Who Is 'Madcap (TF2)'? The Rejected Team Fortress 2 Cosmetic That Became A Meme Explained

Team Fortress 2 has grown to be one of the most popular memed games on the internet. Much of the game's success is thanks to its dedicated fandom, which comes up with new content to keep the multiplayer shooter game a trending topic.

The game's community is so engaged in the universe that, in early October 2023, they decided to meme a character's class, which never existed, into existence through the power of mass gaslighting. This article will guide you through the unreality campaign started by TF2 fans who collectively imagined Madcap to be a class that was removed shortly after the game's release.

What Is The 'Madcap' Class In Team Fortress 2?

Madcap is a rejected Steam Workshop cosmetic submission for the multiplayer shooter video game Team Fortress 2 by user Bog that achieved notoriety in the community due to its extreme crudeness and being the subject of fan art. The cosmetic for Scout class haunted the Steam Workshop for TF2 since 2012. (shown below)

How Did 'Madcap' Become A Meme?

In 11 years, the item received multiple community awards and accumulated over 880 comments, mostly owing to its meme popularity, which started in around May 2015, when YouTube user Wolfcl0ck posted a video titled "Mr. Madcap" that gained over 17,000 views in eight years (shown below).

In the second half of the 2010s, Madcap was repeatedly mentioned in the /r/tf2 subreddit, with some users creating fan art of the item, which led to the fandom deciding to embark on a collective lie, creating whole lore and mythos about Madcap to deceive some people who aren't in on the joke to question if they're forgetting about this aspect of the game, and others to try to explain the meme, only to find themselves downvoted till their comments are nowhere to be found.

For example, On October 4th, 2023, Redditor Doksumar posted a fan-made render of Madcap, pretending that it was the 10th playable class in the game back in 2008 and inquiring about what happened to it. The post gained over 4,100 upvotes in /r/tf2 10 days (post and image shown below, left and right).

Joining the gaslighting joke, on October 5th, 2023, Redditor /u/i-am-sandvich posted a 10-panel retrospective analysis of the character, with the post garnering over 3,100 upvotes in nine days (shown below).

For the full history of Madcap, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for even more information.