Valve Is Finally Aware Of Team Fortress 2's Big Slappy Drama

Team Fortress 2's Big Slappy has been banned and uNBAnned almost a dozen times and nobody knows what the hell is going on anymore, but Valve is at least now aware of the drama unfolding in its classic multiplayer shooter.

You've almost certainly heard of Big Slappy, the TF2 Scout with an ass the size of Montana. Originally appearing as a meme as far back as 2008, Big Slappy would eventually become an actual item on the TF2 Steam Workshop courtesy of one Coolchou Zhao. However, the Big Slappy mod was banned earlier this month for "violations of Steam's community and content guidelines."

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Zhou posted the message to Twitter, and lo and behold, two days later Big Slappy's Steam Workshop page was back with an apologetic message from Steam. "The content was removed by our staff based on an investigation of reports from other Steam users," wrote a Valve representative. "After reviewing the content, it looks like we made a mistake in the evaluation; I've since updated the status of the content."

You'd think that would have been the end of it, but since then, Big Slappy has been banned and uNBAnned again and again with zero explanation from Valve. The fourth ban hit about a week ago, and we hit ban number six just five days ago. The confusion has reached a fever pitch, with one Reddit user even creating a dedicated website keeping track of how many times Big Slappy has been banned.

According to that site, Big Slappy has been banned 11 times as of yesterday. Currently, Big Slappy's Steam Workshop page is unavailable.

Something truly bizarre is going on within Valve for Big Slappy to be banned and uNBAnned nearly a dozen times in as many days. The good news is that Valve has been made aware of the Big Slappy drama, with Coolchou Zhao posting their response from Eric Smith saying he'd forward the email "to the appropriate people." Whether this will result in Big Slappy’s return is anyone’s guess.

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