Morbidly A Beast:
As a person who discovered this stuff later in life I don’t have knowledge of anything prior to 2022 and I feel like not much has changed other than in the periphery there’s more people accepting their bodies and saying it’s okay to be fat so I think just on that alone I think this message is off base, I think body positivity and size acceptance has become more mainlined, I don’t see it as much in explicitly kink spaces but I think that’s because it doesn’t need to be. People can go to and be directly body positive without even considering kink.
A had thoughts on this specifically. Back in 2000/2001 there was no body positivity. Like at all. Everything in the media was demanding people be thin, healthy or not. Every movie star had exactly the same body type and build. Male pro wrestlers were literal steroid giants, and and female wrestlers were super athletes with implants who were relegated to hypersexualized bra and panties matches. I guess what I'm getting at is that the community was deeply closeted because fat was profoundly socially stigmatized. It isn't so bad today, but the increased visibility of the kink today has brought an arguably worse type of stigmatization than before. So to say not much has changed is pretty inaccurate in general, though it has been stagnant since around 2017 or 18. In 2020 when the #MeToo movement happened things went super covert for obvious reasons, but it eventually blew over.
Munchies:
I get it. However, you may be unaware of this as you aren't as active in the community these days, and many people place the blame entirely on women.
Honestly I have seen this as well. I've also seen it on gay gainer sites, namely Grommr and BiggerCity. The community as a whole has become intensely toxic to a point where younger people wonder if they're crazy or mentally ill for wanting to be fat. It gets depressing sometimes.
I member the multi-year saga of King Gluttony. His name was Nick. He made money by modeling for Hansi for a while, but started having more serious health issues stemming from weighing over 800 pounds. He ended up creating a YouTube channel called Help for Nick where he detailed his struggles and health issues as they happened. He got a book deal and while he didn't specifically demonize the community, he also didn't have much positive to say about, either. In the end he never got the weight loss surgery he needed and he abruptly deleted everything. There was no weight loss journey or recovery. I haven't looked him up lately, but he did another video and photo set immediately after deleting his fundraiser stuff, then he disappeared entirely. I honestly don't know if he really wanted surgery. He would have had to lose weight to be approved, and he made it clear that he was a massive food addict and never did anything to fight it. He had such potential for a fell good story, and even a lot of money for him. He really just didn't want it badly enough.
On the opposite side, there were tons of comments on his YouTube begging him not to lose weight and calling him a traitor and such. There was a great deal of hostility and anger that he would want to lose weight. People were so entitled that they felt betrayed by a huge dude, completely kink free, would have the audacity to want to live a normal independent life. Fat fetishism, at it's absolute worst, is sociopaths who feed on the misery and dependence of others. Those were the ones Nick found himself surrounded by almost exclusively. It would make sense if that pressure was part of why he disappeared into obscurity despite having everything going for him.
Another one I remember was Luke, SuperXLChubboy. He was an extreme gainer beyond Nick. He entered the scene at about 635 or so. Dude was an instant star and was one of the first guys to popularize Hansi's Superchubs. Over time he gained a lot, peaking at around 1,060 lbs. He was really massive. At one point he was trying to raise money for WLS, I think before Hansi. He only raised $200. He had news articles and publicity, too. But his story wasn't compelling or dramatic enough for anyone to care. He was just a guy addicted to food who brought this on himself. Like so many others the modeling came as an income source. He eventually lost weight and stabilized at about 700. He would only rarely make content, and eventually just stopped. I have no idea if he continued.
I don't think he was in the recieving end of as much hate as Nick was, but I'm sure he got his share. Luke was far less assessable (and Canadian) and wasn't known to engage with the community much. He wasn't into it and didn't exploit it like he could have, so his socials were harder to find. Last I looked a couple years ago he hadn't been on in over a year.
So no, the toxicity isn't limited to female gainers. Hell, Antonio just started losing weight, too. Lots of obnoxious RIP comments there.