A look back at the Gangnam Style meme dance added to Fortnite

Fortnite is cashing in on a massive internet sensation, with nearly 4 billion views on YouTube over eight years after its initial release.

🤔🤔 https://t.co/5Ak6EhM8x3

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) January 28, 2021

While Fortnite might be late to the party, especially considering the dance was already half a decade old when Fortnite released, few people know that Gangnam Style was actually the impetus behind one of the biggest changes in YouTube’s history.

An old joke at YouTube’s headquarters was that leaving autoplay on long enough would eventually lead viewers to Gangnam Style, regardless of where they started from.

Fortnite falls into the Gangnam Style pit

For anyone old enough to remember, Gangnam Style needs almost no introduction. The K-Pop sensation circled the globe and skyrocketed to the top of YouTube’s most watched videos. Currently, Gangnam Style sits as the eighth most watched video on YouTube, but it stands out as one of the oldest videos on that list. And for many, Gangnam Style was their first example of a YouTube sensation that achieved such a degree of global recognition.

But for YouTube, Gangnam Style exposed a problem in their website’s functionality. Although the main reason Gangnam Style caught on so effectively was its catchiness of its pop tune, it was aided by a YouTube algorithm that prioritized popular videos as a means of keeping viewers watching.

This is why all videos would ultimately lead to the viral dance if left on autoplay long enough. YouTube began reworking their algorithm, and while it’s always been at least somewhat of an enigma, YouTube’s current algorithm seems to prioritize individual viewer engagement more than video popularity.

Why did Fortnite decide to jump onto a meme dance from 2012?

Add a little Gangnam Style to your life.Dance on over to the Item Shop and grab the Emote now! pic.twitter.com/uao10oQmgF

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) January 29, 2021

In truth, Gangnam Style was always something that would fit well inside the world of Fortnite. Both share a similar level of excitement and energy mixed with tongue-in-cheek humor. Also, had they both been released around the same time, it’s likely that this dance would have made its way into Fortnite sooner.

However, Fortnite had some problems early on in its release with handling potentially copyrighted dances, and that may have stalled them from including Gangnam Style earlier.

On the other side of things, Fortnite does have a legacy of commodifying any viral piece of internet culture in the hopes of making a quick buck.

Overall, the only surprising part of Gangnam Style’s inclusion in Fortnite is that it took this long to get there.