Memes / Team Fortress 2

Join the Scout Army!

"This is an amazing article... by The Other Wiki!"

— The Soldier

---

Please add entries in the following format:

• The meme[[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary[[/labelnote]]^ExplanationLike this
  • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.

---

Official Videos

• Meet the Heavy
  • "It costs $400,000 to (insert inane action here)... for 12 seconds."^ExplanationA snowclone, courtesy of the "Meet the Heavy" video. The original line is "It costs $400,000 to fire this weapon... for 12 seconds."
  • The fan-made description for the Heavy Duty Rag brings this meme into the game proper: "It costs $400,000 to wear this bandanna for 12 seconds."
  • BOOLIT^Explanation"Bullet" as filtered through Heavy's Funetik Aksent.
  • "Some people think they can outsmart [insert noun here]. Maybe. Maybe. I've yet to meet anyone who can outsmart [insert another noun here]!"^ExplanationAnother snowclone. The original sentence is "Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe. Maybe. I've yet to meet anyone who can outsmart bullet."
  • His "bullet" line enjoyed a brief resurgence thanks to Blazblue Chronophantasma which features a new fighter called Bullet. It didn't take long for some fanart to show up depicting that familiar scene, only replacing the actual bullet with a figurine of said female fighter.
• Meet the Soldier
  • "...Unless it's a farm!"^ExplanationThe end of the Soldier's rant in the "Meet the Soldier" video. Used to unfavorably compare something, such as: "And from that day forward, any time a bunch of animals are together in one place it's called a Zoo/Tzu. ...Unless it's a farm!"
• Meet the Engineer
  • "And if that don't work? Use more gun."^ExplanationThe Engineer's advice in the "Meet the Engineer" video. Solves all problems.
  • Being able to quote "Meet the Engineer" in its entirety is pretty much a requisite for most players. It's also popular as snowclone material.
• Meet the Demoman
  • "What makes me a good [occupation]? If I were a bad [occupation], I wouldnae be sitting here discussing with ya now would I?!"^Explanation Demoman's introduction line, originally "What makes me a good Demoman? If I were a bad Demoman, I wouldnae be sitting here discussing with ya now would I?"
  • "I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!"^ExplanationThe Demoman's line at the end of the "Meet the Demoman" video. Yet another Badass Boast.
  • "Oh, they're gonna have ta glue you back together... IN HELL!"
• "Meet the Sniper
  • Professionals have standards: Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."^ExplanationFrom the "Meet The Sniper" video. Actually a slightly modified version of the motto of the USA Marines, it is used as a general Badass Boast. The first sentence is also used by itself in situations where someone or something usually considered bad actually does something good for once (such as a robber returning someone's prized possessions and apologizing for it).
  • This has gotten a few videos turning that phrase around: "Be polite. Be polite. Have a plan to be polite to everyone you meet."
  • "I'm not a [X], I'm a [Y]. Well the difference being one is a job and the other is mental sickness!"^ExplanationSniper explaining the difference between a crazed gunman and an assassin to his father. Quickly turned into a snowclone used to explain the difference between two things, with the first thing being made fun of due to the setup of the line.
• Meet the Spy
  • "And now he's here to f(BLEEP) us!"^ExplanationFrom the "Meet the Spy" video, the warning that the BLU Spy gives to the BLU team about the RED Spy. Another general Badass Boast.
  • "No, that would be YOUR MOTHER!"^ExplanationFrom the same video, the BLU Spy tells the BLU Scout that the latter's mother is the actual president of the RED Spy's fan club and proceeds to show photos of the RED Spy having sex with her.
  • "He could be in this very room! He could be you! He could be me!"^ExplanationThe BLU Spy's summary of the Paranoia Fuel inspired by the RED Spy, shortly before the Soldier kills him. Used as a companion to any image that states "1 in [X] people are [Y]" or any situation in which someone might infiltrate a group.
• Meet the Medic
  • "<verb> me." "Later."^ExplanationIn "Meet the Medic", this short exchange between the Medic and the BLU Spy's severed head (Spy: "Kill me!") prompted yet another TF2 snowclone, generally used for anything that will probably never be done: (Such as "Make Half-Life 3." "Later.")
  • "Are you sure [X] will vork?!" "I have NO IDEA!"^ExplanationA conversation between the Heavy and the Medic. This prompted another snowclone, generally used when asked a question someone has no expertise in or doesn't want to answer.
  • "You would not believe how much this hurts."^ExplanationScout's line from the end of "Meet the Medic", which became a general phrase to refer to any injury or painful situation.
  • "Archimedes, no! It's filthy in there!"^ExplanationIn "Meet the Medic", Heavy is lying on Medic's operating table with a massive wound in his torso. Medic discovers one of his pet doves, Archimedes, playing in the wound and shoos the bird away with this line. In many YouTube videos featuring doves, at least one of the comments will reference this line.
• Meet the Pyro
  • I believe in magic!^ExplanationA reference to the music used in Meet the Pyro, often in relation to something deemed glorious.
  • Pyro's mind is full of [X]^ExplanationReplacing what's seen through the Pyro's visor with pretty much anything
  • "I fear no [X]. But that... thing... it scares me."^ExplanationA snowclone from "Meet the Pyro", based upon Heavy's description of Pyro (wherein [X] is "man"). Used in reference to disturbing imagery, videos, etc., with [X] representing that particular form of media.
• Now that the Source Filmmaker is released, remixing the Meet the Team videos to feature different characters or more characters is becoming popular. Usually Meet the Heavy and Meet the Soldier, as these two and Meet the Engineer are the only ones that come packaged with the program.
  • Ex: Meet the Medvy, Meat the Heavy, Stop Meeting the Heavy, etc.
  • Also with the addition of Mann vs. Machine, people have been making their own versions of Meet the Team with the Robot versions of the classes in the spotlight.
• "My blood! H-he punched out all my blood!"^ExplanationOffscreen hilarity from the "Meet the Sandvich" video.
• "This is [X]." "Dear God." "There's more." "No."^ExplanationIn Expiration Date, Soldier, in true Soldier fashion, makes a massive deal out of a bucket of all things. This meme typically crops up in response to any form of the phrase "This is [X]"; the more mundane [X] is, the better.
• "SEDUCE ME!"^ExplanationThe Spy repeatedly tries to teach Scout how to talk to a woman in Expiration Date. Predictably the lines were taken out of context and used for many jokes, particularly regarding Spy's Casanova reputation.
  • "We both got buckets of chicken, wanna do it?"^ExplanationThe Scout trying to explain to the Spy that he's good with women. The scene then cuts to a flashback of the Scout hitting on a girl at a fried chicken joint with this line. The girl (who the Spy refers to as a "fried chicken tramp") says yes.
• "So we're fine, as long as nobody [insert bad thing here]." "...Question."^ExplanationEngineer explains how everything is fine so long as nobody teleported bread...which Soldier sheepishly admits to. Now used for Tempting Fate situations.
  • "I have done nothing but [action] [noun] for three days."^ExplanationA snowclone based on one of Soldier's lines.
    • "I TELEPORTED BREAD!"^ExplanationA dramatic variant of the above, since the original line was "I've done nothing but teleport bread for three days." Believe it or not, in context, it's a Wham Line.
  • Soldier X Bucket OTP^ExplanationSoldier's affection for the bucket quickly led to jokes and/or shipping.

Comics and Other Supplemental Material

• SAXTON HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!!!^ExplanationThe universe's Memetic Badass and CEO of Mann Co. in the supplemental material. There's a popular community-made mod, officially added to the game in the Summer 2023 update, where the entire RED Team fights against Hale.
• Poor and Irish^ExplanationSince this game is meant to take place in the 1960's, the Irish often get mocked in-universe.
• Sitting Pyro from the Australian Christmas comic. They came back for the Mann Vs. Machine update, and as of June 11, 2014, the Sitting Pyro animation has officially been returned to the game files in combination with the Bread... we mean, the Love & War Update.
• The Jungle Inferno update page gives us a glorious gem in the form of an extremely exploitable picture of Saxton Hale.
• "Aye, Fair Enough"◊^ExplanationWhen the Medic tells Demoman that he removed part of his brain to get him to stop asking him why he won't heal his missing eye, Demoman says this after a Beat. The two panels where he gives this reaction is often used when someone concedes a point, especially ones considered to be technically correct.

