Taggenings

**The Taggenings** refer to a series of sitewide events that occurred on TF2Tags in November of 2015 where a bug resulted in the daily submission limits not resetting. Three Taggenings took place on November 12th, 18th, and 20th respectively. Since the bug meant that taggers could theoretically run out of posts *forever,* the instance of a Taggening usually resulted in many taggers panicking and shitposting until they were out of submissions, and others temporarily going dark to preserve their submissions until the end. Despite each instance being promptly fixed by Dr. Dos, the Taggenings are nevertheless well known for the mass hysteria and shitposting that ensued.

## Lead-Up: Time Travelling Shenanigans

Note that these events are not directly related to the First Taggening but are important for understanding some of the events that occurred during it.

Prior to the First Taggening, a large sitewide trend had been going for a few days. On November 8th, Crimson Blitz made a couple of tags. The first showcased Crimson travelling back in time to warn everyone that he was about to say something stupid. The second was simply named "Something stupid". Immediately after this, Marmot decided to steal Crimson's time machine and make a time travelling tag. The next day, Ulysses joined in and started to fuck with time by meeting his past self. Then, CP got his hands on the device. Unfortunately, CP was not very good at calibrating time machines, and kept going back to incorrect times. CP essentially repeated the same tag three times in one day, and it was starting to get on the nerves of taggers like Relk and TheOnlyGuyEver.

Then, at some point after this, TF2Tags went down for about eight hours for unknown reasons, not coming back online until November 10th. Perhaps it was related to the time-space continuum being constantly screwed with, but this cannot be proven. It is also unknown if this downtime is related to the events in the following days. After this, CP made another time-travelling tag, and again people got very annoyed. Early on the 11th, Blast decided to make a tag mocking CP by time travelling himself, warning the site that CP was going to milk all these time travelling jokes. This seemed to cause a chain reaction where suddenly many other taggers began to time travel, such as Legownz and Fancytag, among others. Mr. Copycat would go on to deride CP for his time travelling shenanigans would spoil all the conspiracies he was trying to uncover at the time. Marmot would warn everyone about the consequences of time travel and paradoxes.

Crimson, the original time traveler, saw what he had inadvertently caused two days prior, and made a special broadcast, stating that he left the time portal open and that with each new encounter with time travelers the space-time continuum is constantly being ripped apart. He warns everyone to stop time travelling so he can get a handle on everything. Unfortunately, things seemed to be falling apart as he was forcibly sucked back into another time portal. Finally, some hours later on the 12th, Le Tryhard Hunter would jump in as well, in what very well might have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

## First Taggening

November 12th, 2015 started off seemingly as per usual. Tags were made, and the time travelling craze finally seemed to have died down. All was at piece, until around 12:37 in the afternoon. At this time, Player 1 + Player 2 made a tag noting that the daily submission limits did not reset like they were supposed to, instead carrying over from the previous day. Danjin, Master of Skelenomics commented that "It's the Taggening." and to "Better use the rest of your tags wisely." Not long after P1P2's tag, Expand made an emergency broadcast of the TF2Tags Nightly News Network notifying the site of what came to be known as the Taggening, and that the news would be moved to the Steam Group until further notice. In the comments, Expand also noted that modifying posts in any way also counted as making a tag, as well as comments (though the latter had mixed confirmations).

The response was initially quite calm and rational. Walumancer questioned whether or not anything would even happen if someone used up all their tags, while Marmot encouraged optimism and for the community to trust in Dr. Dos to fix it soon (to which Walumancer pointed out that Dos may have caused this). This period of rationality lasted all of an hour and thirteen minutes, as Smash Z would make a doomsday post stating that the end was nigh and that everyone must repent.

When the day changed to the 13th, with the posts not resetting for two days in a row, the community essentially transitioned into doomsday mode. Fred Fuchs and Crimson made some jokes about the site supposedly ending. Crimson noted that he managed to escape the unstable time loop but ended up freezing the tag counter for the day. Meanwhile, Smash Z began to ponder the conditions of this apocalypse, wondering if it was like Majora's Mask. Makin' Bacon would make a set parodying the infamous Bucket Joke scene from *Expiration Date* featuring himself, Player 1 + Player 2, Ulysses, and Legownz. This set was very positively received and many noted how funny they thought it was.

