Fortnite Doesn’t Hold a Candle

Submission 4,094

Part of a series on Fortnite. [View Related Entries]

About

Fortnite Doesn't Hold a Candle is a phrasal template used to parody the Wall Street Journal editorial that featured the subtitle "Fortnite doesn’t hold a candle to my boyhood games of ‘fort night.’" This subtitle was the subject of mockery on Twitter as people compared it to the Old Man Yells at Cloud Simpsons joke and made jokes mimicking the subtitle.

Origin

On June 24th, 2019, the Wall Street Journal^[1] published the commentary piece "A Young Imagination Beats Videogames." The subtitle to the piece reads, "Fortnite doesn’t hold a candle to my boyhood games of ‘fort night.’"

The following day, the newspaper published the subtitle as a tweet,^[2] linking to the article. Within 24 hours, the post received more than 570 likes, 540 comments and 195 retweets (shown below).

Spread

Following the post, Twitter users began parodying the phrase "Fortnite doesn’t hold a candle to my boyhood games of ‘fort night'" by taking other video games and activies and comparing them to other activities with similar sounding names. For example, writer Rob Sheridan tweeted,^[3] "Mortal Kombat doesn't hold a candle to my boyhood days as a serial killer. No video game can ever match that real-life feeling of ripping a whole spine out of a man's neck hole or holding his still-beating heart in your hands as he collapses to the ground" (shown below, left).

Throughout the day, others continued to share variations. Twitter^[4] user @netw3rk tweeted, "Snapchat doesn’t hold a candle to my favorite boyhood activity, having a chat with my parents." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 1,000 likes (shown below, center). Twitter^[5] user @ziwe tweeted, "candyland doesn’t hold a candle to my boyhood games of 'eating candy on land'"(shown below, right).

Some compared it to a tweet by Twitter^[6] user @reaghhan, who on October 16th, 2018 wrote, "we live in a generation whtere people would rather play fortnite than build a fort at night" (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the meme, including Kotaku ^[7] and Junkee.^[8]