Community-Created Stuff

• and hoovy^ExplanationA series of videos titled with the template "and (misspelled class)" consisting of a still image of a class (typically the class looks sad or serious) and some form of sad or serious music. It is a tradition for people to respond in the comments with a short, sad story to go with the video.
• Demopan◊^ExplanationOriginally appeared in a reddit post entitled "The New Face of TF2", as well as a thread on Steam forums, partly to ridicule how the game had evolved since its release by that point. He quickly became a Memetic Badass, appearing in numerous YouTube videos since his debut, and causing the items he equips (namely, Bounty Hat, Dangeresque, Too?, Chargin Targe and Frying Pan) to become highly sought after.
  • STOUT SHAKO FOR 2 REFINED◊^ExplanationDemopan's catchphrase, originated from the username seen on the infamous image. The name is also a trade request, with the Stout Shako referring to a hat wearable by the Soldier, and the refined referring to Refined Metal, a crafting ingredient which unofficially doubles as Practical Currency.
• <class> plays <insert other game>^ExplanationAn early meme on YouTube was having the various mercenaries play other games, dubbing gameplay with their voice lines and having other mercs voice the in-game characters, or using TF2's sound effects to re-dub the game's sound effects. Examples: [1], [2], [3]
• Painis Cupcake^ExplanationA Garry's Mod character resembling a soldier with a memorable style of movement (sliding around walls and floors while making shotgun sounds), and he eats people after delivering his catchphrase "I am Painis Cupcake. I will eat you" (mashed together from several different voice commands), and a Slasher Smile. Spawned from a YouTube video made using Garry's Mod, quickly leading to several imitators and an even greater number of fan videos starring the "character". Seems to have created a pseudo-tradition of using music by Grant Kirkhope as Background Music for TF2/GMod videos.
• "Vagineer"^ExplanationWhen the Engineer's facial muscle sliders are set to a strange position, the Engineer's mouth twists into something resembling a vagina. In his earliest known appearance in a video by J16FOX, Vagineer became an Eldritch Abomination, and according to Fanon has many strange powers such as shooting his own limbs off at people and vomiting bile. He also only speaks in reverse, with the exception of occasional growls, and the word "Gottam". Like Painis Cupcake, several imitations have been made using similar facial muscle slider abuse and reverse speech.
• Oddscout. It Begins.^ExplanationOddscout is another Eldritch Abomination, inspired by the Slender Man.
• DED!^ExplanationA joke in Garry's Mod animations where characters tend to announce their own deaths, mainly Scout citing that "I'm dead" or Heavy simply chiming in with "dead"
  • Now something of an Ascended Meme with Mann Vs Machine: Whenever a friendly player is killed, this will trigger specific voice responses from some of the game characters (note: only from Heavy, Medic, Engineer or Soldier, while the classes Sniper, Scout, Spy, Demoman and Pyro class lack these voice lines) who will yell, "[Class] is dead!!!" The Medic, who can't do jack shit on his own, is sounding especially desperate.
  • Soldier gets this as well, with his "You were loud and ugly, and now you're DEAD!" and "You're dead, that's good, Amen." lines, which are sometimes mashed into such lines as "I / was / loud and ugly, and now / I'm / DEAD! / A-men." and "Dead that's good amen."
• (CLASS) IS (THING)^ExplanationA fad which starts with a class saying something along the lines of "(Class) is (thing)!" (achieved by using the "Spy!" command when pointed at a particular person) or by saying "I am (Thing)!". The video then goes on to show that class being the thing. Originaly starting with AR Master with "SCOUT IS DELICIOUS", it has since spawned many variations. As of December 30th, there's a collaboration dedicated to the 10-year anniversary of the meme, hosted by the original creator.
• "The Vicious Cycle of ____"^ExplanationA popular fad started by YouTube user Raikujo, featuring lightning-fast killings of classes, usually in succession, set to "Bãtutã Din Moldova" from Rabbids Go Home. Each one starts with a character running in, turning their head to see someone, then after the fanfare of the song begins, the mayhem starts. Each ends with the original character respawning. The unique feature of each video is the fact that it loops, caused by a glitch in YouTube caused by using pause annotations at the very last frame of the video. (YouTube has now added a looping feature to the player, making these videos "last" much longer.) Here are some particularly "good" ones.
• "Gunshot Briiiide..."^ExplanationPendulum's Propane Nightmares is a pretty popular music choice for TF2 skillshot clips, especially with projectile weapons like the Rocket Launcher and Grenade Launcher. In-game, players often use "Gunshot Bride" as shorthand for shooting someone out of the air with an explosive (which is much harder than it sounds).
• '''UNLIMITED POWER!!!!'''^ExplanationPopular meme of a player named Chozo who goes on a hilarious cursing rage allowing many memes such as the one above. The rage-induced player is often mentioned in TF2 message boards and forums whenever someone mentions the best player of all time. And yes, it's derived from that one Star Wars meme (Quoth Chozo: "I'M LIKE FUCKING EMPEROR PALPATINE!"), although the delivery is different.
• "____ in a Nutshell"^ExplanationAn older fad started by NearElite. Each video basically sums up each map in under a minute. Each video is set to the music "Intruder Alert." Usually, the following is involved: ridiculous amounts of sentries, utter annihilation of the other team at chokepoints, and excessive amounts of Snipers. A lot of the time, the Snipers are stabbed by Spies that appear behind them, set to sad music.
• The HWM models.^ExplanationThe HWM stands for "hard-ware morph", and in Garry's Mod, when faceposing, the models produce more distorted results, particularly with Team Fortress 2 models.
• nope.avi^ExplanationThe Engineer running up to the camera, his helmet inexplicably levitating, him saying "Nope.", then telescoping his neck after it like a turtle. Has seen plenty of use on message boards as "nope.avi" or an ASCII image whenever the context calls for someone answering in the negative. There's also "Yeah!", the opposite version where the Engineer's neck squashes downwards.
  • For the record, the actual file name is Engineer_no01.wav. Nope.avi started as the title of the original video.
  • The Nope exclamation itself has become something of a meme even outside of Team Fortress 2, often used in gameplay videos where some sort of well-timed denial takes place, especially the No-Sell sort.
• Smexuals^ExplanationA trend of videos with titles that typically go along the lines of "sexual_class.filetype". These consist of HWM-ized faces in a black background and the use audio splices, often vulgar and surreal, of the subject class(es) and some others within the game. The trend had been popularized through the video sexual_heavy.wmv. The "sexual_class" snowclone later evolved to other adjectives like "slightly_provocative_heavy" and eventually into long, nonsensical phrases like "stu_pidface's_flatulent_extravaganza" The ".filetype" can refer to just about anything, whether real formats like ".wmv" or whatever word they want like ".wut" or ".stupid", etc. A sub-trend involves people making actual videos with animations matching those in the original, usually with messed up and slightly NSFW results.
• POOT DIS POW!^ExplanationA crossover meme with Skyrim. "Poo Tis Pow" is the Heavy's version of "Fus Ro Dah" using the Showdown taunt to fling enemies around. With proper timing, it is possible to pull this off in-game.
