How Fortnite Friday Grew From A Bit Into An Institution That Could Pull Gavin Newsom

California governor and likely presidential aspirant Gavin Newsom is dogshit at Fortnite. Over the course of an hour, he awkwardly exclaims that he’s “on his hands and knees” multiple times without even once recognizing the double entendre (Twitch chat is thrilled). But skill at Fortnite isn’t really the point of Fortnite Friday, despite its name. Instead, Twitch streamer ConnorEatsPants (who has not publicized his real name), 26, uses the battle royale as a pressure cooker, piling on a mix of deadpan jokes, legitimate questions, and comically-timed reminders to pay attention to the game – all in the name of keeping guests ever-so-slightly off-balance. 

Newsom, during an October episode of the show, wants to talk about Intellivision, the game console of his youth. Chat – and Connor – want to hear about Israel and Palestine.

“Bit of a breakthrough today, I hope, where Hamas said they’d turn over all the hostages,” says Newsom in response to Connor and chat’s combined prodding.

“I mean, they’ve been saying that for over a year now,” replies Connor.

“Yeah, though, this, uh, appears,” Newsom stammers, “at the moment to be more real than we’ve seen in the past.”

“It was real in the past,” says Connor. “They’ve made it very clear in the past that they intend to release the hostages.”

Newsom stammers some more. “I’m a little more optimistic based on what we heard quite literally a few hours ago,” he eventually says, clearly off his game in multiple senses. 

They go back and forth about Newsom’s relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Newsom says fell apart after a public spat two years ago. “I was not just privately critical,” says Newsom.

“Sometimes you’ve gotta cut people off, bro,” Connor replies. “Sometimes they are mean and talk behind your back. Sometimes they’re rude. Sometimes they commit genocide. It’s a couple of different things. It just depends.”

After that, they argue over the merits of a two-state solution (which Newsom favors) versus a one-state solution (which Connor came to prefer, he tells Newsom, after Netanyahu’s controversial appearance on the Nelk Boys podcast). 

“I want you to see the tweet that [the show] is happening tomorrow, and you're already laughing at the fact that it's happening.”

This is Connor’s shtick: He jokes, he pushes, and he jokes again. He rarely, if ever, loses his cool. He does not break character. As a result, no guest fully settles in, especially if they’re figures of political significance like Newsom, George Santos, or Adrian Dittmann, aka that guy we all thought was Elon Musk for a second. What’s remarkable about Fortnite Friday is that, despite lines of questioning far less predictable than your standard press or talk show interview and a distinctly unserious backdrop – or perhaps because of those things – Fortnite Friday keeps securing bigger guests, the kind you’d never see coming. That, Connor told Aftermath at TwitchCon last month, is by design.

“I want you to see the tweet that [the show] is happening tomorrow, and you're already laughing at the fact that it's happening,” said Connor. “People reach out like 'Oh, I'm a State Congressperson from Massachusetts.' Well, I don't really care, because that'd be a de-escalation."

For The Bit

Like all good things, Fortnite Friday began as a bit. Actually, a bit born of a bit: Connor repeatedly made jokes about Soulja Boy until he manifested an actual appearance from Soulja on his stream into existence. 

"Over the pandemic, I played Fortnite on a Friday with Soulja Boy, and it was really funny,” Connor told Aftermath. “So I would joke for a couple of years when coming across a celebrity about 'We've got to get them on Fortnite Friday' as a bit. And then about a year and a half ago, I actually started doing it."

Slowly but surely, week after week and month after month, things escalated.

"I had the Musical.ly kid, Jacob Sartorius, on, and then I had Baby Gronk, who was an [Instagram] and TikTok [sensation],” said Connor. “And then that built up to the Tiger King one, where I had Tiger King [Joe Exotic] calling from jail, and that was really funny. That got a lot of attention, which led to George Santos and so on."

This snowball effect is how Connor – whose following across Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter is large but not eye-poppingly enormous – managed to land Newsom in what remains his most surprising interview to date. If you follow Connor on Twitter, you’ll see the outline of a simple yet effective strategy: tweet at famous people until someone says yes.

"I would tweet at a lot of people and try to gather whatever I could, to see who would want to do it,” said Connor. “I know certain agents of celebrities and people, but with [Newsom], I think his communications guy knew about the George Santos [episode] and DM-ed me on Twitter. He got in touch through that, and then over a couple months, we just figured out a time to do it."

