Hi everyone.
As a long-time TF2 fan, I know this topic is going to spark a lot of arguments. Because of that, I’m posting this from a burner account and keeping all of my personal details completely private.
I’m writing this because there is a harsh truth that every single one of you needs to hear.
You are destroying the Team Fortress 2 community.
You didn't misread that. You are all actively killing the TF2 community.
Before I dive into the main point, I want to establish a few things to clear the air:
- I’ve been playing Team Fortress 2 since I was 12 years old. I first found the game through GMod and fell in love with it instantly. Dealing with autism, this game became my ultimate safe space, and it's the place where I formed friendships that are still going strong today. I care deeply about this game; I've even been creating custom local mods for my own enjoyment since I was 12.
- I used to be a member of the TF2 Emporium Discord server. I was a member of the TF2 Emporium back in the day (cue the dramatic music!) and got to know several people connected to that circle. I cannot confirm nor deny if I worked on anything in particular, but I have met people who have items and maps added. Now, I absolutely despise it. I walked away from it in the early 2020s because of how incredibly toxic the atmosphere became. I was disappointed with many of the people who ran that scene, especially after learning through mutual contacts about the individuals involved in doxxing Vipes (a topic we will get to shortly). I’m not claiming every single person there was pure evil; plenty of decent creators just joined to collaborate on maps, models, or concept art for other projects. It mostly served as a networking hub for developers.
- I firmly believe that figures like Zesty Jesus and similar grifters have completely poisoned the ecosystem ever since the 2021 Smissmas update. Trust me, I know creators who had their items selected for that specific crate who absolutely DETESTED the final selection, knowing there were far better submissions available. Zesty naturally dropped a video trashing the update's choices, which was fair. However, instead of holding Valve accountable, he directed the community's anger at the actual artists who made the cosmetics. This happened only months after he was banned for throwing a tantrum over a shotgun warpaint lacking team colors. Thanks to his 2021 video, multiple creators faced intense harassment and doxxing. Large influencers cannot pretend they are separate from the actions of their fanbase; putting up a generic "don't harass people" warning is just a loophole to allow harassment as long as it's "not in their name." I am calling out Zesty Jesus directly because he set a terrible precedent for how the community behaves today in 2026. He helped normalize the targeted harassment of creators and the creation of blacklists over jokes made by a couple of British guys in a Workshop Discord—guys who simply grew up with the same edgy sense of humor as Garry Newman. I remember when people in the Emporium used to joke about being a secret cabal that controls what gets into the game. The disaster of the 2021 Smissmas crate completely disproves that theory, yet people believe it as unironically as the myth that the entire game engine relies on a .vtf file of a coconut. It was an inside joke that spiraled out of control, and it's exhausting and foolish when people take it seriously.
- I am personally acquainted with several former TF2 Workshoppers. I connected with them through other gaming circles or real-life events, as well as Discord through the aforementioned TF2 Emporium Discord server. Believe it or not, these creators are normal people with real lives who actually touch grass, unlike a lot of individuals in this fanbase. When I asked them why they walked away from the game, the consensus was simply that they outgrew it. For others, it’s because they successfully transitioned into the professional gaming industry. A huge number of developers started out making private mods or submitting items to the TF2 Workshop. You can actually see this influence in full indie games like A Hat in Time, which was made by former members of the TF2 community. Some people even DESIGNED their videogame starting from a modified screenshot of a Team Fortress 2 gameplay, such is the case of Slime Rancher, a fantastic videogame, and it is something to be proud of if a videogame as iconic as Team Fortress 2 made it so that a few other iconic games were made and released.
However, because of what is happening from 2021 to today as of writing, there is no pride to have.
With that out of the way, let’s address Phoneyland and the absolute disaster this community has become.
I have seen some horrific commentary lately, particularly aimed at Phoneyland and its developers. People are calling them liars regarding the doxxing threats, claiming they refuse to take feedback (on this, I cannot say yes or no; I have a life outside of Reddit and Team Fortress 2), and crying about the map being visually over-bright or violating the game's original art style. This, in turn, made it so that Phoneyland got removed from the Workshop to protect the people who were involved in its creation.
And because of that, multiple members of this very subreddit have been cheering the removal.
I am furious.
I am furious because the TF2 community has basically turned into an offshoot of
Kiwifarms in the most loser-coded way, doxxing its own members just for failing to meet arbitrary standards set by toxic TF2 content creators. I am angry because the refusal of normal players to speak out means I have to hide my passion for this game. I have to distance myself from the community and mourn TF2 like a dead friend rather than a living, breathing space.
This community was my home for 16 years. It's where I made real-world connections and found joy in creating things.