• Making Team Fortress 2 versions of Nathan Vetterlein's videos, as he is the Scout's voice actor and provides videos frequently for animators to TF2-ize.
  • Glass^ExplanationNathan often goes on bizarre, improvised tangents about glass when warming up. This derives from his habit of using "Glass? Who gives a shit about glass?" as a trigger phrase to help slip into the Scout's Brooklyn accent.
• Tentaspy^ExplanationDepicting the Spy with octopus tentacles instead of legs.
• The Scout Army^ExplanationA YouTube Role-Playing community fad involving a large group of people with a deformed scout face (from "Heavy and Scout think they are birds") as their profile icon. You can usually find them commenting on a (usually TF2 related) video. Said profile icons usually have noticeable differences MS-painted over the picture, such as a pirate beard or a monocle; resulting in the commenters acting appropriately, a prime example of this fad taking place in a videos' comment section can be seen here.
• Pop it, don't drop it^ExplanationA Team Service Announcement video that teaches new players that a popped uber is better than a wasted one had the Medic… well, doing this. The phrase itself is much older, being a common piece of advice for new medics, but then YouTube user Crazyhalo, along with Chaofanatic and anangrysockpuppet, created a replacement for the Medic and Heavy's Meet the Medic and Schadenfreude taunt, respectively. Not only did this end up creating a small meme, but it ended up increasing the costs for the Meet the Medic taunt just because of how popular it was.
• Fake weapons stats.^ExplanationOn videos featuring weapons or non-weapon objects doing improbable things, fake stats are written up for them in the comments, to parody the game's stat balances. For instance, "The Marx-Mann's Crossbow: +300% Firing Speed. + Fires explosive bolts. + No reloading. - Bolts do not heal allies. - No crits." or "The Warbarrow: +30% running speed. +30% explosive resistance. -50% turning speed. -Pusher cannot use weapons."
• "_____ or ______?"^ExplanationA trend of videos (Such as this one) consisting of two characters exchanging the two chosen titular phrases back and forth at each other (the phrase being the first syllable of a word followed by the same syllable in reverse, like "MeeM"), interrupted by a third character with their own phrase followed by reaction shots of the original two, and finally ending with a fourth character serving as a Stinger of sorts. However, it's plainly obvious that the main attraction here isn't the voice clips. Also often accompanied by distorted and/or reversed music, as if just to highlight how alien they look and sound.
• The Staregineer^ExplanationThe Engineer with his goggles removed◊ revealing his small beady sunken-in eyes giving a very creepy blank stare. His goggles cannot be removed-in game and can only be done by editing the model in Garry's Mod or Source Film Maker. Many fans find the Staregineer's appearance to be unsettling, often falling into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. Most of his appearances in videos will be accompanied with a Scare Chord.
• The Sewer Medic^ExplanationCreated by YouTube user "gb7zone7". The Medic who dwells in any map with an Absurdly Spacious Sewer. He is very territorial and will threaten any trespassers with "Get away from my sewer!" He tends to walk on all fours and his main mode of attack is screaming loudly, causing his enemies to explode. The Sewer Medic has spawned a few parodies, usually being some form of "The [location] [class]."
• Christian Brutal Sniper^ExplanationThe RED Sniper as a homicidal maniac and Torture Technician. Often seen brutally killing and torturing other TF2 characters and dissecting their bodies. He has a BLU Spy as an ally and his theme song is ’Millionaire’s Holiday’ by Combustible Edison. Sometimes he plays the song while torturing a victim a la Reservoir Dogs. The CBS has gotten so infamous that he actually appears as an alternate character for Saxton Hale in "Vs. Saxton Hale" game modes along with other TF2 freaks like the Vagineer.
• big slappy^ExplanationAn image of a crazy legs Scout◊: his waist bends in a weird way that pronounces his ass. Often jokingly used as a counterpoint against TF2 that it doesn't have "thicc girls".
• Food Debates^ExplanationA YouTube video fad of several classes getting into debates over their Trademark Favorite Foods. While the Heavy's love of his Sandvich is canon, the rest are usually taken out of context by editing sentences from in game quotes.
  • Heavy: Sandvich^ExplanationPick a Sandvich quote, any quote.
  • Scout: Pancakes^Explanation"Today aint your day, pancakes!"
  • Sniper: Apples^ExplanationAhh, that's apples mate or Gravy^Explanation"Oi! You're bleedin' gravy, fatso!"
  • Engineer: Bacon^Explanation"Hoooweee, makin' bacon!"
  • Demoman: Soup^Explanation"They're gonna have to bury what's left of you in a soup can!"
  • Pyro: Jell-O^ExplanationOne of his cries which is often misheard as "Helloooooooo".
  • Spy: Corn or Pie^Explanation"I'm going to gut you like a cornish game hen!" and "Too bad this wasn't a pie-eating contest!"
• Speaking of Spy: Suprise. Buttsex! Buttsex!^ExplanationThe spy's strategy is mostly backstabbing people and to do such, one must go behind the enemy player just to get the backstab. While doing such, it unintendedly looks like that he is performing buttsex on the victim. This warranted enough exposure to have a Voice Clip Song created based on it.
• New Weapons Soldier^ExplanationNew Weapons Soldier is a character created by Gmod YouTuber Genowhirl 70 who usually appears at the end of his "Update X in a nutshell" videos, typically seen pleading for "new weapons plz?" and then screeching loudly in anger when his request is denied. His theme song is "Sky Funk" by Raxxo.
• The "Tiny Desk Engineer". There's even an addon for Garry's Mod that adds the actual Tiny Desk Engineer including the Tiny Desk Dispenser!
• *square dance music* YEEEEEEEEEEEEE^ExplanationYouTube videos will infrequently feature the first bit of Engineer's "Yeehaw" voiceline played over a hyper sped-up version of the Square Dance song, accompanied with a similarly sped-up Engineer doing the Kazotsky Kick, and typically followed by everything exploding, the meme originated from Doctor Lalve.
• Joke maps are beginning to◊ get traction.^ExplanationThe meme probably started with the aforementioned cp_orange with 50 floors. It's beginning to expand into every other map.
• ZA HANDO ^note A popular rename for the Hot Hand, helped in no small part by the fact that one of its attack animations is a downward swipe; Other jokes are following in hot pursuit.
• "Oopsie! I made a big stinky! >w<" ^note The taunt for the Thermal Thruster has the Pyro hold up a match to their rear end before turning on their jetpack thrusters. Combine this with the stereotype that all Pyro mains are furries many, many cringeworthy jokes about fart fetishes.
• "MEH-LON!"^note Originating from an old Garry's Mod video "SPY IS MELON", this phrase is widely associated with the Spy where in certain animations, he's obsessed with watermelons. Here's a good example.
• "Prepare your AINIS!" ^note Based off from the "Prepare Your Anus" meme, which is featured in some Smexuals where Soldier is about to be involved in molesting someone without any apparent reason.
• Abandoned Hydro Facility^ExplanationBefore the Meet Your Match update, tc_hydro was one of the least played maps in the game's history, despite being one of the six maps that shipped with it in the first place. This has led to it being depicted in Garry's Mod and Source Filmmaker videos as a deserted facility which is rarely, if ever, visited, making it a good place to hide something, or to live in isolation.
• Hey Medic I like [X]^ExplanationA series of videos involving a Mere saying they like something to Medic, only for the Medic to badmouth it. Loud music plays.
