the audience. And he is not wrong! The page exists and it provides a detailed history of how this absurd clip became a pre-social media viral phenomenon. He even points out that learning about it made him read the Bleach manga in 2024 which he totally enjoyed. See? Memes can be influential!
But apart from the history lesson, what does this mean for Fortnite? It is yet another case of Epic Games’ masterful cultural curation. They are not just selecting the biggest, newest thing. They are going deep into the archives of nerd culture and pulling out gems that have real emotional resonance for a significant portion of their player base. For those who get it, it is an egg that is extremely satisfying. It’s like a wink and a nod saying, ‘we see you, older millennials and zoomers who grew up with Newgrounds and early YouTube.’ It is far more profound than just the addition of any random character skin in the shop. It has layers, man!
But of course, not everyone is captivated. There are the usual ‘go outside’ comments like that of ‘Jedi Hippo’ and requests for more practical things like ‘mcfeathersgraw’, asking to ‘bring back last seen in the shop’. Nevertheless, that’s just part of the Fortnite Twitter experience. The vast majority of people trying to explain the joke to others, sometimes with patience and at times with sheer exasperation. The game’s collaboration with Bleach shows its wide reach. For players on PlayStation and Xbox, these cultural moments are a key part of the experience.