Smash would eventually drum up a reason for why the Taggening was happening in the first place. He pointed out a previous entry of the TF2Tags Nightly News Network where Expand stated that the community had run out of jokes. Smash states that Dr. Dos must have seen this entry, agreed with it, and respond by starting the closure of TF2Tags. Smash called for Expand to be sacrificed so that TF2Tags would continue on. Expand defended himself, pointing out that it was much more likely that the Taggening was caused by the community using the space-time continuum as a cheap whore. Crimson, who believed himself responsible for that, went into hiding. Mr. Copycat got mad at Smash, as making up conspiracy theories was *his* job.

Immediately after this, Marmot would make a set acting as a call to action, telling the community to not just sit around and wait for Dos to fix everything, but to tag, and tag like they never had before. From here, taggers would approach the Taggening in two ways. Some would take Marmot's call and begin to post rapidly, purposefully running out of submissions to end on a high note. Others would choose to conserve their tags and preserve their limit for as long as possible.

Smash would continue his campaign to get Expand publicly executed, making a parody of the Mob Song from Disney's *Beauty and the Beast* where Expand was the main target. Expand would reply to this set by simply linking back to P1P2's original tag that revealed the Taggening. It is unknown what exactly the point was of linking to this tag, as it did not seemingly address Expand or time travel. Following this, tags would continue to be made acting like the Taggening was the end of all things.

Then, the first casualty struck. At 9:22 a.m., Greg the Mannequin became the first tagger to run out of submissions, due to only having 5 on account of her score. John Kennedy and Acquiesce requested a respectful moment of silence, while Marmot proposed critbombing her so that she would gain 5 more tags. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work. Greg, it seemed, was gone.

As Smash Z continued to rave about Expand, Mr. Copycat would begin to formulate a comprehensive defense for the reporter. Using what was claimed to be his last tag, Copycat aimed to prove that Expand couldn't have caused the Taggening. He notes that Expand would have no motive, and would have no knowledge of any kind of satanic glitch that would trigger an event like this. Instead, Copycat turned the blame on everyone, harkening back to all the time travelling the community had carelessly been doing in the previous days, destroying what Copycat called the "Space-Tag Continuum". If any one person was to blame, it was CP for being the most reckless. With this last breath, Copycat became the second tagger to fall during the Taggening. Ulysses would become the third some time later, though Relk claimed that he likely had more. Fancytag would become the fourth, saying goodbye with a farewell poem set. However, Copycat would eventually reveal that he actually had 12 tags left and was only playing up dramatics in his previous set.

As people continuously began to run out of tags, some of the more conservative taggers began a debate of who the last one standing would be. Copycat initially claimed he would be, but was quickly overtaken by the likes of Blast and Walumancer, who both had 20 left. TGRobert claimed he would be the last, as even though he had 10 tags he only posted like twice a month. Meanwhile, Marmot would go on to embrace the inevitable and use up all tags remaining, becoming the next fallen tagger. It would appear that things would only get worse from there.

And then, at 9:48 p.m., TheOnlyGuyEver made a tag noting that the submission limits finally reset, and that the annoying end-of-the-world nonsense could now stop. Of the "fallen" taggers, Fancytag was the first to return to life, and immediately regret it after TGR commented about his nonexistant hook fetish he insisted Fancy had. Marmot would comment that she had returned as well. Relk, annoyed at how the side had devolved during the past day and a half, commented that the community would make the biggest fuss over a few simple lines of broken code, which sparked a brief argument between him and Fancy, the latter of whom cut it off before it escalated further.

Following this, things slowly returned back to normal. The "dead" taggers returned, and Smash became saddened that he no longer had to sacrifice Expand, who brought the news back to the site. Blast lamented not being able to be the last tagger standing, though quickly got over it and held a celebratory game of Cards Against Humanity. Ulysses returned not long after. People continued to make jokes about the Taggening for awhile. Then, on the 14th, the submission limits seemed to reset again on the 12th hour instead of the 24th, which Digi pointed out. Dos commented that he did that manually to test if things were working properly now.

