About

Orange Shirt Kid or Orange Shit Kid Tries #BoogieDown Challenge refers to a series of remixes, jokes and memes based on a video of a child in an orange shirt attempting the Fortnite "Boogiedown Challenge."

Origin

On March 30th, 2018, the video game Fortnite launched a contest called the "Boogiedown Challenge." The contest requires contestants upload 12-second videos of themselves dancing. Develops honor the winner with a dance emote based on their submission.^[3]

That day, Twitter ^[1] user @Kid_Fortnite12 tweeted a video of a boy dancing in a bedroom. They captioned the post "Lmao I’m so cringe.But here.#BoogieDown." Within one month, the post (shown below) received more than 19,000 retweets and 48,000 likes.

Spread

Two days later, on April 1st, YouTuber ^[2] ThiccGrapes uploaded the video with the title "Kid Trys The #BoogieDown Challenge 😂." The post received more than 18,000 views.

On April 12th, the video was included in a post by PewDiePie. The post (shown below) received more than 5 million views one month.

On April 14th, YouTuber beep beep lettuce posted a meme compilation of remixes of the video. The post (shown below, left) received more than 597,000 views in two weeks.

The following week, on April 22nd, after the developers had announced the winner, YouTuber Dolan Dark posted a video, expressing disappointment that the orange shirt kid had lost the contest. The post (shown below, right) received more than 586,000 views in one week.

On April 22nd 2018, Redditor vigilancefoetracer ^[9] shared an informative image on the matter, calling for justice for Orange Shirt Kid to be declared the real winner of the competition. As of May 1st 2018, the post (shown below) has received more then 35,000 upvotes.^[9]

Also on the same day, Change.org ^[4] user Mike LeToris started a petition to include Orange Shirt Kid in the list of winners. The petition received more than 11,000 votes of its 15,000 goal.

Response

On May 1st 2018, Fortnite patch 4.0 was released, with it adding the emote to the game entitled "Orange Justice."^[5] The Orange Shirt Kid tweeted^[6] his support of the inclusion. He posted a video of the emote (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the story, including Polygon, Newsweek,^[7] Kotaku,^[8] and more.

Lawsuit Against Epic Games

On January 14th, 2019, Variety^[10] reported that Orange Shirt Kid's mother filed a lawsuit against Epic Games for including her son's dance in Fortnite. Variety noted that unlike a recent string of lawsuits against Epic Games for including dance moves, this lawsuit featured a dance that was submitted to Epic Games. The lawsuit notes that Epic Games changed the name to "Orange Justice" from the son's name, "the Random," and that the child was victim to extreme cyberbullying after the video went viral. The lawsuit states that Epic Games "did not credit Orange Shirt Kid nor seek his consent to use, display, reproduce, sell, or create a derivative work based upon Orange Shirt Kid’s Random dance or likeness in Fortnite." The Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP lawfirm, which is behind similar dance-related lawsuits against Epic Games, is the lawfirm representing Orange Shirt Kid's mother.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References