Edge Incident

* Taggers prove they can self-moderate the community, both in handling bad actors and halting dogpiling against those being brigaded against.

## Belligerents

* **Ulysses**
* **Makin' Bacon**
* **TheOnlyGuyEver**
* Twelve Hour Respawn
* Lt. Col. Problem
* Player 1 + Player 2
* Crimson Blitz
* Acquiesce
* Legownz
* TGRobert
* Marmot

* **Meta Breakers**
* Reboot
* Bonkspenser

The **Edge Incident** was the first notable drama incident following the Attack of the Clones, wherein the majority of the TF2Tags userbase turned on Meta Breakers for his behavior at the time. Having joined the site in mid-January of 2016, Meta Breakers was a new tagger who had quickly gotten on the bad side of established second generation tagger Makin' Bacon, as well as many others, for a variety of reasons. Ultimately, things would boil over off-site and spill onto TF2Tags itself, leading to Meta pulling a Leave And Never Come Back and the majority of the userbase attempting to see to it that he stay gone.

In many ways, this so-called "Edge Incident" can apply to both sides of this conflict. Meta's behavior, as to be demonstrated, was overly immature and "woe-is-me" infused, and from what can be recovered his temporary excommunication was somewhat deserved. However, the rest of the users would also be extremely toxic towards Meta, especially Makin', Ulysses, and TheOnlyGuyEver, and is a prime example of the toxicity of the taggers around this period in TF2Tags history. However, as the first instance of drama following the infamous "Good Morning" tag from Attack of the Clones, it also showed that the community was capable of self-moderation in the end.

## Background

Meta Breakers was a tagger that joined TF2Tags in the middle of January 2016. From the man's own later admission, he would often act quite bratty, selfish, and overall quite immature during his first couple of months, especially when he felt his tags did not get the crits he felt they deserved. While he did his best to hide his feelings, he would sometimes express severe tagging envy, especially towards fellow tagger Makin' Bacon. According to Meta, he envied Makin's status on the site, for despite only being on the site for five months at that point he had amassed a couple thousand points on his profile and had been accepted by site veterans such as Ulysses and Relk\_Cehi.

Meta and Makin' would establish a rivalry early in the former's career. Makin' had made a series of sets titled "Tag Wars", where he would recreate trailers from the *Star Wars* movies (mainly the prequels) and replace the characters with taggers, often making puns on the names. Meta then followed up with his own (now deleted) set of Tag Wars sets covering the original trilogy. He would then go on to make more of these types of sets into February 2016. Eventually, Makin' would accuse Meta of joke thieving, though Meta claimed he was unaware of the previous sets Makin' did, which quickly spiraled into an argument between the two which soured their relationship. The problem was, Meta was being continuously unreasonable and kept making, frankly, a fool of himself, by using tactics such as bringing up his unhappy family and social life and his autism, blaming all of his problems on those aspects. In other words, avoiding responsibility for his own actions. And all of that was employed for something that was relatively common on TF2Tags as a whole (see: getting Relk'd). Things got to the point where infamous long-time enemies Ulysses and Relk\_Cehi both stepped in to leave several harsh comments on one of Meta's tags on Makin's behalf. While Relk wouldn't get too vocal about Meta from then on, Ulysses would grow to have a considerable disdain for him.

On February 24th, Ulysses had noted that he wanted to say some additional things about Meta, to which Makin' encouraged him to do so. Ulysses would comment, however, that he wanted to do so in private "away from lunatics". Meta would once again try to use his autism as an excuse, to which TheOnlyGuyEver would point out that means nothing as several taggers were also known to have some form of autism. Ulysses himself would later reply to this comment with the following:

> 7 million people in the world have autism. You're not fucking special. I don't care if your family is shit, I don't care if your friends are two faced, and I don't care what bad shit happened to you. Fuck off.
>
>

The contents of this chat between Makin' and Ulysses were never publicly disclosed.

