A history of curvage?

[S77]

Yes, the legacy is very important. I will add, what I know a bit later. Thanks for this thread.

EDIT:: here we go below

I shall give a stab at this, perhaps it can be somewhat of a cross reference to GTAs post. I will try and be a little more broad during the PRECURVAGE years and branch out beyond curvage a bit, as I think it's relevant to a degree and GTA already did a good job on the just curvage stuff. Like GTA this is going to be all from my head so please fact check me where im off.

The dark ages. 1998 & before

The internet was really in it's infancy and so were modern computers.  Having one with a video card that could do any justice to the supple beauty of a curvy woman was a luxury.  This not to mention it was almost impossible to actually find a decent picture of a fat chick online during this time.  If you weren't browsing through a gopher hole or in an AOL hosted walled garden then you were likely circa 1998 and using netscape navigator.  With netscape navigator and lycos you might find some good photos of Cindy Crawford layered over a grey background and you had to wait for it because you were on dial up.  If you were lucky it was a speedy 56K baud dial up modem.  Who can forget that sound of trying to log in? "buzz-chaa-bing-oweoweowe-buzzzzz-rrrrbing"  Think of this, there was no google, no facebook, no youtube, no myspace. Hell javascript barely ran correctly, forget php!  So back to the fat chicks. I remember there was a photo or two floating around but man was it a hell of a search to find one small photo which I say "small" because if you found something it likely wasn't high quality like the Cindy Crawford photo.  Notable sources for fat chick images during this era are southerncharms, sexysheryl, Dimensions magazine and KellyGirl had a webzine.

1999 - 2001

This was the period when the internet gave way to the roots that eventually led to where we are today.  Search engines I used a lot during this time were  lycos, yahoo, altavista, webcrawler and dogpile.  They all seemed to come up with different stuff so it was important to search them all for "fat chicks", "fat belly" "big ass" or anything else one could come up with.  It was somewhat like a treasure hunt.  Since most websites were static during this time things like phpbb and smf weren't ubiquitous as they are today.  I don't even think they existed yet.  As such a new thing called yahoo groups was becoming  popular. Web 2.0 (user driven content ) was starting to give way and yahoo groups was a great platform for regular people to make groups about many topics. (more on this in a bit)

I will go through and name some names and events I remember.

- Pre ** the current admin, had a website that featured his inflation art and also had some bbw stuff.

-Fattenup was a great site that had some good pictures. Was an early gainer site. Also an early forum.

-Fantasy feeder was brand new during this time and had no CMS system driving the site. The thing I remember was that there was a game about making girls gain weight. I remember thinking, "nobody is going to provide content to this site" I was hopeful but I thought it was a pipe dream.  I turned out to be wrong about that.

- Mandys playhouse was launched.

- Heathers lair.. ?? pre-bigcuties.

-sexy mic was gaining in germany

-Kelly Girl had already become a star within the community that was forming.

-this fat chick named Betty who was the first person I ever saw drink cream from a funnel. 

-Mindy Teats has her own site, she gained and published the now defunct  bigbutt magazine.

-Fatgirlfriends site. A website where a guy documents the weight gain of his fat girlfriend named Angela. At first the site was about how he hates what is happening to his once sexy girlfriend. Eventually it was revealed that he loved every bit of it.

-Tim the future boyfriend of Nikki (gaining goddess) had a different girl named Michelle whom he successfully encouraged to gain a good amount of weight. He got some pretty good photos to.

-Dimensions forums begins to become more popular and the magazine sees fewer and fewer updates.

-S77 (yours truly) launches his first popular fat girls website called  FatterWomen. On the FatterWomen website you could choose which size female you wanted to see and the level of nudity. Also there was a model submission section. A model by the name of Heidi submitted some very sexy photos. Within a few weeks she changed her name to  Brooke.  After submitting 4 picture sets to FatterWomen she made her own site and continued to gain weight.  FatterWomen didn't last long 1999-2001

2002 - 2003

Around the web there was a guy who went by the name LuketheDuck.  He used the yahoo groups to create one called fat celebs.  The birth of modern day Curvage had begun.  I was a member of this yahoo group.  I checked it and about 50 others quite a bit. Do you remember having a big list of yahoo groups? Group owners would make a second group and a third group with the same name if to many pictures were posted.  I remember one group had a series of like 14 different iterations.

Also notable. 

-Gaining goddess starts posting photos around the web and on her site.

-Fantasyfeeder begins to take off.

-KellyGirl dissappears.