## Second Taggening

The site returned to a state of relative normalcy following the First Taggening. For a period of four days, things were relatively calm, though a few things did happen. Some notable events included a confrontation between TGRobert and Fancytag over the former insisting the latter has a fetish for hooks, Marmot claiming that most Scout mains were born assholes, some tags related to a mass shooting in Paris, a back-and-forth series of tags between Marmot and Walumancer, Mr. Copycat noting that Dr. Dos's profile was inaccessible, and Le Tryhard Hunter starting a game show. However, what few realized to be the most important tag was one that was seemingly innocuous: a tag by Smash Z of the Gloves of Running Urgently named/described: "You'll never catch me sniper," / "Not when I shift into MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE! HEEYAH!" This tag was moderately successful when made, gaining around 11 crits, but in a short period would quickly grow into something much bigger.

At 5:23 p.m. on November 17th, Marmot made a tag stating that the submission limits were once again not resetting. The Second Taggening had begun. Like the First Taggening, the initial response was quite tepid. Digi and M3Lucas complained that the Taggening had returned, while Alpha Cranberry, who was largely not present during the First Taggening, decided to make his final posts the best he could. In the comments of Digi's tag, Fancytag noted that he was going to email Dr. Dos again, which implies that he was responsible for contacting Dos during the First Taggening, bringing the site creator in to fix it.

Then, at 11:38 p.m., something awoke within Smash Z. Something so very powerful, it would become something he was known and feared for for the remainder of his time on TF2Tags. Seeing that the submission limits were not resetting, Smash tapped into the power of his last post, and unleashed an unholy power on TF2Tags. For the next two hours, Smash would rapidly post variations of the MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE tag he had posted earlier, filling up multiple pages with the same joke. Initially, his spree seemed to stop at around midnight due to running out of tags. This temporarily allowed Acquiesce to make a post that it was safe to come out now, but Smash quickly posted a comment that he was far from finished. This is because around that time, Fancytag had contacted Dos, who came in and quickly undid the effects of the Second Taggening, resetting everyone's posts back to normal, meaning Smash had 25 more tags to unleash.

Smash quickly found himself accompanied by supporters who were making their own MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE posts, including Player 1 + Player 2, Walumancer, Whiterock Shooter, and Danjin. Danjin would go on to claim the best tag of the spree, earning 28 crits on his single contribution, while Walumancer's four tags all reached over 10 crits. Other taggers, meanwhile, would quickly dive for cover amongst the chaos. Legownz, the master of Item Sets and telling people to use them, quickly had his senses go into (maximum) overdrive while Mr. Copycat begged for the sweet release of death. Legownz declared he *would* catch Smash, and declared for all that item sets exist for a reason. However, Smash was not defeated so easily, and charged through, continuing his onslaught. Legownz, defeated, declared that instances such as this were prime examples as to why moderators were necessary for TF2Tags, indirectly backing Digi as a good candidate.

However, Smash would eventually run out of tags once more, and after making 34 MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE tags (plus the original prior to the Second Taggening), he finally ran out of energy and stopped. Expand would swiftly report on the short but extremely volatile events of the Second Taggning in a TF2NNN entry, while others like Whiterock Shooter would attempt to continue the meme for a little longer. The entire site feared the submission limits resetting once more, but when they did Smash eased everyone's fears, stating that he was done, at least for now, which allowed the taggers to come out of hiding. Interestingly, according to a tag from CP, it would appear that the spam continued even after Smash finished his original spree, noting 8 straight pages of spam. In the comments of this tag, Crimson notes that "they" deleted it, and criticized the unnamed tagger for not even committing to the spam they decided to do. While it is unknown who this second spammer is, it may have been FirePOW10, an unpopular shitposter who was active around this time. Unfortunately, the identity of this spammer remains a mystery.

## Third Taggening

The Second Taggening and the massive spam that accompanied it had ended, and TF2Tags once again attempted to return to normal. However, normalcy would not last long. What was normal, at least, was the beginning of a new trend during the evening of November 19th. This time, the trend involved puns related to Sun Tzu. This trend quickly took up an entire page over the course of an hour, and by this point the amount of trends occurring and taking up so much space was starting to get on the nerves of some like Ulysses (who one definitely does not want to get on the nerves of).