Also, while Connor does have a talent agent who represents him, the ball is entirely in his court when it comes to procuring guests for Fortnite Friday.

"It's all me,” he said. “I don't have a booking agent. It would probably help to get one or figure one out, but every single person that's come on has been direct – like, through contacting them."

This is not the only element of Connor’s approach that walks the fine line between haphazard and brilliant. Instead of diligently referencing a list of questions during interviews, he uses a “mood board” made up of relevant imagery. The Newsom mood board, for example, was a collage that included images of George Santos, Hasan Piker (seductively posing), Donald Trump Jr, the Israeli flag, Asmongold, Taylor Swift, Jeffrey Epstein, a meme-ified version of JD Vance, a trans flag, Kamala Harris' book, and Netanyahu next to a much smaller picture of the Nelk Boys.

"I think it's both just because of how my brain works,” said Connor, “but also when doing a discussion, playing a video game, and balancing reading Twitch chat, it's easier to have this board on the right [of my main screen] that's more [visual]. I mean, I'll write questions in my notes app on my phone beforehand and then make this mood board, and then I just know when I look at this image or something reminds me of the question I'd thought of, it's easier than having a list that I'm reading. Because that slows me down."

It is not a flawless method: "I forgot what some things meant during [the Newsom episode],” Connor said. “Like I had Donald Trump Jr, and I forgot I put that on there to ask about Kimberly Guilfoyle, [Newsom's] ex-wife, who dated Donald Trump Jr."

In the case of political figures who have something to gain by reaching a younger audience, like Newsom and Santos – or even those with an ideology to propagate, like sadsack MAGA-is-my-whole-personality UFC fighter Colby Covington and Shazam star Zachary Levi – Connor recognizes that he’s walking a fine line. He can’t just let them spout off because a) that’d be a poor use of his platform, and b) it just wouldn’t be funny.

"There's a responsibility, I think, when you're interviewing someone with that amount of power and that amount of influence, that if you're given the opportunity to talk to them, you need to ask them certain hard questions about things they've done or they support,” said Connor. “Otherwise, you're kind of giving them a platform to humanize themselves without the weight of their actions and decisions. So I have to balance that when someone like that is on the show. I mean, I'll ask funny things, and we'll joke about stuff, but I can't finish the episode without making sure I bring up his comments on, say, Israel or things like that, because otherwise I lose credibility with people, too."

"There's a responsibility, I think, when you're interviewing someone with that amount of power and that amount of influence, that if you're given the opportunity to talk to them, you need to ask them certain hard questions about things they've done or they support."

Connor does not, however, view himself as any sort of political commentator or expert. Venturing into the political realm has forced him to learn on the job, and he admits that he doesn’t always nail it. After the Newsom stream, for example, he agreed with chat that he could’ve pushed harder on trans issues (Newsom has repeatedly come out against trans athletes and, the week after the Fortnite Friday episode, ended up vetoing a key trans health bill after bragging about his pro-trans legislative track record during the episode). Connor also acknowledged that he failed to engage Newsom on the topic of homelessness – another area in which Newsom has proven notoriously cruel – citing his own lack of expertise.

"To be honest, I tried to do research on the homeless stuff because people were really upset at the way he acted toward homeless [people] in California,” Connor said during a stream immediately following the Newsom interview, “but honestly I could not understand the issue of unhoused people and housing enough to feel like I could comment on it – at least to that extent. With Israel/Palestine, I feel like I knew enough with how much I've learned over recent years to at least talk about it [competently]." 

Connor’s willingness to challenge influential figures – after lulling them into a false sense of security with jokes and one of the world’s most famous family-friendly video games – makes him an outlier. To wit, shortly after the Fortnite Friday episode, Newsom – whose prolific podcasting track record mostly includes figures from the center and the right, rather than the progressive left – returned to his traditional ways, taking private meetings with high-profile Twitch streamers outside Twitch’s Hasan-Piker-adjacent left flank at TwitchCon. 

"The reason I wasn't invited [to a meeting with Newsom]," Mike "Mike From PA" Beyer, the second biggest leftist political commentator on Twitch, told Aftermath, "is because I'm actually political and have my own opinions. Whereas Gavin Newsom is trying to figure out how to manipulate Twitch and use Twitch for his own campaign. He's not interested in give-and-take where he gets where young people are politically and changes his platform to appeal. He wants to have creators who he can offer his cooperation with their platform-building in exchange for them cottoning onto whatever he wants. So it's the same old Democratic party."