• Heavy is Dead^ExplanationA short, memorable machinima made by the legendary Garry's Mod animator Antoine Delak, which revolves around the murder of the titular Heavy and the silly Reverse Whodunnit that follows. The animation proved to be memetic enough to spawn a wave of parodies in the vein of the "We Are Number One" meme on YouTube, as well as copypastas containing the entire script of the video and people reenacting it in comment threads.
  • Off to hang myself!^ExplanationOne of Spy's lines at the end of the Square Dance taunt is "And we're done — off to hang myself!". The latter part of it was used in the animation in question "Heavy is dead" when Spy does this exact thing◊ by doing a cool flip on the chair with the rope around his neck. Highly applicable as a reaction gif in any situation that makes one displeased.
• THERE ARE NO WORDS ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH THAT CAN DESCRIBE HOW SPECTACULARLY ERECT I AM.^ExplanationAn image◊ of the Engineer with a shocked expression with the quote on the image stitched together from letters that were taken from various words. Used to express amazement and awe, or lust towards something or an image, in jest or otherwise.
• I'm gonna have sexual thoughts about that^ExplanationAn image◊ of Saxton Hale pointing and declaring the aforementioned statement, which was edited from the final panel◊ of the Mac Update comic. Similarly to THERE ARE NO WORDS ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH THAT CAN DESCRIBE HOW SPECTACULARLY ERECT I AM. meme, it is used to express one's lust towards something, facetiously or seriously.
• CRITICAL SHIT.^ExplanationA very strange image that follows the trend of making TF2 memes out of cursed or Unintentional Uncanny Valley images with quotes that were made from letters coming from several sources. With this one focusing on The Soldier◊ with a horrifyingly glitched out and deformed face that looks like it's creaming while squatting down, leading to an obvious joke invoving people going to the can.
• Soupcan Pyro^ExplanationAn odd creature that appears as a Pyro living in a small bucket in a manner akin to a hermit crab, debuting in the Garry's Mod machinima video "Monday's Troubles by STBlackST. Dubbed the Soupcan Pyro, it became very popular within the community thanks to its adorable looks.
• TF2 15.ai videos^Explanation15.ai is a text-to-speech program capable of synthesizing the voices of various pop culture characters with shockingly good accuracy (to the point of being near-perfect in some cases, and more often than not at least usable for fun nonsense), allowing the user to make them say just about any line they wish. The community had a huge field day with the program when the cast of Team Fortress 2 was officially added, spawning a video trend where the mercs are made to act out humorous and absurd dialogue. For some reason, an almost universal constant seems to be the Demoman being the Only Sane Man in his team.
  • Demoman finds out [x]^ExplanationOne popular series of 15.ai videos involves scenarios where a merc — usually the Demoman — discovers that his coworkers secretly have some specific inclination, fetish, or bizarre hobby, and angrily chastises them for it.
  • TF2 Mercs Argue About [x]^ExplanationAnother popular spinoff meme involves the mercenaries arguing about their favorite item of a particular topic, particularly late at night when they all should be sleeping, and Mercs would gradually enter the scene to provide their feedback. Upon which the other mercs would either agree with or berate him (typically the Scout would often give an answer that's on the butt end of much berating). Although Pyro doesn't have a voice set, sometimes they end out the video by killing the mercenaries and/or providing a troll answer related to the topic.
• engineer gaming◊^ExplanationA phrase derived from a Revolver Ocelot-esque image where every bit of text says "engineer gaming." Often paired with Robot Rock by Daft Punk or used as a snowclone, with the first word being replaced with some other noun related to the game.
  • <class> gaming^Explanationsnowclones existed in the form of requesting the voice actors to say the "<class> gaming!" lines. Robin Atkin Downes (for the Medic), John Patrick Lowrie (for the Sniper), Nathan Vetterlein (for the Scout), Gary Schwartz (for both the Heavy and Demoman), Dennis Bateman (for the Spy and Pyro), Nolan North (for Merasmus), and JB Blanc (for Saxton Hale) have said their lines.
• TF2 characters laughing at tragedy^ExplanationA trend of editing Tear Jerker scenes from various works so that its tragic tone is juxtaposed by the inclusion of the Team Fortress 2 mercs performing their Schadefreude taunt, making it look as if they're laughing their butts off at the suffering of the characters present. Fans consider this to be perfectly in line with the game's usual brand of Comedic Sociopathy, noting how the resulting Mood Dissonance makes the Tear Jerker in question much funnier than it has any right to be.
  • Spy killed Anna^ExplanationA popular edit of one of Frozen's signature scenes — in which Elsa mourns over the Disney Death of her sister Anna after the latter finally succumbs to the curse Elsa accidentally put on her, turning Anna into an icy statue — had the Spy laughing maniacally at Elsa's pain from the background. Because the Spy can wield the Spy-cicle in-game, a sharp icicle that inflicts a similar fate on enemies upon backstabbing them with it, it wasn't long until fans took notice and joked that he actually murdered Anna in this manner.
• Demoflower^ExplanationA picture of a sunflower with the Demoman's smiling face edited onto it. Originating from a Stylistic Suck parody of glurgy motivational posters, the Demoflower is usually accompanied with the catchphrase "You're doin good, lad", often typed in the Comic Sans font. Others have also posted variations of the meme using different mercs, complete with motivational phrases deriving from their voice lines. Overall the demoflower has become a rather popular gag in the community either being used to make memes or as a background Easter Egg.
• "I am the Spy!"^ExplanationA quote popularized by Lazy Purple where the Spy announces his entrance every time he appears... and usually gets spectacularly owned.
• TF2 Heavy Spinning^ExplanationA clip of Heavy in Civilian pose spinning in place while playing "The Lincolnshire Poacher" interval signal via voice chat.
  • The animated version of the above meme.
    • It's likely that this meme was inspired by a very old Jimbomcb (the guy who created nope.avi) video titled baby station pt. 2.
• Madcap^ExplanationIn 2012, someone posted an infamous Workshop cosmetic named the "Madcap": a badly modelled, biker-themed outfit made for the Scout, consisting of a clunkly leather vest too wide for the Scout's lanky frame, and a spiked helmet with Mercury's Wings and opaque built-in lense that awkwardly rests above the Scout's forehead. The cosmetic quickly became memetic and widely considered to be So Bad, It's Good within the community, to the point that many beg Valve to add the Madcap as an official cosmetic. In addition, the "Madcap Scout" — the Scout who appears in the Workshop post's thumbnail, wearing the cosmetic in question — is frequently portrayed as a Humanoid Abomination due to his Unintentional Uncanny Valley appearance, complete with its own creepypasta.
  • for you endeavour not to pass an enough frightening kind under wires on which pigeons sit because they can easily lower your reputation,,,^ExplanationThe Madcap creator's attempt at writing Flavor Text, which ended up coming across as Word-Salad Horror due to how incoherent it is. Expect people to quote it in any post relating to the Madcap.
  • A more recent mutation of this meme presents Madcap as a class that was once in the game but later removed as a sort of mandela effect meme similar to Graggle Simpson