Seeing people celebrate the removal of Phoneyland from the workshop, turning a coordinated hate campaign into a meme, and mocking the developers as "Emporium elites" is disgusting.
The sheer obsession with hating a specific corner of the community needs to be studied by psychologists. I have never seen a fanbase harbor this much raw malice toward a single group in my entire life, and frankly, it's pathetic to watch. It is pathetic to have a sheer obsession with Overwatch and its community. As much as I hate that game myself, it is annoying and awful to witness.
You are all actively destroying the community. I know the standard response will be: "Good, let them leave. We don't want cringey content; we want clean maps, lore-accurate cosmetics, and the game we fell in love with in 2013." I get it. I also prefer clean cosmetics, traditional maps, and that classic early-2010s atmosphere.
But here is the reality: you all secretly hate Team Fortress 2, and you want to watch it burn down. You want it dead. You want your entire inventory of unusuals, stranges, and cosmetics to be reduced to worthless pixels. Especially when the workshop has some of those submissions you are looking for.
And you are achieving this by bullying every talented creator into quitting.
You are keeping this community alive through fear and hatred.
Eventually, creators are going to ask themselves why they bother making content for TF2 if it only results in death threats and doxxing. These talented individuals can easily take their skills elsewhere. They can build maps and items for games that will actually appreciate them. Why should they risk having their real names and addresses leaked to the public over a cartoon hat or a map that's slightly too colorful?
This is the exact conclusion that many veteran Workshoppers have already reached. As the community's toxicity has escalated since 2021, some creators chose to leave and cut ties with the TF2 scene entirely.
That is why it infuriates me to see people dismissing the harassment directed at the Phoneyland team. I don’t care about the map itself, and I don't care about the creators personally, but I am mad that the community's behavior is forcing developers to question their safety and leave.
People claim, "The Phoneyland creators are faking the doxxing for sympathy." To that, I ask: where is your proof? Where is your source showing they lied?
It is incredibly hypocritical that when Vipes was doxxed, the entire community rallied in support of him, which was the right thing to do. Yet now, people are actively cheering on the doxxing of other creators simply because their map didn't align with the aesthetic standards dictated by various actors of the Team Fortress 2 Community commentary, such as Zesty Jesus.
People love to argue that "Zesty isn't responsible for what his viewers do." Yes, he is. He passively encourages it by leaving names visible enough for people to hunt them down while maintaining plausible deniability. If he had any integrity, he would make a video addressing the toxicity, clean up his community, and ban the bad actors. But drama brings in views, views bring in money, so he stays quiet. Ironically, the same crowd worshipping grifters like Zesty and Nonmoth hate seeing legitimate Workshoppers get paid when their maps or items get officially added to the game, especially when it is a cosmetic that THEYSELVES did NOT choose to have added. How do you justify a YouTuber making a living by crying about a shotgun skin, while demanding that a regular creator who contributed an item to the game should be blacklisted and doxxed?
"If the workshoppers did not want to get hated, they should have NOT made [INSERT COSMETIC HERE]." Who the fuck are you to state what a person can upload and what cannot? Who the fuck are you, from your grandmother's basement, to dictate what a guy from Burundi can upload on the Team Fortress 2 workshop? What is the exact limit of your supposed mental barrier to an art style? If you answer with "something from the 60s", then get the fuck out and touch grass. There are lots of people who do exactly what you are looking for, and are quitting because you are saying "it is not 60s enough" or some bullshit.
"You're just defending the Workshop elite." No, I'm not. In truth, I do not even know these people, especially not the people who worked on Phoneyland, but I am sick of a community that shields doxxers and problematic individuals. I am sick of a community that covers for people sending explicit content to minors just to troll. I am sick of the silence and the refusal of normal players to step up and demand better.
I’m not asking for the game to become heavily policed or politically correct. I don't care about that—this game has always had a bizarre, unique mix of furries, political extremes, and every subculture under the sun. I’m not asking for a dictatorship.
I am simply asking you to stop killing the Team Fortress 2 community. Call out the grifters, distance yourself from the awful people, much like I distanced myself from the Emporium.
I just want to be able to look at this game one day and actually feel proud of it again.
And not to see it being remembered in a video essay as "The Community that killed its own fandom".
Think about the future of this game. It is a miracle that a first-person shooter is still remembered for what it is and still has an active community. Think about what people will think when they hear that you play Team Fortress 2 in the near future.
Because, as things stand, I am predicting the game will fully metastasize in a matter of years.
So please, do NOT let the community die. Just strive to make the community a better place, and distance yourself from the reputation it currently has. Strive for the best!
Thank you.
- TF2LoverTAC