2004

Fatcelebs leaves yahoo groups and announces that it now has its own webpage.  The full blown FatCelebs  website is born. This is when Phalliodium joined the site.  For the first year or so FatCelebs was restricted somewhat to on topic FatCeleb stuff. I remember eventually more and more forums were added and topics started to expand

2007

2007 is a BIG year for (the soon to be) Curvage.  FatCelebs had started to have many forums unrelated to celebrities.  There was some debate about whether the website had lost it's focus or if it had expanded to something better.  Luke decided that it needed to be reborn under a more fitting title and on Jan 9th 2007 Curvage.com was born.  Older members were allowed to keep their prestige,  post count was saved, and sign up date. For example under Atlyas name it said 2004. S77 account was started in 2007 on Curvage.com shortly after "Curvage" was started.  Although I had been on and off  the old FatCelebs site with different accounts prior to this mostly lurking. 

While Curvage was a new site with a deep history and growing community, it's founder Luke was growing weary with his already 3 year endeavor.  Sadly on May 17th 2007 Curvage was closed.  Instead of seeing Curvage we were greeted with the following  cold message. " Unfortunately, due to spiralling resource usage and a lack of continued motivation on my part, Curvage has now closed. If there is someone serious who feels they would like to take the project on and retain what has become a solid community, then e-mail luketheduck @ blahblah.com" 

Phalliodium/Mark/Spock  (he's a man of many names) stepped up to take on the job. Mark was ambitious and had big plans for Curvage. On May 20 2012 Curvage was back and user accounts and all posts were retained. Phalliodium was going to expand on the site over all and have the forums only be one small section.  He replaced the front page with this message: " This is the new home of Curvage The only thing here right now are the forums: http://www.curvage.com/forum/"

This had everyone waiting for new and exciting elements to the Curvage experience. Although it was unclear what else was going to be added. Perhaps it was going to be something like the old dimensions website.

2008 - early 2010

These are the Curvage.com glory days. The site was building momentum seemingly faster every day. More and more content was being posted and it was getting harder to keep up.  For the first time the Alexa score for Curvage.com dipped below 100K and Atlya couldn't actually read EVERY post.  However, by March 8th 2009 There had been nothing new added to the root level of Curvage and since the forums were already in a child directory "/forums" The Curvage splash page was born to replace the "new home of curvage" root page message.

Also notable during this time frame S77 Launched LoveTheseCurves.com on March 10th 2009 Vennie and Testdrive sign up and start posting like crazy. Also Tygerkitty signs up a week later.

late 2010

For reasons still unknown to me Curvage.com switches to Curvage.org.  In my mind this was the start of Spocks lost interest in Curvage.

However on the plus side LoveTheseCurves gets it's famous and very lovely bannergirl posted on the banner for the first time.

2011- early 2012

This period represents a massive Curvage Decline.  It was clear that the leader had lost interest and the apathy seemed to trickle down.  Most of the mods had lost their excitement and things began to feel repetitive and old.  This combined with repeated down time, and other technical trouble really began to weigh down the overall success of the site.  For a long time viewing pictures was not as easy as it once was because of technical trouble.  A new skin left out many features that people had become accustom to and SSL errors made it so some people couldn't even log in.  Eventually Spock placed a message saying that he had lost interest and it was clear that he had lost interest for some time.  There was talk of a solution, perhaps the site would be passed on or remotely managed by proxy. We had a long discussion thread about the fate of Curvage going but little to no reply from Spock.  It wasn't all lost interest,  there are some other drivers behind what he was doing and why but our discussion about it was going nowhere and Atlya locked the thread.  A month or two more went by with no word, until suddenly and without warning Curvage went dark. Complete and total silence.  The worst had happened. The database had been nuked.  Many in this moment suddenly realized how much Curvage meant to them now that they didn't have it anymore.  people were shocked, horrified, emotional and there was a massive outcry around the web.

summer 2012

Curvage returns, This time user accounts were not saved and all content was lost. However with new energy from all and a strong sense of revival. Members flock back in droves and the rebuild begins. Many have colloquially began referring to the new revival as Curvage 2.0.  Long live Curvage!!

Jan 2013

A new home page was added to Curvage. The Splash page remains but quickly redirects to a new homepage which works as a portal for the rest of the website. The home page contains links, and useful stuff about what is going on in the forums. It also highlights recent posted photos.

July 2014

Curvage finally gets a new logo and ditches the splash screen girl that had been used for many years.

New logo features pinup stlye BBW silhouette. Also Picture tab was added to more easily navigate Curvage for pictures. Picture threads were resigned to have recent thumbnail image pics atop the board to see recently posted pictures to the board. Each picture board containing it's own set of thumbnails. The celebrities board was renamed FatCelebs in honor of Curvage heritage. 

Jan 2016

The entire Curvage website is remade from the ground up after a return from a short week break during the Christmas/new year holiday. The new website retained the old content but was switched to IPS based software which added a whole new and more modern look and feel to the site. Curvage became responsive and could run in mobile browsers, had functioning notification system and community reputation points along with improved profiles, and ability to find people in your location using google maps technology. Many things were much more dynamic and the site had a badly needed make over and modernized improvements.