• The Fantastic Doctor Plastic^ExplanationAnother popular community-made cosmetic is Medic's "The Fantastic Doctor Plastic" facial cosmetic, which is based on the weird facial structure of the Bogdanoff twins after their facial surgery. With it's elongated lips, excessively sharp jawlines, and wide and protruding cheeks, this cosmetic became one of the most requested cosmetics to be added to TF2 due to it's hilariously Unintentional Uncanny Valley appearance. It was included in multiple SFM videos, which further cements the popularity of that cosmetic.
• The Body Builder^Explanation"The Body Builder" is yet another community-made cosmetic for the Engineer that quickly became beloved by the fandom; when equipped, it turns the Engineer into an buff, muscular Walking Shirtless Scene that nearly rivals Saxton Hale himself. Fans took to portraying the Body Builder Engineer as a hyper-masculine Memetic Badass of sorts, often nicknaming him as "Chad Engineer", or "Chadgineer" for short. ("Chad" being Internet slang for confident, masculine, and sexually active men.)
• "The TF2 community will fall on March 15."^ExplanationOn March 9, a 14 year old Twitter user — under the nickname of "Telling Animephobes To Shut Up" — expressed frustration at the TF2 community◊ due to receiving alleged harassment from its members, claiming to "expose" the community along with some of its popular members in retaliation, and insinuating that the former will collapse on March 15. This led to a surge of memes making fun of the tweet, with the community jokingly reacting in mock horror and sadness at the prediction that TF2's days are numbered, along with various responses ranging from concern to mockery aimed towards the user. (Ultimately, nothing happened, which the community was more than happy to mock.)
• Trade offer^ExplanationA TikTok meme emerging on March 2021, in which a man in suit offers nothing (or something in low value) in exchange for a valuable item. Said man and exchanged items are edited to those of TF2, due to the obvious fitting joke.
• "If chocolate is made by cocoa and cocoa is a plant, does that make it a salad?"^ExplanationA Non Sequitur coming from a fan-made comic format◊ of "Expiration Date" where Soldier questions Engineer about chocolate being a "salad" considering that cocoa is a plant only for the latter to be confused while responding "What" as the result.
• "Rock005.mdl◊"^ExplanationThe otherwise innocuous filename for a rock that looks rather like something very phallic.
• StickMaster500 is everywhere.^ExplanationStickMaster500 is a ridiculously prolific YouTube commenter with a distinct Sniper avatar who is known for commenting on basically every TF2 video. It's hard to find a TF2 video he hasn't made a comment on. And surprisingly, he doesn't just shitpost (though he often does), he sometimes legitimately has something insightful to say.
• #savetf2^ExplanationIn May 2022, after months of constant silence from Valve (two months since the last minor update, two years since the last blog post and four and a half years since the last major update), and with bots continuing to clog casual servers, the community finally had enough and organized a day of video- and Twitter-based protests to ask Valve to give them some form of closure on the 26th. It worked enough for somebody to log in to the official Team Fortress 2 Twitter account to promise that they were working on a solution.
  • This returned in January 2024, immediately after Valve issued DMCA takedown notices to two fan projects aimed to bring the game to the Source 2 engine and VR respectively.
  • "TF2 community, we hear you! We love this game and know you do, too."^ExplanationThe now maligned quote from the aforementioned Twitter post has become cynically and ironically quoted/misquoted by the fanbase due to the fact that nothing has changed since regarding the bots/cheaters and that Valve has effectively been radio silent once more ever since.
• The Observer^ExplanationA cosmetic loadout consisting of the Shutterbug, the Camera Beard and the Upgrade (painted white) that was first documented in this Reddit post, leading to imitators equipping the Red Tape Recorder and Cloak and Dagger and simply standing in corners watching people.
• Thicc Pyro^ExplanationA meme originating from a YouTuber, Pyrocynical, checking his loadouts during a stream, seeing that he had a mod giving Pyro a… let’s just say generously sized rump still enabled, and immediately ending the stream. The clip quickly went viral with people reposting the clip and making fanart of his Pyro.
• TF2 Mercs - Tick Tock/Buff Mercenaries ^ExplanationA montage of cropped NSFW fanart featuring shirtless and extremely buff versions of the mercs set to "Tick Tock" by Joji gained notoriety in the community and eventually led to derivative edits featuring buffed-up characters from other games and franchises. It's common for fans to joke that they either get PTSD from the song or end up salivating at the thought of the Buff Mercs.
• Team Fortress 2 doesn't even need autotune^ExplanationAn animation consisting of the mercs playing a polka song by "Weird Al" Yankovic became popular in early March 2023 under this caption, along with a few others. The original video can be found here.
• "Weapon reskins in TF2 have always seemed like a strange case to me"^ExplanationThe opening line from "What If Reskins Were Different?", a video by popular TF2 YouTuber Great Blue. Thanks in part to TF2 podcast Chucklenuts (who in one episode where Great Blue was a guest used the audio sample as a censor bleep), the line (and to an extent, the rest of the opening passage) has become a common copypasta among TF2 analysis videos.
• Mimi Sentry^ExplanationThe Engineer's mini sentry, presented as an anthropomorphised Cute Robot Girl, started getting a lot of Source Filmmaker animations made featuring them in mid-2023, to the point of becoming a Recurring Fanon Character. Eventually, this expanded so that now every of Engi's buildings has a Moe Anthropomorphism form.
• The Escape Plan^ExplanationA screenshot allegedly from a randomizer server which depicts an Engineer holding a Spy revolver such that the barrel is pointed at his forehead, with the weapon being labeled as the aforementioned Escape Plan.
• "Listen here, you little shit"^ExplanationA snowclone of two screenshots depicting the Heavy wearing the Chicken Kiev, a community-created item that gives him the head of a bird, and his eyes enlarged to comedic proportions, the second having him look aside and captioned with the aforementioned phrase. Commonly used with Chicken Kiev Heavy representing an authority figure pissed off by someone responding to a question or instruction by trolling them.
• "Birds fly, grass grows, sun shines, and brother? The darkness is coming. You need to run."^ExplanationAn impression of the Scout delivering his iconic monologue from Meet the Scout where he claims that he hurts people as naturally as the sun shines, but at the end the tone does a complete 180. The impression's tone instantly goes from a similar delivery to the original video to serious and foreboding, as the end of the monologue is replaced with Scout bluntly informing you that "the darkness" is coming and that you need to run as "Last End" from Majora's Mask plays in the background. Spawned several videos giving different visual presentations to the Scout impression.
• Playing the [class name] class.^ExplanationA phrase mimicking the way certain earlier materials, such as the developer commentary, referred to certain classes. Began to see wide usage sometime after 2020 - said verbatim, the phrase is used in an ironic sense to describe earnestly playing any given class exactly according to its original design. For example, in How It FEELS To Play Pyro by LazyPurple, it's used to describe going on the offensive with the flamethrower.

