If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.
—Aristotle It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
—Henry James
Having a shared sense of history makes it easier to form a meaningful sense of community. Unfortunately nobody seems to be trying to capture the history of the gaining community. It would be nice to have something like this bear history page.
It is difficult to piece together the history of the gainer community, but the table below represents an attempt. Please email webmaster@gainerporn.com with any corrections or suggestions. For example, it would be great to get some of the original newsletters put out by the Encouragement group in the early 1990's. And there are certainly major events and happenings that haven't been included here. So please send in your suggestions to improve this timeline.
Please note that the links are intended for adult audiences and should be viewed only by those who are 18 years of age or older.
| 1982 | DrangonGate gainer/encourager newsletter first published |
| 1988 | XL Magazine published with gainer/encourager material (later re-released as XXLNT) |
| 1989 | support group called Encouragement forms in New York City |
| 1990 | first issues of "Encouragement" newsletter published Big Ad and Bulk Male magazines are launched (they were chub/chaser publications, but included some gainer/encourager material) |
| 1992 | first EncourageCon gathering held in New Hope, Pennsylvania |
| 1993 | In response to reader requests, Bulk Male includes a "Guide to Gaining"
and refers people to Encouragement (the "nationwide support group for
gainers and encouragers") EncourageCon '93 held at the Wildwood Retreat (Guerneville) Big Ad has an article on "Deliberate Weight Gaining and Encouraging" and an article by Blubrboy on "The Anatomy of a Gainer: Life begins at 300" The Oinquirer: America's (mis)Leading Weight Gain Tabloid begins quarterly publication (private subscription through US mail) with stories, sightings, morphs, celebrity gossip, news, and more |
| 1994 | EncourageCon '94 held at the Wildwood Retreat (Guerneville) FatDaddyJeff's article Gaining Ground appears in Bulk Male Porkers And Gainers Gazette newsletter first published |
| 1995 | Big Ad begins publishing a regular column called "Sliding Scale:
Addressing Issues of Gaining & Encouraging" by Averill Dupois EncourageCon '95 held in Provincetown, MA Ads for the Gainer Fantasy Line start appearing in Bulk Male and Big Ad—you called a free 800# to place an ad and you called a 900# to respond ($1.49 per minute) |
| 1996 | FatDaddyJeff starts GainRWeb with "Pics, Stats & Bios" section, stories, art, sightings, and interviews |
| 1997 | Together A-Gain (Encouragecon) held at Wild-Wood (Guerneville) |
| 1998 | Encouragecon
(The Madness of Lake George) held in Lake George, NY DarkHorse launches belly builders site (taken over by LrgrThnLf in 2000) fat nats site launches (mostly young gainers and encouragers) |
| 1999 | GainRWeb starts featuring
The
Larger View gallery by photographer Lynn Ludwig (aka
ShutterBear) Encouragecon '99 held in Reno, NV |
| 2000 | Belly Growers site launches |
| 2001 | Ball Belly Bear site launches EncourageCon held in Vermont The Oinquirer web site opened with much of the content from the quarterly publication (this is an amazing archive representing years of effort and rich history—you will probably need to horizontally scroll the upper-left frame to see the actual links because they are centered) |
| 2002 | Big Guts site launches (eventually "grew" to have profiles, forums, belly contests, weight gain tips, and more) |
| 2003 | Beefy
Frat site launches GainRWeb is relaunched as GainerWeb Encouragecon held in Palm Springs |
| 2007 | Expansion event held in Atlanta |
| 2008 | Expansion event held in Orlando |
| 2009 | Expansion
event held in New Orleans Growing Guys social networking site launches |
| 2010 | relatively unflattering and inaccurate articles on gaining published by
ABC News
and The
Globe and Mail Expansion event held in Fort Lauderdale |
| 2011 | grommr site launches a total of 52 local gainer events called grommoffs are held |