The game Fortnite has just started its 10th season, and my children have become impossible to understand. They say things like: “There’s been a drop near the eye of the storm,” and “This guy using the Twistie skin is such a blatant noob.” They also seem to think my wife and I have some sort of contact with the makers of the game, as this morning my second son asked me if I could sort out the Fortnite servers. I said I would, and left the room to make a sandwich. When I returned, the servers had been fixed and my son thanked me. I accepted his gratitude, as my level of understanding is so minimal that for all I know all it needed was for me to make a sandwich.
I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn’t like them. The other day I said to my son: “I’m taking ya missus, nah brother I’m joking,” because that is a song by Jay1, who I know kids love, and my son told me that a) that might have been impressive if I had done it four months ago, and b) what I was doing was obvious and pathetic. But I find Fortnite completely impenetrable, and I now have to listen to my kids talk about great Fortnite players with more affection than they do their parents. I constantly walk past their rooms to the sounds of, “Aw man Ninja 120 is the absolute best”, or “Alpha Bum posted up a video of him killing 12 enemies with just a crossbow!” I can feel the common ground between us disappearing.
My kids are very different to how I remember being at their age with regards to interests. They are really keen for my wife and me to be across all this crap. I went into my eldest son’s room when he was in the middle of a game and asked him to talk me through it. He proceeded to give me an in-depth tutorial that consisted of him running around, building weird structures and shooting people, while asking me if I was getting it. I really wasn’t. And what’s frustrating is I’m a gamer, albeit a casual one. I’ll play anything Mario- or Zelda-related, but Fortnite is one step beyond me. I don’t get anything from it but motion sickness and an increased sense of anxiety about how violent future generations are going to be.
He went on to YouTube and started showing me videos posted by the best players in the world, the likes of whom recently won shedloads of money in the Fortnite World Cup. I watched these videos of people running about shooting and drinking potion, and every now and again my son would say: “How sick was that move?” and I would nod while wondering how much longer I would have to watch before I could ask to stop, without hurting his feelings. I guess this is what it felt like when an earlier generation of kids started getting into punk or hip-hop. But that happened to teenagers. My kids aren’t even 10 yet.
I am going to have to find a way into Fortnite. But I am now of the belief that this has to become an undercover mission, so that I can become good at it without looking like I’m trying. I am going to access it at work, train, and become incredible. Then I am going to enter one of their battles as DaddyKnowsBest and lay waste to them and their friends. I will unmask myself and wait for their adulation as they realise that I am the coolest dad in the country.
The truth is, however, that I had a go the other night after they had gone to sleep and I couldn’t even figure out the bloody controls. I’ve decided that having a connection with my kids might not be worth the effort.
