Epic has consistently sought to exploit African-American talent in particular in Fortnite by copying their dances and movements," writes Carolynn Beck, the attorney for 2 Milly. "Epic has copied the dances and movements of numerous African-American performers, including, for example, the dance from the 2004 Snoop Dogg music video, ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ (named the ‘Tidy’ emote), Alfonso Ribeiro’s performance of his famous ‘Carlton’ dance on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air television show (named the ‘Fresh’ emote), the dance performed by Will Smith on the same television show (named the ‘Rambunctious’ emote), the dance in Marlon Webb’s popular ‘Band of the Bold’ video (named the ‘Best Mates’ emote), Donald Faison’s signature dance seen on the NBC television show Scrubs (named the ‘Dance Moves’ emote), and, most pertinent here, Terrence Ferguson’s Milly Rock dance.
Link.
Context reminder: the game industry has a workforce that is less than 2% black. It’s been like this since forever. There are virtually no changes. African-Americans create tons of pop culture, most of it being very popular, like dance moves.
That shit is iconic (I remember seeing Donald’s routine the first time on Scrubs, so perfect and hilarious) and Epic is making loads of money off of that. Their attorneys probably made sure that they could profit from that content without getting sued. They’re getting sued. It might not go far but it seems pretty obvious that this whole situation isn’t right. In May, Fortnite brought in $318M. One. Month. Redistribute (some) wealth where it’s due, goddamn.
Note: Epic has stopped bragging about how much money they gross with Fortnite months ago. *winks*