Attack of the Clones

## Belligerents

* **Makin' Bacon**
* **Smash Z**
* **Ulysses**
* A Fucking Idiot†
* Dr. Dos

* **Shitposter of 2016**†

> >impersonator seems to be a boob guy
> Good taste, my man.
>
>

> ~ Jesse, finding the good in the bad
>
>

**The Attack of the Clones** (sometimes known as **The Clone Wars**) was an event on TF2Tags, happening *way* too fucking late at night on February 20th 2016, where the site was suddenly bombarded with shitposts from a bunch of dummy accounts impersonating other taggers. While the posts dominated site discussion for a few hours, the event is mostly remembered for its tumultuous aftermath, wherein A Fucking Idiot was banned *yet again* and Dr. Dos declared his general distaste for the community's antics.

## The Attack of the Clones

### The Attack

> Dr. Dos, if there has ever been a reason to ban somebody, this is it...
>
>

> ~ Makin' Bacon, unwittingly portending a **very** bad omen.
>
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On the night of February 20th, 2016, some taggers such as Makin' Bacon, Bonkspenser, and Blast, appeared to lose their collective minds, posting tags with a general quality that was, er, subpar, to say the least. With confusion quickly coming over the taggers, the real Makin' Bacon called out that someone was impersonating him to make him look bad, and quickly calling for Dr. Dos to ban the perpetrator. Said perpetrator, calling himself the Shitposter of 2016, claimed responsibility for all the "clone" accounts of other taggers and making all these fake tags. In retaliation, Makin' would temporarily try to give him a taste of his own medicine, but the real Blast would eventually call this out as probably not the best idea, and these tags were deleted. Following this, Ulysses, Blast, and Smash Z would go on to mock the Shitposter of 2016, daring him to copy their (Ulysses and Smash's) accounts and ridiculing that A Fucking Idiot had more crits then them, a man who purposefully tried to make an account that was a shitty as possible. Smash Z was eventually cloned multiple times, but this only led to the man's own narcissistic euphoria.

Tagger's general reactions to the Shitposter of 2016's antics were mixed. Most taggers took the event in jest, as the impostor was laughably easy to spot and the jokes were predictable at best (mostly consisting of crude sexual humor, dead-horse cliches and the occasional Lenny face). Smash Z in particular was delighted to have multiple spammers under his name, and he and Ulysses egged them on in-between bouts. Others were either annoyed or simply indifferent, but ultimately the prevailing mood was "roll up, roll up, come and see the freak!".

Talks of the Shitposter of 2016's true identity quickly followed, with Makin' having complete confidence that it was only one person doing this, and high confidence that it was someone on the site. However, the man behind the clones was banned soon after, much to Makin's relief and Smash's sadness. All seemed to be wrapping up, but S16 was not done yet, for in under an hour he returned the site with more clones. During this second wave, some more taggers who were just coming in to the site that day (such as Legownz, TheStarvingFriend, and Twelve Hour Respawn) left their thoughts on the manner. A tag from Respawn (though it may have been mocking a tag by S16) would go on to make a page-long string of tags from several users, using puns of the phrase "One of us". It is unknown why this occurred. Perhaps it was to counter against S16's shitposts, perhaps it was an unrelated joke. The participants in this string included Respawn, Marmot, ¡BEAT!, Egg-Z, the last airblaster, and even A Fucking Idiot in his own unique way.

Speaking of AFI, he would go on a full-scale shitposting spree of his own (though it is unknown if this was done to counter or act in solidarity with S16), filling up an entire page of tags with nothing but items named "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA". This would prove to be a very fatal mistake, however...

### Dr. Dos Intervenes

> Good morning. I'm going to ban people.
>
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> ~ Dr. Dos, uttering his now most infamous phrase.
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Of course, no one bothered to do anything about this impostor mainly due to many finding it humorous. Fancytag (who was known at this point for contacting Dr. Dos when things got out of hand), on the other hand, was *really* fed up with the impostor's shenanigans and notified Dr. Dos about the what was going on, and asked him to put an end to this buttfuckery. While awaiting a response, he set up a Taggers Against Humanity game for the community to play while the site got cleaned up. Other taggers would arrive during this time in extreme confusion of the state of the site, such as M3Lucas, Crimson Blitz, and Walumancer.

Soon enough, Dr. Dos would swoop in and end the attacks on the site, banning the Shitposter of 2016 and deleting every post he and his clone accounts made during the ordeal. He announced his actions through a now infamous tag of the Necro-Smasher named / described: "Good Morning. / I'm going to ban people." The people's relief was short-lived, however, for in the comments of this tag Dr. Dos would go on a rant against both S16 specifically and against the wider TF2Tags community as a whole. The entire rant, in full, reads:

