Item 10,000

With the launch of Tags.tf, there was naturally a desire and an anticipation of reaching the first major milestone, that being the site accruing 10,000 total tags. Since the new site was only just starting out (it hadn't even been out for a year yet), and didn't count each individual item in a set as its own tag, Item 10,000 really was the 10,000th time someone had clicked "submit" on the create page.

And of course, this milestone had to be ruined too.

## Lead-up

When March 2021 rolled around, Tags.tf had been active for 9 months, and experienced a revival of site contests which had been absent since April 2014 (a gap of around six and a half years). In his monthly highlights announcement on the official Tags.tf Discord server, "acting head" admin Walumancer announced that the site was nearly 300 tags away from achieving the first major milestone of 10,000 total tags, and teased a contest to try and help achieve it that month. The contest, sponsored by Whisper, was announced on March 6th, and offered a botkiller weapon for each class for whoever could make the best tag for a class-specific weapon. The contest proved quite effective, as the 300-tag gap quickly closed over the following ten days.

As the days went on, the TF2 community experienced a meme regarding a specific 15 year old Twitter user by the name of "Telling Animephobes To Shut Up" who threatened to end Team Fortress 2 on March 15th. Naturally, this kid was mocked by the entire TF2 community, including the Taggers, who made several tags about it. This included an 85-item long set by Walumancer portraying the mercs and Saxton Hale preparing to fight the incoming army of weeaboos led by this Twitter user, on top of jokes by BAMCM, EnoughCactus, Brock, and Sgt Stacker. Despite all the memeing on Tags.tf and the wider TF2 community in general, nothing happened (exactly as everyone thought).

## Disappearance

As jokes continued to be made about the non-death of Team Fortress 2, March 16th ended with only twenty tags left before hitting the 10,000-tag milestone. This meant that it would certainly be reached on March 17th. Many were clamoring to seize the 10,000th tag for themselves, including HUMÆN and pain.

After post 9980 was posted, the site experienced a 2-hour, 49-minute, 31-second period of inactivity. The next post was made by Banannixx, but mysteriously the post was marked as 10002. This was brought up by Space Cowboy on the Discord server, asking if the site had really hit its 10,000th item, to which HUMÆN said it was both a yes-and-no situation due to the 10000 post simply not leading anywhere. Shakkari mentioned that he might have been responsible because he made a tag and deleted it, but Kal pointed out that every tag from 9981 to 10001 were missing, which was quite strange (unusual, if you will). Space Cowboy then made a *Megamind* joke about the situation on the site.

Later, Walumancer would come on to the site and see the situation and made a tag about it. He then proceeded to go to the Discord and proclaim that the Pyro was responsible for its disappearance, pointing out how impossible it was to reach a milestone on any tagging website (citing the original site's Item 100,000 and Item 200,000). This prompted more discussion from other taggers including pain and Space Cowboy, and later Shakkari and Brock. Walumancer posited it also could have been a glitch, but where was the fun in that? The site then soon flooded with tags about the item's disappearance, featuring tags from Moura, pain, BAMCM, and Metal Blaster. MasterArachid then made a set based off of Walumancer's from the animephobe memes, with the mercs discovering the tag had been stolen while they were fighting off the weebs. After they accused each other of being the thief (and Soldier apparently raping Demo), it was revealed that a ninja from the weeb army used the attack as a diversion to steal the tag (Soldier later came out and called Arachid fake news, stating that he only had gay sex with Heavy's sister).

## The culprit

As with the last two instances of milestone tags disappearing, the one behind the disappearance remains unknown. However, there are a few possibilities.

### Shakkari

Shakkari admitted on the Discord server to making a tag and later deleting it, and he cannot remember what the number of the item was. It may have been item 10,000, but at the same time it could have been any of the other 20 tags between 9981 and 10,001. He maintains that it might have been him and that he may be guilty.

### Pyro

The Pyro has also been blamed as the culprit, as it was popularly believed that Scout stole Item 100,000 on the original site, and Soldier stole Item 200,000. Pyro would naturally be the next in line to do such a thing. However, since Pyro cannot speak coherently and has declined to comment, we have no idea if actually was Pyro or not.

### Weeb Ninja

According to MasterArachid, it the entire attack by the weeb army was just a ploy to get a ninja behind the lines of the mercs to steal the 10,000th tag. The authenticity of his documentary on the matter is questioned, however, as it portrays Soldier having gay sex with a drunk Demoman, which he later came out and denied.

### Glitch

There is, of course, the possibility that this was all the unfortunate result of a glitch in the site's coding. There was a similar incident in prior months where the posts jumped a few hundred numbers forward, and it may have been a similar case here. Given that it was only 20 and so close to the major milestone, a mere coincidence is difficult to believe.

### Someone Else

Could have been someone else entirely too. Walumancer posited the idea that someone made and saved a bunch of tags, but did not post them. As saving a tag saves the in-progress post to the post it *would* have been if it was posted, someone may have saved 20 tags in a row to steal away item 10,000, either to save it for a later date or to deprive the site of it in the first place. There is no way to prove if this is true and there is no way to tell who may have done it. In reality, it could have been anyone who stole Item 10,000.

## Gallery

The first tag related to the coming animepocalypse.EnoughCactus makes fun of the animephile and enters it into the contest.BAMCM parodies Expiration Date as a proud animephobe.Walumancer tries to make a clever pun tying the animepocalypse to the launch of FACEIT TF2. It wasn't as positively received as he hoped.Brock showcasing what will happen on March 15th.Walumancer's set about the mercs preparing for the incoming Weeaboo Army.BAMCM makes a set about the morning of the next day, quoting more from Expiration Date and Heavy is Dead.Sgt Stacker, king of shitposters, mocks the shitposter.Space Cowboy makes a tag pointing out there is no Item 10,000.Walumancer makes a tag about the disappearance, and asks who was saving tags.Moura makes a joke about the situation.pain announces that Item 10,000 is the latest victim of cancel culture.BAMCM interrogates Pyro about the disappearance of Item 10,000.MasterArachid posts a documentary about the true thief, building off Walumancer's previous set.A tagger missed it. Oof.Soldier defends his reputation.Metal Blaster makes a joke about the situation.Brock saves the situation.