No, Jeffrey Epstein is not alive. Nor, for that matter, does he play Fortnite. These aren't sentences I thought I'd have to write when I woke up this morning, but there has been one interesting week. A new batch of publicly released Epstein files has led to such gaming industry moments as a cease-and-desist letter, some Rockstar revelations, and — oh, right — the news that Epstein himself was banned from Xbox Live in 2013.
The Internet loves its nonsense, so a conspiracy theory quickly emerged in the past few days that Jeffrey Epstein is a.) alive; b.) play Fortnite. The former isn't exactly the most creative claim, but the latter adds a quirky twist to the usual claims. Here's how we got to this point and what Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said to debunk the nonsense.
This was a trick
“littlestjeff1” was mentioned in the Epstein files as potentially linked to Epstein himself, as there is documentation involving the purchase of V-Bucks (Fortnite's microtransaction currency) from someone with that account name. Meanwhile, there has been an active Fortnite account with the same name. Active, as in, still going; still playing. You see where this is going.
While some social media users are lamenting that an official statement was released, let's not be ridiculous; Epic is a company, and they will wash their hands as quickly and efficiently as possible. It was only a matter of time before they released a statement, and that leaves little room for doubt. “A few days ago, an existing Fortnite account owner changed his username from something completely unrelated to littlestjeff1, following the revelation of littlestjeff1 as a name on YouTube.”
“These Fortnite trackers only show your current name, not any previous changes to it.” @FortniteStatus
In other words, the internet went wild because people weren't privy to previous information about the person who pulled the wool over their eyes with this little incident. Additionally, Epic has “no record of the subject's email addresses referenced in the public record contained in the Epic account system.” Shortly after @FortniteStatus posted this, Tim Sweeney himself stepped in to double down:
So what we're looking at here is a copycat that wanted attention and absolutely got it. The web is a wild place, so expect people to keep beating the drum about this for a while, until it finally simmers down because they're distracted by some other conspiracy theory. Meanwhile, we now have official correspondence from Sweeney himself, who explains how this happened and confirms that there is no connection between the Epstein files' V-Bucks email and anything happening over six years after the disgraced mogul's death.
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