> "Shoutouts to whoever had the IP **<REDACTED>**. I meant to look up your items to delete your trash but accidentally deleted every item you ever submitted instead.
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> So here's the thing! I can't just disable name changes because you can just change your name on steam. Nor can I disable using a name already in use because then somebody will inevitably have their name stolen.
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> I wake up this morning, go to the site, and see an entire page of items that are just 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'. So yes I am banning them.
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> I am absolutely fed up with this site and want everybody here to know the only reason I haven't shut it down is because it puts a few bucks of ad revenue in my pocket each month.
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> And frankly, I'm not sure if that's worth the sporadic headache of 'Dos somebody is fucking up the site', banning the people fucking up the site, 'Dos why did you ban person X who was fucking up the site, it was a joke, the other person was fucking it up deliberately"
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> I am tired of people being jerks because they think it's funny, and I am even more tired of people clamoring to bring those jerks back because they found them funny."
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Dr. Dos banned not only the Shitposter of 2016, but also A Fucking Idiot, until 2050. This was later confirmed by Ulysses, who posted a chat between him and AFI shortly after he was banned:

```
 9:24 AM - NullenHL2B (AFI): You got banned on: Feb. 20, 2016, midnight

```

```
You'll be unbanned on: Jan. 1, 2050, midnight

```

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Here are the notes on why you were banned: "AAAAAAAAA"

```

## The Aftermath

The news of AFI's banning and Dos's true feelings being revealed hit the community like a punch to the gut. As they understood it, Dos had essentially made an ultimatum with the site; stop being a bunch of wankers, or the site gets shut down. Because of this, the site reaction wasn't as rancorous as one might initially expect from the taggers, probably because everyone was suddenly reminded that Dos could shut the site down if he wanted to at any point.

The first post of the aftermath was from Ulysses, copy/pasting the message from AFI shown above in the comments of a tag labelled "RIP AFI". People were largely saddened by this confirmation (Digi in particular was fuming), bar a vindictive Frapple, one of the few taggers who actively disliked AFI. Some taggers then went on Google Hangouts to discuss everything privately, and how they were going to address site behavior moving forward. Walumancer, unaware of this group chat, made a set pushing for an alternative platform that would keep the community together in the event of a site shutdown (this platform would later be Discord, which was discovered by the community in October of that year). Legownz would criticize Dos's rant, stating that shutting out the community wouldn't solve anything and that Dos needed to work *with* the community rather than stay isolated as he continued to be. Alpha Cranberry stated that he was going to turn on adblockers to spite Dos and not give him any ad revenue, though this move was largely seen as dickish, even by those who criticized Dos's rant (bar Digi). Fancy stated he was going to leave the site until things calmed down, while Digi angrily pulled a Leave And Never Come Back over both AFI's ban and the implication of Dos being in it for the ad revenue, but this didn't last long and he backpedaled on this within the day.

Makin' Bacon in particular also seemed to take the news particularly hard, as he was both an extreme fan of AFI and was deeply concerned over the site staying up (at the time he followed a policy of friending almost no taggers on Steam). He expressed his sorrow over AFI's ban and called out Frapple over his hatred for AFI. Ulysses and Makin' would then each make sets stating what to do and not to do in order to stay on Dos's good side and prevent the site from shutting down, as well as stating that the "Golden Age of TF2Tags" had ended, and that they were now in the second age. Following this, the Attack of the Clones effectively ceased to be a topic of conversation, and the site resumed as normal.

Following this, the Shitposter of 2016 was unbanned two days later, but nobody seemed to care and he didn't cause any more problems after that. He even apologized for his actions! A whole four months later...

AFI would be unbanned on April 2nd, to praise and applause from all who witnessed his extra-shit April Fools' Week tags. Though many assumed it was just for the week, this unban was permanent.

## Shitposting

### The Process

The main distinguishing feature of the shitposting in question is that it involved multiple accounts pretending to be "clones" of existing users (hence the whole "clones" motif). The method of spamming ran thusly:

1. The Shitposter of 2016 created a new Steam account with no details.
2. He logged in to the site with said account.
3. He named the account after somebody else.
4. He then used up all 5 posts allotted to new taggers before repeating the process.

Despite the seemingly threatening MO, the 5-post submission limit meant that the bouts of spamming were short and not really effective at disrupting anything. See, *this* is why the limits exist.

### List of Clones

The following is a list of taggers known to have been cloned during the ordeal. This list may be incomplete, since all of the clone tags were deleted following the attack. This list was formulated entirely upon tags and comments, as well as anecdotes from taggers who experienced the event.

* Blast
* Bonkspenser
* Dr. Dos
* Le Tryhard Hunter
* Makin' Bacon
* Smash Z (at least three times)

