'Fortnite' Season 8 Skins: Peely the Banana Is a Meme, but Is He Evil?

Fortnite Season 8 has arrived and that means new skins to unlock (or just buy if you’re a busy adult with disposable income). Pirates, ninjas, and even a snake-human hybrid are now available in the game as playable avatars, but as far as the internet is concerned only one new Fortnite skin matters: A living, breathing, dabbing banana with dead eyes named Peely.

I’m pretty sure that when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,” he was talking about Peely.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped Fortnite fans from obsessing over Peely, if only because of how drastically he stands out compared to the rest of the new skins. In a post on the official Fortnite: Battle Royale subreddit, one player complained about how “terrible” all the other characters are before pausing to acknowledge that “the only skin I actually like and look forward to unlocking is Peely (the banana).”

Sure, but have you considered the possibility that Peely is a demonic banana from hell? Those other new characters might be boring, but at least they’re not evil. (Well, except for the ghost pirate and the snake-man. Actually, I’m starting to notice a theme here.)

Unlocking Peely in Fortnite is no easy task. You’ll have to pay for the Season 8 Battle Pass and then complete weekly in-game challenges to work your way through a 100-tier system. The walking, talking banana unlocks at tier 47, meaning it could take a month or longer to get there — unless you’re willing to pay extra and skip ahead right now.

Peely also introduces a new feature called “Reactive” into the game, which refers to skins and other cosmetic items that change over the course of a single match. In this case, the banana will ripen and darken as each match progresses.

For the moment, though, most fans don’t seem to care about Peely’s ability to ripen over time (or whether this character is evil). They just want to play as a giant, soulless banana.

Related video: Watch us explore the latest changes to Fortnite Island in Season 8.