## Breaking Point

Things came to a head on the 1st of March 2016. For context, the Colorless Times had been in full-swing for some weeks at this point, which meant that most qualities were disabled due to a site bug. However, the Strange quality was able to be used on Botkiller weapons specifically, because they by default were Strange on TF2Tags due to them bugging out when being posted as Unique. It was a quick fix that Dr. Dos made to ensure those items could still be used during the Colorless Times. Meta, however, appeared to believe this to be some refutation to the Colorless Times, and reportedly commented "item qualities are broken, my ass." Ulysses, however, would (seemingly) politely make a tag explaining why this was possible. He then did a TL;DR of, simply, "FUCK OFF." Meta would then comment the following on this tag: "Good work explaining a one sentence answer in over 200 characters. Good tag btw." This would soon spill over into Steam Chats, which Ulysses would post snippets of in the same comment section. TheOnlyGuyEver would admonish Meta for insulting Ulysses for no reason, but Meta simply replied that he had made "an insult with a smile. Something your ring leader, Makin' Bacon, hasn't taught you."

Ulysses would then post another tag titled "Calm down Meta" with a link to an image of their full conversation on Steam. From the snippet, Ulysses started the conversation calmly, relaying a point made by Twelve Hour Respawn, that the negative comments and insults are simply a normal part of TF2Tags, and that if Meta didn't like it he would have to toughen up and deal with it, unfortunately. Quite simply, he told him to calm down. Meta, however, would not take this advice with maturity, instead claiming that it wouldn't matter if he did because "I'm less than shit to everyone now. I don't want to end up like you [Ulysses]." Ulysses pointed out that he did that to himself. Then, in a startling display of teen angst and edginess, Meta said the following:

> And what's your advice? Suicide? It's the end of the line for me. My family hates me. My friends are as two-faced as they come. What now?
>
>

These ill-fated attempts at pity quickly caused Ulysses to anger. As TF2Tags's longstanding edgelord with a less-than-good real life, Ulysses had no tolerance for such tactics. He called Meta's bluff and told him to commit suicide, and then to call him when he ultimately didn't go through with it, noting that he was just trying to help him out. Meta, still defensive, asked him how he did so other than telling him what he already knew, mocking everything Respawn and Ulysses were trying to say. Ulysses then shot back with "Do me and the rest of the world a favor, ponyfag. Fucking off yourself before you reproduce." Meta then went offline after this, ending the conversation.

In the comments of "Calm down Meta", Ulysses stated the following:

> I try to help and get fucking shat on because you're too busy trying to make me feel bad for you. I'm going to restate what I said before. Fucking off yourself before you reproduce. The world doesn't need any more idiots like yourself. I think we're fucking done here.
>
>

Following this, Ulysses would go around to other taggers and ask for their opinions on Meta, seemingly in the context of the conversation they just had. TheOnlyGuyEver, Player 1 + Player 2, Twelve Hour Respawn, Crimson Blitz, and Lt. Col. Problem all expressed differing negative sentiments. Some were outright hostile and dismissive of Meta, others believed he had potential but was wasting it through his attitude. Makin' Bacon, of course, was already spoken for. The contents of the conversation also convinced Acquiesce that Meta was in the wrong, stating that he was a liar. Makin' would later comment that Meta was "batshit crazy".

Meta, still refusing to back down, attempted to dismiss his unpopularity, calling them all "halfrate taggers" that did nothing but criticize and complain, but never act. He then insulted P1P2, Ulysses, TOGE, and Makin', calling the former two bipolar. Makin', in a chat with Ulysses, found the "halfrate" insult to be particularly laughable as Meta was picking a fight with Ulysses, one of the highest-scoring taggers at the time. He then stated that he didn't believe Meta realized that they weren't criticizing him so much as trying to make him learn from his past mistakes. He criticized Meta for continuing to use his autism and family as an excuse for his behavior, and called him a spoiled brat. Ulysses would then respond to the bipolar insult, stating that P1P2 is not bipolar and that even though Ulysses himself was, it was not an excuse for him to do whatever he wanted without consequence. He then again encouraged Meta to commit suicide, and wanted to finish by guessing his age, which was 14.

Meta then responded by stating he was 16 and then aired his personal life's story and baggage out for the site to see, a response that only further seemed to prove Ulysses and Makin's points and gaining more detractors in Legownz and TGRobert (the latter of whom was actually 14 at the time).