However, as the previous two Taggenings were related in some way to a trend of some kind, the third time would inevitably not be the charm, as while this trend was still going, Marmot noticed that, once again, the submission limits did not reset from the 19th to the 20th, starting the Third Taggening. Marmot sarcastically asked if submission limits were now weekly because of how often Taggenings were occurring, which prompted Fancy to relay some information Dos fed him previously. Apparently, the automatic monitor that reset everything broke somehow, and Dos would need to be continuously called in to fix aspects of it until it worked 100% again. Legownz then made a comment stating that Taggenings might be good in the long run, as they reduced spam as it forced taggers to think about what they post.

Perhaps in response to the Third Taggening, the Sun Tzu tags kept coming. This ultimately culminated in a set by Mr. Copycat who parodied *Meet the Soldier*, which is a big rant by Soldier about Sun Tzu's supposed teachings. The comments included a hint from Smash Z that he was planning another MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE spree, and that combined with what looked to be the start of a new spam trend related to the "Bonus Ducks!" line from Merasmus, Copycat began to panic. Thankfully, however, no further trends appeared to take hold.

After another TF2NNN entry regarding the Third Taggening, Marmot pointed out that someone had been missbombing, linking their vote log. It is unknown if this tagger missbombed due to the Third Taggening or for unrelated reasons. Upon further investigation, the bomber's identity turned out to be a minor tagger named Jayy, and upon even further examination of his voting records he would go on to be a serial missbomber, bombing well into January and February of 2016.

The Third Taggening would eventually end later that day, though no big fuss was made about it. It is reasonable to assume that by this time, everyone had gotten so used to the Taggenings occurring that there was no point in making big spectacles of them anymore.

## Aftermath and Legacy

After the Third Taggening, no other Taggening would ever occur. After the third time, Dr. Dos seemingly fixed the bugs causing them permanently. The Taggenings would thus go on to become another event from TF2Tags history that Taggers would go and joke about.

The Taggenings were the first real significant events of Generation 2, as it was sitewide and caused a major stir throughout the entire active userbase of the time in ways the Ulyssestorm and Item 100,000 Disappearance never did. It propelled taggers that previous to this had been lingering presences during or after the days of Generation 1 into major community figures. Marmot reached 3000 points shortly after the Taggenings ended, and after showcasing a calm and optimistic outlook during the First Taggening and announcing the Second and Third was quickly recognized as a major tagger. Mr. Copycat would also rise to prominence thanks to his defense of Expand and his detective work in figuring out the cause behind the First Taggening.

The one tagger who came out better than anyone else however was certainly Smash Z. In the First Taggening, Smash made a significant impact in calling for Expand's head and encouraging the doomsday mindset. In the Second Taggening, Smash would cement himself as part of TF2Tags history by birthing his signature meme, the MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE spree. Over the remainder of his career, Smash would go on three additional MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE rampages, as well as a similar spree related to Bill Nye the Science Guy. MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE would also grow to be used by other taggers as a meme.

Finally, in what is not usually spoken of but is of significant importance is that the Taggenings are the first known instance of Fancytag communicating with Dr. Dos to report things going on in the site. For a long time up until the Banning of Sensible Haircut, Ulysses had served as the liaison between Dos and the community, but was slowly retreating away from this role as Dos became more and more disagreeable to him. Fancy would largely take this spot in his place, and for over a year would serve as liasion before eventually getting promoted to moderator in 2017.

## Trivia

* Alongside the numerous time travel tags being made prior to the First Taggening, there was also a contest where tags were being made of the Big Earner, hosted by Digi. Digi would announce that Expand won the contest during the Second Taggening.
* On July 17th, 2016, a sort of *reverse* Taggening occurred where the submission limits were temporarily *disabled* on account of a bug, allowing for unlimited submissions for the entire day. Dos swiftly fixed this the following afternoon. The event was so brief it unfortunately never became something big enough to warrant a page, and is thus now stuck being a piece of simple trivia. Bummer.
	+ Funnily enough, this exact event was described as the NTF2Tags version of the Taggenings.