## So, Who was It?

The identity of the dipshit AFI-wannabe named "Shitposter of 2016" sparked much debate around the time of the attack. The first guess was a joke from Smash Z that it was Relk\_Cehi, which Relk himself would debunk as the time of the attack would have been around 4 am in the UK, where he lives. Ulysses suggested that it might be Huddah Huddah, a shitposter who was infamous for being one of the original missbombers, but this was not the case either. Makin' suspsected that it was Frapple due to his hatred of AFI, but this was a biased suggestion made in the heat of the moment. Other spur-of-the-moment guesses included a returning Teaquin and even Dr. Dos himself.

The truth regarding who the Shitposter of 2016 was would not be revealed for a very long time, with many assuming it was just some random user no one had ever heard of before. However, years later, it would be revealed that the Shitposter of 2016 was actually Pepe The Boi. Given how he apologized, the fact that TF2Tags is no more, and the fact that he was really young when he committed the attack, most people have either forgiven him or simply do not care.

## Gallery

### The Attack of the Clones

Note that any tags from the Shitposter of 2016 were deleted by Dr. Dos, and that any comments from known users with a blank ? profile pictures are clone accounts, and not the users themselves.

Makin' calling out whoever made an alt to make him look bad.Makin' naming this event.Makin', unwittingly portending a **very** bad omen.Blast chastising Makin' for trying to copy Shitposter of 2016 in an attempt to fight back.Ulysses taunting the Shitposter of 2016.Blast mocking S16 for the fact that **AFI** of all people has more crits than him.Smash Z taunting S16.Makin' announcing his plans to make this very wiki page.Smash Z, ecstatic about the fact he was cloned.Ulysses, finding the good in the bad.Smash Z, euphoric about the fact he was cloned again.Makin' stating his beliefs regarding the identity of S16.Ulysses guessing who S16 is.Smash Z lamenting the initial banning of S16, while Makin' celebrates.Smash Z demanding more shitposts from S16.Marmot, making a joke about Ulysses's incorrect guess.Expand making an entry in the TF2Tags Nightly News Network regarding the Attack of the Clones.Smash Z, about to cream himself over S16 returning.TheStarvingFriend making fun of the whole ordeal.Some random named TomZeBomb fleeing the clones in terror.Legownz, annoyed that people were blowing this entire thing waaaaaay out of proportion.Twelve Hour Respawn making a very valid point.The ONE OF US spree.A Fucking Idiot contributing to and ending the ONE OF US spree, with future comments from Bonkspenser following the ban and himself following his unban.John Kennedy, capitalizing on the situation.Fancytag pointing out the new comment limits system, though nobody seemed to care.M3Lucas, shocked at the imposters, as well as Fancytag stating his intention to contact Dr. Dos on the situation, with TGRobert calling him a wannabe hero.Fancytag setting up a Taggers Against Humanity game for the sake of his sanity.Crimson Blitz having an existential crisis.Le Tryhard Hunter, asking of the clone wars are still going.Walumancer, arriving at the tail end of the event, not realizing what is going on and thinking Tryhard had gone nuts.The infamous rant against the community.
### The Aftermath

Ulysses confirming AFI's banning.Walumancer, pushing for an alternate platform in case the site died.Legownz criticizing Dr. Dos's rant against the community.Alpha Cranberry, making an unpopular move.Fancy announcing he will come back when things simmer down.Frapple's joy at AFI's banning, with AFI's future comment following his unban.Digi pulling a Leave And Never Come Back.Makin' pointing out that this Attack of the Clones was worse than the actual movie it got its name from.Makin' seeking clarification regarding AFI's ban.Makin' remembers his temporary ban.Makin' calling out Frapple for hating AFI.Acquiesce coming to site after all this bullshit and wondering what the hell happened.Ulysses instructing the taggers on how not to kill the site (ironic considering his future attempt to do just that).Makin' lamenting the fact that AFI would never return (spoilers: he did).The taggers trying to name this particular event. In the end, "Aftermath of Attack of the Clones" won.Egg-Z trying to make light of the at the time serious situation.Ulysses, erecting the border between the old TF2Tags and the new TF2Tags.Makin' following Ulysses's lead in telling people how not to kill the site.Jesse announcing the return of the status quo.Digi going back on his LANCB.Ulysses upset that nobody seemed to learn anything from Dos's rant.Shitposter of 2016 announces he is unbanned.AFI announces his unban on April 2nd.Shitposter of 2016 apologizes for Attack of the Clones months after the fact.
## Trivia

* According to a TF2Tags News entry from the 8th of December, 2015, clone accounts had actually accosted the site before. However, the clones from December did not stir up anywhere near as much trouble as those in February, so they did not attract as much attention.
	+ It is unknown if the Shitposter of 2016 was behind these clones as well, or if it was another actor.
* Though the shitstorm and its aftermath naturally took most of the attention on the site at the time, after banning the Shitposter of 2016 for the first time, Dr. Dos actually performed a site update that same day that improved two key aspects of the site. The first was a reform to the comment limits making them separate from submission limits and doubling the amount of comments allowed at each tier (that is, if you had 5 tags a day you were allowed 10 comments, for instance). The second was the removal of restrictions as to what qualities an item could use. Previously, an item could only have a specific quality if one such item already existed. Due to broken data from the TF2 wiki (where Dos sourced from), he decided to remove this restriction altogether for his own convenience. This led to all items being able to use all qualities (including Unusual), which brought about many new creative possibilities for tags.
* The Attack of the Clones happened on Qror's birthday, as well as the day after Makin' Bacon's birthday.
* People treated the aftermath of this event like a large-scale change in the site behavior, but in reality nothing changed at all and Dos didn't shut the site down until three years later.
* The second Attack of the Clones would happen on the eight month anniversary of the first.