Connor’s approach to shoring up his own strengths and weaknesses – and the recognition that he can’t do it overnight – also informs his decision of where to draw the line in terms of potential future interviewees.

"Lately people are like 'You've gotta get [antisemetic white supremacist] Nick Fuentes on,'” Connor told Aftermath. “That wouldn't be funny because he's good at being funny and playing the media, and I would just kind of give him a platform to do that more. I'm not an expert political guy, either. I'm just trying to be funny. So I'm not ready to debate these issues with people that I think are super ready for that. I'm more here to have a good time and humanize the guests. Regardless of who they are, whether good or bad, it does show people who they are."

"Being more casually open about being progressive while being funny, I think, has opened a door for political discussion."

He does not believe that comedy as a primary aim absolves him of responsibility, though. It’s a tool, like anything else. As someone who grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta surrounded by right-leaning peers and then learned more about the world via the internet, Connor recognizes the power of humor as a means to win people over.

"Even early on, in 2016, I remember the Reddit for Trump was posting memes and stuff, and what's crazy is that hasn't progressed at all for them,” he said. “They're still very much stuck in this 2016 era: really edgy humor and dated memes. It's just kind of cringey now if you are at all not stupid. It just dates them." 

He hopes to pull people in the opposite direction by actually being funny, albeit not in a way that relentlessly punches down. He thinks his approach resonates because, again, the sort of right-leaning comedians who’ve dominated pop culture in recent years only have one trick, and because as the country careens ever closer to a state of all-out upheaval, people – even Fortnite players – don’t want entertainment that simply distracts them anymore.

"I think it's harder for people to put their head in the sand [where politics are concerned],” he said. “I think a lot of comedians people look up to now are losing a bit of their credibility and trust with their audience. A lot of them are going down a Joe Rogan route. Being more casually open about being progressive while being funny, I think, has opened a door for political discussion. And it's not just me. People like Adam Friedland are doing it too. I think that's a good thing."

All Aboard The Battle Bus

Though Connor at one point during the Newsom stream said he’d “do Fortnite Friday on a Tuesday” if it meant getting disgraced still-technically-mayor of New York City Eric Adams on, he has no desire to transform the show into a purely political vehicle. Past guests have included The Rizzler, who despite immense overnight fame showed himself to be a shockingly normal and video game-obsessed kid, and with whom Connor still plays the odd Fortnite match off-stream.  

"He's a really sweet kid," said Connor. "I know people say he's gonna grow up [to be a disaster] or people talk about the parents of these young stars, but [his dad] was asking me advice on what to do. Like 'Should I let him do this, this, and that?' There's no guide on how to do that as a parent when your kid suddenly becomes a huge celebrity. If the kid's enjoying it, you don't want to take that away from them. But at the same time, you want to balance being a normal kid. It's not easy, but he's got a good family, so I'm optimistic [about his chances of growing up into a well-adjusted adult]."

"People say that streamers are fake, and I've always disagreed with that."

Connor’s dream non-political guest is Miranda Cosgrove from iCarly, a show he believes “embraced and almost predicted” modern internet culture. He’s also been campaigning to get Justin Bieber, who now streams on Twitch himself, but to little avail so far. Rapper Lil B, Connor says, was supposed to be the first Fortnite Friday guest, but technical issues prevented it from happening. All these years later, he’d still like to revisit that idea, though at this point, he’s not putting any money on it.

"Whenever the vibe is there, I'll text him like 'Lil B, Fortnite Friday?'” said Connor. “And he'll just heart the message and be like 'It's love, family.'"

Connor’s goal, more than anything else, is to keep both guests and viewers on their toes. At TwitchCon, he told me his next guest would be yet another who would make people laugh the moment he made their name public. It turned out to be Haliey "Hawk Tuah" Welch, who made her appearance on Fortnite Friday late last month. More guests, Connor said, are “loosely lined up” for the future, but beyond that, anything is possible. It all depends on who responds to his tweets. For now, he just wants to keep talking to people who are worth talking to, as long as it’s funny.

"I think that's something I carried with me since I was younger: I always try to see the real person in people and the good part of people – see where their heart is at,” Connor said. “I think that lends itself to Twitch, too. When you're interacting with so many people and you're live and people are seeing a lot of you a lot of the time, it's hard to [conceal who you are]. People say that streamers are fake, and I've always disagreed with that. When people are live so much, you really are seeing a lot of them. That's typically how they are, even if it's a played-up version. And I think that lends itself to Fortnite Friday."