Following "Calm down Meta", Makin' would make a tag politely asking how many taggers had autism, as he was trying to prove a point to Meta. Three taggers confirmed they had autism, in addition to Blast who had been open about it in the past. Others stated they were not autistic but had their own mental issues such as ADHD, clinical depression, and anger management, among other conditions. Makin' believed this was enough to prove his point that Meta was acting like a spoiled baby and that blaming everything on his autism was merely an excuse. That everyone has their own share of problems and emotional baggage, and Meta was not special.

At some point following this, Meta declared he would Leave And Never Come Back, and "left the site for good." Most taggers were either apathetic or happy at this. However, it was around this time that those who took a more sympathetic view towards Meta came out of the woodwork. When Lt. Col. Problem mocked Meta as he left, Reboot insulted Problem as "an arrogant trash-talker that makes me want to vomit", to which Problem responded that Reboot had no idea who he was (he had only been on TF2Tags for about the same time as Meta) and to do his research before throwing out insults. Twelve Hour Respawn would also make a tag in support of Meta's LANCB.

Blast, the community's resident mediator, would later share his thoughts on the situation, and admitted to being on the fence. On the one hand, he didn't believe Makin' did anything wrong and, regarding Meta, he didn't know whether to feel sorry for him or tell him to suck it up. He did say, however, that he believed everyone had been too harsh on Meta, and while he may have been making up everything about his personal life there was no way to know for sure (sentiments shared by Bonkspenser in the comments). Blast also expressed how he was getting tired of playing the mediator constantly. TOGE, however, argued that Meta did all of it to himself, and Acquiesce seconded it by stating "Being hard-done-by doesn't give you a blank check to be an irrational jerk. At least Ulysses admits it. Meta was just being a brick wall." Ulysses himself even stated that he was willing to give him a second chance but refused to because Meta was "stuck up his own ass".

## To Leave and Ever Come Back

As with most LANCBs, however, Meta didn't actually "never come back", and could be seen in comment sections the very next day, March 2nd. Unlike most LANCBs, however, taggers would actively insult Meta where ever he was seen, trying to get him to stay gone. Many of these comments were some form of "kill yourself". Ulysses apparently predicted that Meta would return within the day, though Meta claimed he wasn't back and that he merely commented on a post he liked. Ulysses countered that he was on the site and using it, and was therefor back by definition. This heckling and continued bullying went on over the next few days, though Meta would largely not engage with those calling for his excommunication.

That was, until finally, early on the morning of the 4th, Meta posted a tag and began to respond to those telling him to leave in the comments. TOGE was the first to tell him to leave, and after a couple of backs and forths Meta revealed that he was fully aware of how everyone felt about him and was employing "passive resistance". TOGE then said he was glad Meta learned to at least have some form of self-control. Meta then stated that things would not be the same and that he just wanted to go back to making jokes. TOGE replied, however:

> You had like 12 some-odd chances at apologizing and putting a fuckin' stupid nonsensical feud that you yourself caused over a thing that happens frequently on this site. All of those times, you refused to admit that you were in the wrong, and instead continued with ad hominems towards Makin' instead of being the better man and trying to diffuse the situation.
>
>

Makin' then summarized the situation as Meta overreacting too much and is now considered to be an asshole, to which TOGE and Marmot agreed. Meta would then comment an apology, noting that he was acting like a blowhard and that he had an ego issue that had to be "resolved in the most blunt way possible". He credited Ulysses for this, as he had apparently Steam chatted with Meta at some point between "Calm down Meta" and this tag and explained to him some of his own past trauma, which were so sobering that it humbled Meta. He was not asking for forgiveness, but to be treated from his current and future actions instead of his past actions, stating that he had changed.