The Game Itself

• Most of the characters' Catch Phrases have attained memetic status, some of which have become Ascended Memes. Outside of that, nearly all of their lines are fodder for getting mashed up with each other and spat out in-game, thanks to an easily accessible library of all the audio clips and a couple tools that allow playing back clips over mic chat.
  • Pootis^ExplanationPut dispenser here! —Heavy
  • Gottam^ExplanationGotta Move that gear up! —Engineer
  • SPAH^ExplanationThe Engineer's pronunciation of "Spy".
  • Painis^Explanation"Pain is weakness leaving the body!" —Soldier; usually used in a similar context as "Pingas" or as the aforementioned Painis Cupcake.
  • MEEM!^ExplanationThe "Medic!" call, usually taken from the Medic, with the first syllable edited to cycle forward and reverse. Also usually applied to the wooden target (usually Medic) boards from the game's practice mode. Said targets have been a recurring abomination in the Garry's Mod animations.
  • Piss!^ExplanationSaid by Sniper in some of his lines.
• NEED A DISPENSAH HEAH!^ExplanationOne of the Scout's lines is "Need a dispenser here". Not only is this an annoying command, especially for Engineers, it is augmented by the Scout's Boston accent. Users have taken to spamming this command to annoy friendly Engineers, and numerous videos, parodies, and references appears in many other videos.
• BONK!^ExplanationOne of the sounds a Scout makes when scoring a melee kill. Numerous remixes involving repeated bonks can be found on YouTube.
• Rare Endangered Spycrab^ExplanationHaving the Spy equip his disguise kit, look upward, and crouch causes him to enter an amusing pose resembling a crab◊. Because they are supposedly "rare and endangered", players in on the joke will avoid killing Spycrabs... unless the Spy tries to abuse this to capture a point or kill many enemies. This became an Ascended Meme, as Valve left the glitch in and referenced it with a unique taunt, and appear as a poster in Carnival of Carnage. In crossovers with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, where Rarity is usually portrayed as the Spy, a pun on her name may be added with a phrase saying "Don't let this Rarity disappear!"
• "Spy's sappin' mah sentry!" (and any "<SUBJECT> <VERB>in' mah <OBJECT>!" combination thereof)^ExplanationThe Engineer's line when his Sentries are sapped, it has become an internet-wide snowclone used in nearly any conceivable situation, as long as someone is doing something to something.
• Scout's resemblance to Vince Offer. Became an Ascended Meme in the form of some of his domination/revenge lines.
  "If you order now, I'll throw in a second beating absolutely free!"
  "Look at this: I just caved in ya skull, my bat's still dry! No clumps of hair, nothin'!"
• "Gentlemen◊"^ExplanationOne of Spy's taunts, which became a meme after an image spread on /v/ that showed him attempting to smoke approximately 37 cigarettes at once. Variations include "Mentlegen" (a Spy emerging from the mouth of a Spy), and occasionally other classes with a mouth full of whatever is paired with their Catchphrase. (For example, a Soldier with a mouthful of rockets, exclaiming "MAGGOTS", or a Heavy with a gobful of sandviches, shouting "POOTIS".)
  • MOTHER FATHER GENTLEMEN^ExplanationPsy released a new single called "Gentleman" on April 12 2013. Players caught the joke and went to work fast.
• TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT^ExplanationStarted primarily on 4chan in anticipation for the eventual "Engineer Update", who was the last of nine classes to get any new weapons. Any time a minor update to TF2 would occur in the coming weeks, people would often quote the above line.
• "Can't crit, so it's balanced."^ExplanationUsed to defend a fanmade weapon. Now it's used sarcastically to point out the unbalanced nature of other fanmade weapons.
• Enjoy your AIDS!^Explanation"AIDS" is the Fan Nickname for the Medic's virus attack in Team Fortress Classic. Used whenever someone is infected.
• RAWKET LAWNCHAIR^ExplanationA crossover meme with Metal Slug, referring to Soldier's primary weapons, which are all Rocket Launchers. Mostly brought up when said Rocket Launcher rolls a critical hit, which only Heavy can survive without healing buffs.
• shoot jump crate, shoot jump crate, shoot jump spy crate.^ExplanationA line of Engrish on Team Fortress 2's section in Steam Forums that gained memetic quality. It likely refers to the four things a player can expect to be doing most often: shooting enemies, jumping, checking for Spies, and managing the Mann Co. Supply Crates in your inventory.
• Shahanshshnsansanhsanhsansha.^ExplanationA meme where people apparently can't spell one of the Sniper's melee weapons, the Shahanshah, correctly. Or at all.
• "This is Scout! Rainbows make me cry!"^ExplanationThe Spy mocking the Scout in one of his domination lines. Afterwards, there are quite a few videos and images that show, or imply, the Scout crying at the sight of a rainbow (and Rainbow Dash in crossovers).
  • With Meet the Pyro and the introduction of the Rainblower, we have "This is Scout. Rainbows make me die!"
• Those people? They were F2P.^ExplanationWhenever a poorly-skilled enemy team is seen in a YouTube video, most players will claim that they were made up of poorly-skilled newcomers who joined when the game became free to play, or "F2P" for short. Lost almost all its relevance a few years later, when most players ended up being F2P. The term now refers to people who aren't Pay to Play, or P2P, which are people who have bought something from the Mann Co. Store.
• Hat Fortress 2.^ExplanationThe game has a lot of hats, and the purchase and trading of hats became an enormous part of the community, to the point where nearly any mention of hats prompts a TF2 joke. Reddit likes to refer to the game as a "war-themed hat simulator".
  • According to fans, the TF2 dev team is obsessed with hats and does nothing else but work on hats all day. This has become an Ascended Meme, as even the developers discuss their obsession. Shown in this comic and on this blog post. They were also incredulous that Portal 2 had no hats in it, so they snuck into the dev team's office to add some to the co-op mode. Also, regarding an update to the fan-made Retraux demake Gang Garrison:
  It's pretty much better than TF2 in every possible way now. Except for the total lack of hats. Guess we know who the real pros are around here.
  • It has become such an Ascended Meme that, on certain pages of the offical TF2 website, the game is described as a "War-themed hat simulator".
  • And again in Poker Night at the Inventory, where other characters refer to the RED Team as a group of "Lame hat wearers" while the RED Heavy points out how much he loves receiving hats after killing his enemies.
  • "GIVE ME YOUR HAT"^ExplanationIn this◊ 4chan thread (NSFW), the first post shows Dawn offering to have sex with someone after losing a Pokémon battle. One of the responses is written out of the Soldier's point of view as he demands her hat instead. Someone followed it up with this◊ comic showing him wearing said hat, a full set of Kanto Gym Badges and shouting, "WHICH ONE OF YOU WEEDLES IS READY FOR AN ASS WHOOPIN'?"
• "Slap my hand!"^ExplanationWhen the High Five! taunt was added into the game, a new set of responses was recorded for the Spy for this purpose; in the Garry's Mod world especially, this has led to a lot of instances of the spy posing for a high five out of nowhere.
  • "Slap my ass!"^Explanationa popular doctored quote of the above, usually accompanied with sounds of the Soldier's Disciplinary Action and the yells of "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEES! YES! MON DIEU!"
• "See? See!"^ExplanationOriginated from the Demoman's response line, "See? I told ya they were a buncha wee lasses.", and resulted in the creation of a character, Seeman. Usually followed by the Soldier's version from "Now THAT is what I wanna see!", which has taken a similar life of its own as "Seeldier".
• "x is credit to team!"^ExplanationBased off of one of the Heavy's lines after going through a teleporter ("Engineer is credit to team!"). It is often quoted by players when teammates do badass feats or sarcastically when they indirectly screw others over.
  • Has now reached Ascended Meme status, because one of the bots in the offline practice mode is named CreditToTeam.
• "EVERYONE! Friendship is STUPID magic!"^explanationOne of the Heavy's "Grand Duchess" set voice lines. Given that Gabe Newell is apparently a fan of the show, it's an Affectionate Parody.
• The [x] is a Spy!^explanationThe Spy can disguise himself as anyone or anything. In some Team Fortress 2 dubs, this was used as an expression of anger to someone else.
• "Overtime! Overtime! Overtime! Overtime! Overtime! Overtime!"^ExplanationIf a control point is being captured just as the time limit runs out, the Announcer will declare "Overtime" and not end the game. A glitch emerged where she would yell "Overtime" over and over until it's captured or cleared of attackers. Valve fixed the glitch, but gave servers the option to reequip it if they liked.
• FREEEEEE MONEY!^ExplanationOne of the Medic's lines for Mann vs. Machine upon sighting the money dropped from destroyed robots. Flanderized by the fanbase to make the Medic obsessed with money.
• The Sniper's kangaroo wife.^ExplanationOne of the Soldier's domination lines over the Sniper is "I will send my condolences to your kangaroo wife!" The fans have had a lot of fun with this, ranging from the Sniper literally marrying a kangaroo to being wed to an anthropomorphic kangaroo to his wife having been raised by them.
• GET BEHIND ME DOCTOR!^ExplanationA line used when Heavy is being Ubercharged. The Heavy/Medic pairing is one of the most frequently used, often to the point of shipping and much Ho Yay, with this video being the most famous example.
• "Invokum Gigantus Inmypantus!"^ExplanationA blooper line from Medic's voice actor spoken in Canis Latinicus, for the 2013 Halloween special. The fanbase easily made cock jokes and such out of it, expectedly.
