“See that person over there? You need to kill him. Switch to your shotgun, and then hit the right trigger.”

“Okay, is this the right trig-”
“No, Mia, stop turning around.”

“Right, sorry, let me just hit the right trig-”

“Mia! You’re just moving in circles!”

“Wait, I think that’s my friend over there. Can we go say hi really qui-”

“You just died.”

“Hey! I came in 49th place! At least I’m improving.” As it turns out, I am not a natural at Fortnite.

A few weeks ago, my Jewish youth group announced that there would be a Fortnite competition at our upcoming convention. You may be wondering why I, someone with absolutely no gaming desire or experience, would decide to enter this competition. Well, the answer is simple. I needed inspiration for an opinions piece, so here we are.

My training needed to commence immediately. The first step was to find my Fortnite mentor, which was an obvious choice: my 13 year old brother. Kivi and I typically don’t get along, as he is incredibly annoying and I am cool and normal, but the boy knows his way around a crossbow.

I popped the question at dinner. “Uh, Kivi, would you be able to teach me Fortnite?” I asked, reluctant to give him too much satisfaction.

“Sure,” he replied. “Your first lesson will be tonight.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

And my parents beamed at their children being somewhat civil.

I was itching to jump right into the action. People are obsessed with this game, so I wanted to see what all the hype was about. Would I really become addicted?

If I practiced enough, would I ever get first place?

I grabbed the controller, excited to start, but my brother stopped me.

“You’re not ready,” he said.

Our lesson started with an explanation of each button on the Xbox Console, which, even after 20 minutes, proved pointless as I instantly forgot.

We then moved into strategy, but this was also a lost cause as I was unable to use the correct buttons to execute the strategy. I am, however, an expert in the art of pushing “X” to pick up items whose purpose I do not understand.

I embarked on this Fortnite journey partially to kick butt at my youth group competition, but mainly in the hopes of uncovering a truth about the game that would make for an excellent article.

When I didn’t develop any sort of epiphany, I figured the solution was to play more games and have more lessons with my brother, hoping that a realization would develop.

But the truth is, I never really grew to enjoy the game. I’m bad at it, and as a stubborn teenage girl, I refuse to enjoy anything I am not spectacular at. So Fortnite wasn’t really my thing.

But what I did enjoy and appreciate about Fortnite was that it gave my brother and I something to bond over. I always pictured videogames as a “lonely Tuesday night” sort of activity, but this experiment showed me a new side to gaming, a social side, that I never knew existed. It is not just a hobby, but rather something that players have in common and can share in the excitement.

A few nights ago, I got a text from my mother in our family group chat that read, “Kivi is one of two people left in Fortnite at the moment. I’m trying to play it cool.” While I initially thought this text was absolutely absurd and had interrupted me from pretending to do my homework, I still ran downstairs to cheer him on.

What can I say? Maybe I am a bit of a Fortnite girl after all.