> "I'm 16 and TF2 is ~9 years old. If TF2 can evolve, so can I."
>
>

This seemed to convince most people to give Meta a second chance, or at least to stop vocally attacking him. However, TOGE would not believe his statements to be genuine and would continue to try and bully him off TF2Tags. When Meta questioned why TOGE was still being so bitter towards him, TOGE listed the same reasons he did previously. Meta requested that they speak on Steam to settle things privately, which TOGE did not initially accept. On a later tag by Legownz, Meta would leave a comment and TOGE would once again tell him to leave, which had Acquiesce tell him to stop. It is assumed that TOGE would eventually speak with Meta on Steam, as after this he did appear to stop. This concluded the drama.

## Impact

The "Edge Incident" was an important event given the context of TF2Tags at the time. Within the ten days previous to it, Dr. Dos had essentially declared that he hated the community and did not want to be bothered, so when the first shitstorm or drama incident occurred it would determine just what direction the site would take. In the case of this, it largely proved two things: firstly, that the taggers would not change their behavior and would continue to be toxic in general and to each other, but secondly, that they were more than capable of self-moderation. Even if nobody had the proper moderation capabilities like Dr. Dos, through mediation and some humble pie, things could and would return to normal. Ulysses in particular demonstrated both of these axioms. He was probably the most toxic person to Meta, but was also the one willing to give the most advice to him as well, ultimately being the one to get Meta to realize his mistakes and apologize. Make no mistake, Ulysses *despised* Meta for years following this incident for his behavior, missbombing him several times (though he did regret trying to goad him into suicide), but his ability to set that aside to end the conflict was quite respectable, arguably even admirable.

Meta Breakers himself would garner a reputation for being one of the more neurotic taggers in the community, often prone to mood swings, lashing out at others seemingly unprovoked, and garnering much negative attention (such as when he later achieved Hale's Own via self-critbomb, which many considered to be cheating). However, the majority of the site would largely mellow out regarding him, becoming more understanding towards his issues and actually becoming good friends. Even TheOnlyGuyEver, who was the only remaining tagger who would continue to vocally call for Meta to leave, would go on to become one of Meta's closest friends. Over time, at least. For the near future, TOGE would continue to hold Meta in low regard, holding this incident against him in a few arguments the two were involved in.

## Gallery

The tag Makin' Bacon made encouraging Ulysses to share his thoughts on Meta Breakers. In the comments, Meta is seen blaming his autism. Ulysses refutes.Makin' insults Meta's intelligence.Ulysses explains how the strange item quality can still be used despite the Colorless Times. Meta is dismissive and aggressive. Ulysses begins to leak messages from their Steam chat.Acquiesce suggests maybe having a Wiki talk page to discuss current drama as a means of getting it away from TF2Tags itself. This would fall on deaf ears as the next drama broke the metaphorical dam."Calm down Meta", where Ulysses leaks his chat with Meta and goes around asking other taggers what they think of Meta. It is all negative. Meta attempts to respond, but only digs himself into a deeper hole.The full chat session between Ulysses and Meta.Lt. Col. Problem makes a joke at Meta's expense.Makin' attempts to prove a point against Meta by asking the community how many of them have autism. While autism itself is sparse, other conditions are prevalent, enough to prove Makin's point.Lt. Col. Problem once again insults Meta. Reboot attacks Problem in the comments for it.Twelve Hour Respawn does not mourn the departure of Meta Breakers.Blast shares his on-the-fence thoughts. Bonkspenser shares his sympathies. Others counter.The first instance where Meta returns and is bullied by others in the comments to leave. Also, 2016 political humor.Another instance of Meta getting harassed in a comment section. Also, Blast's headcanon theme songs for Taggers.Ulysses successfully predicts Meta Breaker's return following his Leave And Never Come Back. Meta attempts to respond, but it is self-defeating.More Meta harassment.Makin' insults Meta and compliments other newer taggers. Meta responds by correcting grammar. TOGE attempts to correct that grammar. In this instance, Meta is correct. Point for Meta.More Meta harassment.Meta makes a tag, and goes on to apologize for his behavior, noting that Ulysses shared some personal information with him that made him see things differently. He promises things will be different.While Meta's apology is enough for most, TOGE digs his heels in.Last instance of Meta harassment. Acquiesce tells him to knock it off. Also, a drawing Legownz made of trains when he was a kid.