A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.

FIRED: Gabe Newell and 2GD

What this meme means

Valve dropped host James “2GD” Harding from the 2016 Shanghai Major, and Gabe Newell wrote “James is an ass.” Chat has typed FIRED ever since.

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The Shanghai Major and a host taken off the air

The Shanghai Major ran from February to March 2016. The analyst desk was hosted by James “2GD” Harding, who had previously worked The International from the second through the fourth. He had not been at The International 2015 or the Frankfurt Major, so Shanghai was his return. A day and a half into the event, Valve took him off the broadcast.

Harding announced it himself on Twitter and specified that Valve had made the call, not Perfect World, which fans had initially blamed. The company gave no official reason. PC Gamer noted on February 27, 2016, that on the first day the host had made some crude jokes and needled certain pro players.

Gabe Newell’s Reddit reply

Then Gabe Newell himself weighed in. In a Reddit post, he wrote that Valve had had problems with James at previous events and that inviting him back had been a mistake. In the same post, Newell said Valve was also parting ways with the event’s production company. Valve confirmed that he wrote the post.

One line took over: “James is an ass, and we won’t be working with him again.” PC Gamer and esports.gg quoted it. Harding replied that he did not think Newell’s assessment was fair and published a statement of nearly 7,000 words about his relationship with Valve, the production company, and the broadcast. He later spoke of a conflict with a Valve employee; esports.gg reports that version, and it is his claim rather than an established fact.

FIRED as a chat reaction

The word “FIRED” quickly became a meme in broadcast chats and on Reddit. People type it when a caster or host swears on air or makes a crude joke, as if reminding them how that ended in Shanghai. That is how the Dota 2 Wiki describes it, and TV Tropes also lists “James is an ass/FIRED” among Dota 2 memes.

The community remembers the event for more than this episode. Because of audio problems and broadcast delays, it was nicknamed the “Shanghai Shit Show.” In the very first days, PC Gamer already noted long waits between games and audio and video glitches on the stream.

2GD’s return at TI11

The story had an unexpected sequel. On October 20, 2022, the first day of The International 2022 (TI11) playoffs, 2GD reappeared at the studio desk. He opened with the words “Welcome back to The International.”

According to the Dota 2 Wiki, that ended his “exile.” Esports.gg described the length of his absence inconsistently, as both “almost eight” and “about seven” years.

2GD on the TI11 stage on the card

The meme card shows a photo of James “2GD” Harding in a blazer on stage at The International 2022, against a red background. It is not a frame from Shanghai or a screenshot of Gabe’s post, but a shot from that very return at TI11.

The picture ties both halves of the story together: the meme was born from his removal in 2016, and the photo shows the host working Valve’s biggest event again.

FIRED caption examples

Today “FIRED” works as a quick verdict on any liberty taken on air. These examples are made up for illustration:

“Caster swore on live TV. FIRED,” “A coworker made a bad joke on a client call. Gabe is already writing a Reddit post,” “Streamer said too much, and chat types FIRED in unison.”