All throughout school I vividly remember teachers telling me not to use Wikipedia as a reliable source because "kids, people can edit it however they want". And that has come back to haunt my memories now I've seen the story of Purple Francis and the Left 4 Dead Wiki.
Who is Purple Francis? Good question - he doesn't exist. And not in the ordinary fictional character sense, but he's not part of the Left 4 Dead series at all, he's just one of the four original survivors, Francis, made purple. He's only now being talked about because someone spent a massive amount of time altering the Left 4 Dead wiki and adding him in, giving him a backstory, relationships to the other survivors, and even decides he's just a better human than normal Francis.
Of course, the pages have already been taken down by the admins of the wiki, but when they were up, Purple Francis's story was quite something. I particularly enjoyed reading about how he was born in a candle factory, and through an iron-rich diet, he started turning purple which was incredibly attractive to women. That's exactly what people look for in a partner these days, I hear, purple-ness. The more purple the better.
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Although the original articles on Purple Francis have been deleted, they can still be found on The Wayback Machine, or, in exciting news, on the mod page on Steam. That's right, someone took this joke a step further and Purple Francis can now be added to your game with this mod.
Not only does the mod page have the info needed to turn your Francis purple in Left 4 Dead but it's also the only Steam page I've ever seen that has memes as part of the advertising images. Which, I'll admit, is strangely refreshing.
Purple Francis's reign on the Left 4 Dead wiki was short, yet powerful. His article may be gone but I somehow feel the legend of Purple Francis is only just beginning.
Featured Image Credit: ValveTopics: News, left 4 dead
