What am I gonna do when I’m bored and I want to play video games at 2 AM? Well, depending on when Ariana Grande’s set is in BST, I might be watching the Dangerous Woman rift her way across Tomato Town. Fortnite should be my favourite game, when you consider the fantastic crossover characters it has, the artstyle, the creativity, and its rampant popularity, but it's just not for me. Battle royales aren’t really my jam, so until it gets a more palatable spin-off, I’m out. Or at least, I was. Yesterday I downloaded Fortnite onto my Switch for the first time, in preparation for the Ariana Grande Rift concert. I chose the Switch deliberately, because its portability means I won’t miss a single second of Ari in Fortnite, even though it meant archiving most of my other games for it. This is my moon landing.
I know this is a sample size of one, but I have liked a lot of Fortnite’s crossovers, and none have gotten me to pay attention. I adore Harley Quinn, and have written about her multiple times – yet I’ve never even considered downloading Fortnite for her. Ditto for Aloy, Lara Croft, and Harry Kane. While The Simpsons – my favourite thing in the world – aren’t in the game, I’m not sure playing as Lisa wouldn’t get me to jump aboard the battle bus. I might check it out, but I certainly wouldn’t download it a week in advance while constantly checking for updates on when exactly the update drops. Ariana Grande is different. She’s not just being added to the game as a skin, her concert is going to be the biggest event ever to hit Fortnite – and honestly, it isn’t even particularly close.
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Fortnite has hosted various movie events before, but they never felt unmissable. They may have been first, or a unique way to experience it – still, the movie or trailer or preview was not a phenomenon in itself. Ariana Grande is not the first singer in the game, of course. Travis Scott had a concert last year, and it’s difficult to imagine Grande being there without Scott proving the concept works. He and his team deserve the plaudits for showing the world a new way to host ‘live’ music. But as I mentioned when I wrote about Grande in anticipation of the concert – it had been rumoured for around a week before the reveal – she is a superstar on a whole other level. Scott is expected to surpass 1 million album sales this year. Grande has over 85 million.
You might point out that Scott is newer to the scene, and is more popular with younger audiences on streaming sites – that’s accurate, and he’s sitting at an impressive 23rd in the world on Spotify. Grande, a more traditional popstar with a wider, less stream concentrated audience, is fifth. It does not need to be a contest; Grande’s show would not have happened without Scott, and they needn’t be pitted against each other.
But as the first two major stars to explore Fortnite as a platform for live music, they will inevitably be compared. There is no verifiable metric by which Scott can claim to have more success than Grande – but the game’s not played on paper. Scott’s show was astounding, fully understanding Fortnite as a package and going all out to claim this new medium for music as his own. Grande needs to match his effort, and she has the setlist and showmanship to do it.
Grande has, to my knowledge, never discussed Fortnite previously, but it’s reasonable to assume she has at least a passing understanding of it. A known gamer, Grande owns a PS5, has a Pokemon tattoo, has written a lyric about Mario Kart, and has talked before about her love for both Kirby and Sackboy. Even if her specific Fortnite knowledge is behind Scott’s, who has streamed himself playing the game previously, she is aware of video games and their current place in the world. Do not take her for a celebrity lazily strolling in for the money – expect Grande to put on a show.
On a personal level, it’s difficult to imagine a more perfect crossover. I listen to all of Grande’s albums regularly – apart from Yours Truly, because I have taste. According to my stats app, she’s in my top five artists for this year, and I wouldn’t trust any of them with Fortnite over her. If I could choose any superstar in the world for a Fortnite concert, it would probably be Taylor Swift first, Ariana Grande second, but I’m not entirely sure I’d trust Swift to ‘get’ Fortnite. I’d still have the game downloaded in anticipation, but I’d be fearful that Swift would give it a big hearted swing and a miss. With Grande, I have no such worries.
This is not just personal though. As I said, many of my favourite media properties have come to Fortnite and I’ve resisted the temptation to write about them, largely because they weren’t exciting enough to get me to actually play the game, so celebrating their arrival would have felt rather disingenuous. I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold myself back had it been The Simpsons, but even then, it would have been a rant about making a second Hit & Run rather than cheering on Fortnite. But Ariana Grande is very different, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert amassed 12 million viewers. A video of Ariana Grande sitting in her car, posted to her Instagram four days ago, has amassed 12.5 million viewers. Clearly, it takes less effort to watch a three second ig video, especially as many people will have seen it while scrolling rather than actively seeking her page out to watch it, but that should display the level of superstar we’re dealing with here.
I don’t like to continue circling back to Scott, but it’s impossible not to. I don’t want Grande to beat Scott out of some petty fandom loyalty either – the reason I mention Scott so much is because of how good he was. I didn’t witness it firsthand, and have no real interest in his music, but seeing clips of it afterwards has convinced me that virtual concerts have a huge role in Fortnite’s future. That he did so well – and that Grande brings more fans, more experience, and more of a pop star spectacle – is the reason Ariana Grande is such an exciting prospect and not some weird experiment. Scott has proven it works. Now Grande needs to sell it to the world.
If I can draw on the Olympics for a moment – video games and sports should team up more often, after all – seeing Travis Scott is like seeing Great Britain win gold in the men’s pommel horse. I’m happy about it, but I also don’t really care. Seeing Ariana Grande in Fortnite is like watching England in the Euro 2020 final. Not only is there a much deeper personal connection, it’s a much bigger spectacle in and of itself. It means more to more people. Let’s just hope she doesn’t take it to penalties.
Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Rick & Morty… these all pull in big crowds and are capable of going viral with ease. Despite this, none of them have elevated Fortnite above what it already is – a popular video game. Ariana Grande is in the perfect position (eh?) to do otherwise.
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