Feb 2017

The Curvage Alexa score has surpassed all previous records by a long shot. It hit low 62K. Which indicates Curvage is the most popular it's ever been. 

Curvage Clips was introduced. A photo and clips store where models can sell their material right here on Curvage.

Jan 2019
By Jan 2019 Curvage has reached a lot Alexa score of about ~35K world wide. Also Goddess Shar has firmly landed in the records as a legendary Curvage model. She is the first Curvage member to reach 20K+ reputation points plus she has many thousands of Curvage followers.

I really don't feel like checking for typos etc,.. so take this for what it's worth. Also I am well aware that this is by no means the unabridged version of the story so if I left something out please post and amend this thread with your updates.

[S77]

GTA you rock for this!! Thank you

[S77]

2007

The site has been steadily gaining members. A few notable female members include Tiffany Lynn, Sara, Choco and Panda (something or other, she was friends with Tiffany). I make mention of them because I feel they were the pioneers in shifting FatCelebs from a 100% jerk-off site to a more community-focused celebration of curves. Off-Topic got so busy that it was broken into Serious Discussion, Chit Chat and The Abyss. I also became a moderator that year.

Don't forget Lulinix she had the highest female post count I believe.

[S77]

great find darthstuffer.  I remember this post. Too bad you don't also have the images that went with this post.

[S77]

On 9/10/2012 at 12:29 PM, supermanicsoul said:

Awesome retrospective S77. Where does Stuffed Online fit into the timeline of early years stuff??? In my mind, that place was the spiritual precursor to the Fatcelebs site and Curvage in the sense that it was really diverse. It also was the birthplace of **, when he started posting material on that board of his girlfriend (and subsequently his first model) Raquel.

thank you!! thats the site I was trying to think of. It had his drawings on it right?

[S77]

Thought this had a place in our history thread.

[S77]

I love this topic. I too, have been around this community for ages. Maybe it's not obvious, but I have a deep passion for this community. All of it. I just love it. I am lucky to have had a chance to witness and support the community. I've tried to put out into the world a clear message that Curves are beautiful and millions of people agree. What a great time it has been!

I've seen it rise from nothing to the wonderful celebration it is today.

Ok, taking me way back.

I remember in 1998, (I was very young) the internet was really quite new. As soon as I got a computer, I learned to make websites reading a book called HTML in 24 hours.

I read it cover to cover, and went to work. I setup a few wonky sites that really didn't amount to much like one called "Rain Snow and Fat Chicks" LOL.  I eventually setup a site called "fatter women". It was one of the first of it's kind. It featured a way to sort pictures of women by weight and had a section dedicated to weight gain. Honestly, I really didn't know what I was doing, or why I was doing it. I just knew I loved it. 

I wasn't sure if anyone else would care about it. I submitted it to the search engine crawlers and suddenly I was getting hits on the site like crazy. It had one of those web counters at the bottom.  It got to a million page hits, which at the time I was so incredibly impressed.  I know Curvage got 100 Million page hits in 2019 (seriously 😮) but this was 1999 and I was just some kid in his bedroom.

Anyway, about that site "fatter women" a person who we would eventually know as gaining Brooke contacted me. We worked out an agreement that she would model on the site. She started posting pictures and gained a good amount of weight. She ended up making her own site after awhile but she started with me on the Fatter Women website. I remember she sent me a hand written letter and a VHS tape of her first video that she was selling. I got it free, but she was selling it to folks on the site. (I wonder if still have that in a box somewhere.. humm..)
She didn't stick around too long, but I did have a chance to learn a good amount managing all of that.

 

I was also part of the fat celebs sites, and yes... this site is still the continuation of those early yahoo groups. I too remember Kelly Girl. She was epic!

It's been a fun ride seeing everything unfold. I feel very lucky and privileged to have been here to witness and even be a part of all of this.

It's hard to believe so much time has passed. From those early sites, to LoveTheseCurves.com and Curvage.org, I feel grateful for all! 

I see us moving in the right direction and I think the story of this community is still very much unfolding and I am looking forward to seeing what comes next. I think what we are witnessing right now is as epic as anything in the past. It's a great time to be a part of this community.

A bit of a ramble, but I was typing fast. have to run.

[S77]

47 minutes ago, Master WG said:

Hey @S77, I’ve been meaning to ask. Is there any data left at all anywhere from the fat celebs days? Was curvage a completely blank slate? I guess I’m feeling nostalgic...

Sure on the way back machine

I have this screen shot of the other site I mentioned 

[S77]

12 hours ago, islanders said:

Are the fatcelebs pages still there?!?

Yup, our groups are still there. Screen shot them while you can (There were 10 original groups)

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs2/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs3/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs4/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs5/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs6/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs7/info

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs8/info

Can't find 9

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fatcelebs10/info

 

[S77]

Note: the first group was setup DEC 10 2000 nearly 20 years ago! WOW!!