• Bread Fortress 2^ExplanationThe "Love and War" update and Expiration Date video prominently feature bread in several ways, inevitably leading to jokes that bread are the new hats.
• Conga Fortress 2^ExplanationThe "Love and War" update added a variety of new taunts, with the Conga taunt being one of them. This taunt involves players doing the Conga, being able to join in a line. Large groups of players may be seen doing the Conga together in the middle of a map, often growing to both teams forming a giant Conga line.
• Kart Fortress 2^ExplanationScream Fortress 2014 brought the Carnival of Carnage map, in which at the end of every round, the teams battle each other while driving bumper cars.
• Duck Fortress 2^ExplanationThe End of the Line update letdown caused people to call the game this, as the update mostly revolve around collecting ducks.
• Pyro Fortress 2^ExplanationThe Jungle Inferno update doubled as the Pyro's next main update, giving him a number of new weapons and a few contracts that anyone could do. Because of this, the game became absolutely flooded with Pyros of varying skill levels during and sometime after the event. While this happens with a lot of class-specific updates, the fact that Pyro is a contentious character in and of his own, and is notoriously unfun to fight in packs, has led to a lot of anger and jeering from other players.
  • Give Heavy Update^ExplanationThe update to the Pyro came about after winning a one-on-one popularity contest against the Heavy, who many assumed would be the subject of the next major update. Given that Jungle Inferno was released in 2017 and, as of November 2023, is the last major update, it's become common to see commenters on minor updates begging for the Heavy Update.
• The Gun Mettle update introduced reskins for many of the non-melee stock weapons, similar to the Arms Deal update from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This has led people to calling the game Team Fortress: Global Offensive, Team Strike: Global Fortress, or some other mashup of the two game titles.
• How to (action) as (misnamed class).^ExplanationUsed by new players or trolls asking how to do a certain action, usually specific to a certain class. The class will either have his name changed to something similar sounding or similar functioning. Examples include, "How to fly as demonstration man," "How to focus as rifle hunter," and "How to go see-through as secret agent."
• Random crits are fair and balanced/fun.^ExplanationRandom crits are largely hated for making the game more about luck and less about actual skill, often robbing players of victories that could have been earned fairly. People will often quote this whenever they get killed by one, or even sometimes when they get kills with them.
  • Ubersaw crits^ExplanationMedics have a reputation for pulling out their melee weapons when cornered and one-shotting pursuers with a crit on the first swing. This is due to how healing a teammate while they deal damage to enemies builds up the Medic's crit chance, which makes up a major part of Medic gameplay. Because most Medic mains tend to choose the Ubersaw — which gives 25% ubercharge on hit — as their melee weapon of choice, players often claim that the weapon secretly has a higher crit chance than others, whether jokingly or seriously.
• BONUS DUCKS!^ExplanationIn the Looting Gallery bumper car minigame, crashing into another player will spawn bonus ducks. Sometimes Merasmus chimes in with that phrase.
• I'm going to gut you like a cornish Gaben.^ExplanationA mishearing of Spy's quote "I'm going to gut you like a cornish game hen. References the co-founder and president of Valve, Gabe Newell, commonly referred to as Gaben.
• "WE ARE IN THE BEAM" or "THE ENEMY IS IN THE BEAM"^ExplanationIn Watergate, whenever a player gets lifted by the UFO's beam, a text-to-speech voice says either one of these lines. The line itself is provided by Acapela Group's WillFromAfar, and was presumably there as a stand-in for Ellen McLain to redo. Fans took the voice and ran with it.
• Gibus Engineer Wildlife Protectors (G.E.W.P)^ExplanationBecause of his defensive playstyle which rarely risks hand-to-hand combat (something new players shy away from for fear of getting killed), new players often play as Engineer, leading to many experienced players easily killing them due to poor building placement strategy. One video uploaded by NISLT where a spy very thoroughly trolls such an engie wearing a Ghostly Gibus (a commonly worn hat by new players due to it being one of the few non-premium hats) ends with suggesting that Gibus Engies are an endangered species which works hard everyday to feed their families, and as such need to be protected. This led to a joke Steam group advocating their protection, as well as a Gibus Engineer Wildlife Haters counter-group, and an ongoing meme/in-joke in NISLT videos.
• "Fixed a bug where x could (task that x was intended to perform)."^ExplanationWhen the Bison's single-enemy penetration was removed as a "bug", numerous mockeries of this change formed. x could be a weapon, a class, or even the game itself.
• "You were good, son. Real good; maybe even the best."^ExplanationAfter the passing of Soldier's voice actor Rick May on April 13th 2020, this line from his character has been used to honor his legacy.
• "Oh Soldier, who will they ever find to replace you? ...No one."^ExplanationOne of Spy's domination lines to Soldier has him say this line to Soldier, but replacing "no one" with "anyone". After Rick May's death in April 2020, fans quickly took to saying this instead to show their love for Soldier, given that the original quote hits far too close to home to be funny anymore.
• 124 HP Scouts^ExplanationScouts are Fragile Speedsters with the smallest health pool out of any class, so for survivability they seek out health packs and call for Medics more frequently. However, many tend to have poor health management and do this regardless of their actual remaining health, and their high movement speed means they can quickly beeline towards the nearest health pack before other classes can reach it, often leaving their teammates without any means of undoing damage other than Medics or dispensers. This led to the stereotype of mostly healthy Scouts snatching up health packs and sandviches right in front of their wounded teammates and leaving them to die, or constantly spamming the E key upon receiving even the slightest scratch.
• coconut.jpg^ExplanationLocated within TF2's texture files is an unused image of a realistic coconut. On a 2020 Reddit post showcasing the oddity, a joke comment was made in the style of a frustrated dev note, claiming that the game would fail to start if the file was deleted. The comment began spreading across the internet in April 2021, with many people, including several gaming news sites, misinterpreting what was said in the comment to be true, even though the actual coconut is no different than any other image file in the game. (In reality, the image was meant for an unused particle effect for the Fresh Brewed Victory taunt, with the coconuts being used for a stream of fake coffee beans.)
  • Load-bearing coconuts ^explanationMany games really have performed various kludges where they tie vital game functions to random objects hidden from player sight, and coconut.jpg gained enough notoriety to be used as a metaphor for the practice in general despite being a myth.
• The Snake Update^ExplanationOn September 16th, 2021, a general bugfix patch was released. It included some updates to the Capture Point map Snakewater, one of which was curiously labelled "Nature & Wildlife preservation measures". It added some snakes. The community, starved for new game content, instantly labelled the change as a major update.
• "<PLAYER> bid farewell, cruel world!"^explanationThis is the message that displays in the kill feed whenever a player commits suicide. Many players have set up a dedicated button (known as a killbind) to do this on command, and one person using theirs will often result in other nearby players following suit for a laugh.
• The Seal Update^ExplanationThe nickname for the Summer 2023 update, as one of the fanmade maps included was pd_Selbyen, which includes an animated seal that crawls across the map and into the sea. Aside from pd_Selbyen being a great map in general and the first non-event focused Player Destruction map, basically everyone was immediately hit with Cuteness Proximity courtesy of the seal.
  • "Does this mean that Team Fortress is back?"^ExplanationThe release of the update, regardless of it not being of the same calibre as the historical major updates still caused a resurgence of popularity in the game, resulting in it smashing its own concurrent players record. Some YouTubers who had previously given up on the game returned to it, and rumors started going around that Valve had taken notice of the surge and were starting to pay a little more attention again. This meme parodies the Overwatch 2 trailer, particularly at a point in time when people were making the same joke in the opposite direction about that game since Overwatch 2's PVE mode had recently been cancelled.
• FNAF security room^ExplanationThe small security office on vsh_Skirmish is often referred to as the "FNAF security room" or just "the fnaf room", especially after the room was updated to actually have live security camera footage on one of the monitors. People will sometimes go inside while playing one of Markiplier's Five Nights at Freddy's videos over the microphone, or look at the cameras and treat Saxton Hale as if he's Freddy Fazbear. Or the person playing Saxton Hale acting like Freddy Fazbear themselves, complete with FNAF sound effects and killbinding when they decide it's "6 AM".
• Penis Scout^ExplanationA Reddit post on r/tf2 had the poster asking a normal question of "what's your favorite subclass to use?", adding that his favorite is "the penis scout". Penis Scout consists of a loadout with the Back Scatter, the Mad Milk, and the Boston Basher. How abrupt the mention of it is, combined with the fact that no one really knew what Penis Scout is, led to it becoming a big joke on the subreddit, and even got players to use the loadout because it's funny.

