The latest Icon Series emotes have just been unveiled by the folks at Fortnite and it seems like the reaction is… well, it is a really big deal. The official Fortnite news account, FireMonkey, has informed us about the unveiling: a ‘Destroy me’ emote that takes its cue from artist 2hollis and an ‘Illegal’ emote featuring PinkPantheress. Right now, both the emotes are accessible in the item store for the standard price of 500 V-Bucks each. However, the most fascinating aspect is, as always, the comments. And the mood varies from one comment to another.
To start with, the main points. The 2hollis’ emote ‘Destroy me’ shows the avatar in a boxing stance, almost daring the opposition with an ‘Okay! Try me’ attitude. The ‘Illegal’ – PinkPantheress emote is a slick little handshake animation with the words ‘Shake on it’ underneath. Quite direct, isn’t it? New skins are released, and players either buy or not. But the attitude of Fortnite gamers is never that simple.
FireMonkey’s tweet revealing the new emotes almost instantly resulted in a massive thread of replies. There were some gamers that were completely over the moon. User ‘rqdiotowers’ openly stated it: “2 of my goats omg i love life.” That’s the right vibe. On top of that, another user, ‘Frogervik’, couldn’t hide their excitement with “OMGGGG PINKPANTHERESS IN FORTNITE WHATT,” which is fair because PinkPantheress has the kind of followership that is akin to a cult. This isn’t even her first appearance in Fortnite, actually—the players in the thread were quick to point out that she has been in the game via a ‘Boy’s a liar’ Jam Track and even a song on Fortnite radio. So, for her loyalists, this emote is just a further tiny piece of the puzzle.
Meanwhile, the other side of the coin tells a different story. Not every gamer loved the new moves. The criticisms started pouring in. User ‘Mucky’ bluntly put it: “Those really suck.” ‘Aaron’ then tore off to the rapid-fire answering questioning with a candid “These kinda suck,”. And there was ‘TheoMulero’, who took to the 2hollis movements, attacking it more critically saying, “Probably the worst dance they could pick for 2hollis😂”. Ouch. This is the classic Fortnite item shop split—one man’s instant cop is another man’s hard pass. The question arises of how the moments of which artists get to be emotes are decided, right?
The response dialog did reach a level quite deep in one thread. It all started with the PinkPantheress hype and continued like this: one person mentioned her Jam Track, another pointed out her song on the in-game radio. It’s like a complete ecosystem! This opened up to a side conversation about another artist, Poki, with ‘artic_uwu’ posing a direct question to FireMonkey whether there is any possibility that Poki would ever make a comeback. No answer on that but it shows how the players are connecting these dots and building up hopes that their favorite creators will get the Icon Series treatment.
Then there are these wild card replies that make it worth scrolling through Twitter. ‘renz88x’ simply wrote “LGBT final boss” without any sort of clarification, which is… a point of view, I guess? On the other hand, ‘OGBlackWidowFan’ is here, suggesting for completely different content: “We want George W Bush instead.” I mean, yes, why not. The Fortnite wishlist is such a peculiar and beautiful place.
A reply that was more contemplative came from ‘Signified_Flyer’, who proposed that the PinkPantheress emote might be a hint for a new skin coming up. They said that while they were simply passing through, they had seen some in-game ads and stuffed toys for a character named ‘Jemma’. They even included a picture with their post. Now, that is some top-notch detective work. Whether it is a link or just a coincidence is open to personal opinion, but it is this kind of community speculation that keeps either the game’s lore—or just the hype cycle—running 24/7.
Let me just give a tiny shoutout to ‘cutiebbsparkles’ for letting us know that they “bought Illegal using your code!” So, support your favorite leakers, people. Every little help counts.
So what is the final verdict on these new emotes? Let’s be honest, Epic Games is continuously feeding the beast that is the Fortnite Item Shop. Some releases are giant partnerships that alter the universe. Others are just insignificant but still cute influences of the very specific music artists like the ones available on PlayStation and Xbox platforms.
