Fortnite‘s yearly Halloween event is around the corner, and this time Epic Games is partnering with known gamer and Twitch streamer Doja Cat to pull it off. To promote the festivities, the Fortnite X account gave everyone the impression it was being temporarily written by Doja Cat herself. Except Doja Cat is in Fortnite‘s mentions, calling the posts cringe and embarrassing. Huh?
Early on Wednesday, Fortnite‘s social media account posted a selfie of Doja Cat which claimed she had taken over the account. The posts that followed sounded like her. There’s a caps lock post about the Chain of Hades weapon, which many people believe Epic Games got rid of specifically because the rapper complained about it during a livestream. The diction sounds more human than brand at some points, especially within the short posts that aren’t directly promoting anything. Even the self-deprecating humor seemed like it might actually be Doja Cat posting.
“One of my Fortnite skins is bald headed and that’s just something people are going to have to get used to,” reads one post.
But then you get to the post where Fortnite says, “Mother of rose toys.” As in, the adult toy. Weirdly sexual for an account belonging to a kid’s game, no? At first blush, this could lend credence to the idea that the posts are actually coming from Doja Cat, a known provocateur, and not someone concerned with brand safety. Except Doja Cat seems as surprised as everyone else about the posts.
“shit cringe as fuck[.] now I’m embarrassed,” Doja Cat wrote while appending a wilted rose. “I told them not to[.] man that’s not even me,” she wrote in a reply on the platform. “I said this yesterday and then said ‘don’t post that’ :”
This would suggest the posts aren’t being directly written by Doja Cat, and instead are based on things discussed with whoever controls the Fortnite X account. Now, skeptical minds might look at this with a raised eyebrow. Surely it’s all just marketing and Doja Cat is playing along in a stunt that’s bound to get people talking? Plausible. But consider two things. On X, someone accused Doja Cat of lying about the entire situation. She sarcastically responded, “me when I wish that somebody tweeted something like this to a bunch of kids.” The Fortnite account has also now deleted the original post.
On the other hand, the Fortnite account still has a post up that’s just a long string of rose emoji. But it also doesn’t directly reference anything sexual, and innocent kids may not make an immediate connection as to its meaning. Leakers also say that part of the in-game promotion will introduce a weapon called Thorn Ripper, which fits the rose theme.
That doesn’t really explain the toy post, though. There’s a lot to consider here, including that Doja Cat herself is a known troll. She has a history of going left when brand deals want her to go right.
In one infamous instance, the singer partnered with Taco Bell to make a jingle for their Mexican pizza. Before sharing the actual song, she warned viewers in a now-deleted post that it was contractual, and she was not particularly proud of what she came up with. But now the only remaining evidence of this happening is the jingle itself, where she claims that she just happened to miss the fast food so much she decided to make a song about it out of the blue. Notice the stilted introduction, though.
Years later, Doja has kept working with Taco Bell, at one point even appearing in a Super Bowl ad for them. As a part of the rollout, she did an ad that tried to fabricate drama between her and Taco Bell that also, incidentally, had Lebron James involved. It’s not nearly as convincing as the jingle stuff, or the deleted Fortnite posts. But the tactic seems similar.
So… is any of it real? If it is a grift, it’s a bold one. I don’t know that parents would appreciate knowing that a popular video game is out here promoting sex toys, even in jest. The plausible deniability is there for the emoji posts, but not the deleted post with the word toy. I’m also not convinced that any brand would willingly want to be associated with the word “cringe,” which is just about the worst thing Gen Z could designate them.
Whatever the case, Doja Cat walks out the winner. This will go down as proof of concept that she can sell your product in a way that feels organic even if she hates it — or it’s all staged.