Valve and Devteam

• "After nine years in development, hopefully it will have been worth the wait."^ExplanationA quote from Gabe Newell commenting on the Development Hell that TF2 has went through, and often used to mock the flaws in the game despite its long development period (and long life since launch).
  • "Worth the weight."^ExplanationA pun based on the line above and Gabe's famous, er, large frame.
• "My favorite class is The Spy."^ExplanationAnother quote from Gaben. Used semi-often when commenting about The Spy, especially when complaining about facestabs.
• "Too confusing for new players"^ExplanationThe "End of the Line" update was originally planned to have, amongst other things, a new map named CP_Snowplow, but was ultimately removed from that specific update due to Valve deeming the map "too confusing for new players". Mockery of this flimsy justification skyrocketed in the community, resulting in countless videos, sprays, and player anger, with Valve eventually adding Snowplow to the Gun Mettle update. That being said, Valve did have a point about Snowplow; it really was quite confusing to new players as even to experienced players, the setup of an attack/defend map being laid out like a Payload Map, with a damage meter, lead to all sorts of confusion.
• "Neato"^ExplanationJill, a developer at Valve and the one who was managing the current Competitive Beta prior to its release in Meet Your Match update, made a post on Facepunch about the next Team Fortress 2 update. The post reads "The next update is going to be neato. (Am I doing this right?)". Fans have taken to using the term "neato" when referring to Meet Your Match and anything relating to it.
• "Updated the localization files."^ExplanationDue to the game being starved for content updates in recent years, players sarcastically began citing the localization files (which appear at the end of every update page changelog) as the most important priority on the TF2 team's minds.
• The one Valve developer maintaining TF2^ExplanationWith Valve interaction at an all-time low going through 2021, and developers relocated to other projects within Valve, the game is memed to be assigned to a single Valve employee.
  • The potted plant and the janitor.^ExplanationJoke lampooning the very slow release of updates, with players suggesting that nobody is actually working on the game.
• The Sandvich Saga^ExplanationIn mid-to-late 2022, all the surviving voice actors for the game's main characters main characters (excluding Nathan Vetterlein as Scout and Grant Goodeve as Engineer) began posting a series of videos of themselves looking for Heavy's sandvich, occasionally dressed up as their characters to do so. This inevitably led to fans animating said scenes with Source, or otherwise sharing them around online, simply due to the sheer hilarity of several veteran voice actors running around shouting about sandwiches in random voices.
• "Update-Sized Update" / "Holiday-Sized Update."^ExplanationFebruary 2023 gave us a new blog post discussing an "Update-sized Update" for the game in the summer of that year, leading many to speculate we'd be getting the first actual large update since Jungle Inferno, more than a half-decade prior. Cue Valentine's day 2023 and the blog post was changed replacing the aforementioned update title with "Holiday-sized update" indicating that this upcoming update wouldn't be major and would just be like the holiday updates 5 years in a row only in the Summer. Naturally, a great many fans were not amused and viewed this as Valve going back on their word and/or snarking that such an update would require them to do more than the bare minimum.
  • "Who knows what else?!"^ExplanationAnother quote from the original blog post, exciting many fans on what this alleged update would contain. This was also removed in the blog update on Valentine's Day 2023, though it could have been meant to refer to the VS Saxton Hale game mode which was made official in the update itself.

Other

• (X) is/should be the tenth class. ^ExplanationA joke about labeling X character/thing as the additional Tenth Class for the current nine. e.g., the Sandvich is the tenth class. Ms. Pauling is the tenth class. Saxton Hale is the tenth class and so on...
• (X) has been kicked/banned from the server for hacking due to (Y)^ExplanationA comment snowcloned from the kick/ban note by fans, which is used for ironically pointing out the Animated Team Fortress 2 characters in fan-created SFM videos (dual-wielded shotguns/SMG/Sniper rifles or any other changed details on the weapons) that doesn't faithfully follows the game's mechanics.
• Rolo Sage^ExplanationA slang for "Solo Rage" invented by the players from the Titan.tf server, this term is used for various Freak Fortress 2 players for criticizing the Hale wasting a rage on a single enemy. (So far, it was only used from Titan TF's servers.)
• The Crate Depression^ExplanationIn late July 2019, an update was added to the game that accidentally made certain crates always drop unusuals. Immediately, the trading community went in full panic mode, due to the the price of unusuals drastically deflating. Due to this, the crates with the abnormal rates ended up with drastically inflated prices, leading to an unusual situation where crates were more expensive than some of the higher-end unusuals. While it was eventually stopped, the unpredictability of the event and its massive impact led to reports on gaming sites, as well.
• [VALVE]Niggerkiller / "RIP Casual"^ExplanationIn the early months of 2020, the game was hit with a wave of cheaters, mainly bots playing as Sniper with aimbot to the point that any time you'd join a Casual match, there would always be at least one of these bots. One of the more common names for these bots was "[VALVE]Niggerkiller". Steam does not allow for these names to be used as VALVE would automatically be censored, as would the slur.
  • OMEGATRONIC / Name Feigning^ExplanationOMEGATRONIC was also a common name following Niggerkiller bots, complete with their own unique brand of avatars. Alongside these bots, certain bots stole names of users in the game, resulting in the wrong player being kicked, which prompted a quality of life patch in where the vote kick UI will display how long players have been connected for. Generic bot names are now used after a fix that prevented players from changing names to anything other than their Steam name after joining a server.
  • WARNING: Connection Problem Auto-disconnect in 17.6 seconds^ExplanationLate into March 2020, a sudden surge of lagbots became a problem in Casual as well. These bots would act as a normal Sniper aimbot until a vote is called to kick them, which would trigger it to lag out the server, booting people back to the main menu if they are using default TF2 settings (specifically, a command which increases the timeout disconnection timer). This made it literally impossible to kick the bots, lest they risk the game getting cut off early. Valve would release a patch in April that fixed this, however. After this patch, lagbots have resurfaced repeatedly but were again fixed in later patches.
  • "Good shot mate/Nice shot!"^ExplanationMany of the Sniper aimbots constantly say this as they roam around and instakill players, thus making many casual players react with fear when it's heard.
  • TF2 Endings Compilation^ExplanationIn wake of the aimbot crisis, fans started to make screens that represented various fake "endings" of TF2, all of which are based on what happens with the aimbots.
  • CAN YOU QUACK?^ExplanationSome of the bots during the bot crisis would have the name CAN YOU QUACK? and join servers with the intention of micspamming the song featured in this bizarre video.
• The Great Code Crisis^ExplanationOn April 22nd, 2020, the source codes for both Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive were leaked onto 4chan, leading to a mass panic over the security of the game with the possibilities of remote code execution exploits and resulting in various community servers shutting down due to these fears. However, after Valve looked into it and, upon determining that the leak was from late 2017/early 2018, reported that the game was safe to play, this meme as well as the one below have died down.
  • ALERT: im getting into ur acc rn bye tf2 *tf2 is dead^ExplanationSome in-game alert messages◊ that was posted onto the game's subreddit during the panic, which ultimately turned out to be fake. After the truth about this message came out, many edits of it popped up.
• The Sex Update^ExplanationA nonsensical (likely joke or sarcastic) demand that began springing up on Reddit in 2021 asking for Valve to add the concept of sex itself to Team Fortress 2 (usually known as the "Sex Update"), ignoring the fact that this would obviously bump the game's rating to Adults Only and have serious consequences. Any update without sex, no matter how much content it may have, is (jokingly) seen as a disappointment by those (sarcastically) in favor of this demand.
• The 2007 Update^ExplanationTeam Fortress 2 has an item server where all the information about every player's backpack is stored. When that server goes down, all weapons and cosmetics that weren't available on launch are disabled, forcing everybody to play with stock weapons. A particular lengthy outage in January 2024 caused this meme to start appearing, describing it as an intentional update that reset everything to the way it was in 2007.

---

BONUS DUCKS! BONUS DUCKS! BONUS DUCKS! BONUS DUCKS! BONUS DUCKS!