Question for the 40+, When you first visited a bodybuilding forum...

[kofo]

When you first visited a bodybuilding forum on the internet (sometime in the late 90ies I'll assume), where you shocked ?

I mean up until then you must have thought of BBing as a serious sport right, only having the magazines to form your opinion.

Having belived so strongly in something and then coming online seeing it all rediculed, it must have left a mark somehow.

Please share your stories.

[BB]

Not really, the first magazines I read were MM2000, and they'd have articles on which girls were escorting, which guys were caught doing gay porn, which guys were in trouble for steroids, etc.... Also the first board I read was the old Misc.Fitness.Weights where a lot of the guys were old timers and industry folks so there were always fights, and stories to be read.

Also, for folks that never saw the newsgroups, you could cross post to hundreds of related and unrelated groups. So you could have alt.amazon.admirers, Misc.Fitness.Weights, Soc.Motss (a gay group), Rec.arts.movies.erotica all discussing something, and some interesting stories came about that way.

So I always sort of understood that the hobby at the upper levels was and is very sleazy.

The one thing that still caught me for a couple of years were the fake naturals that pimped for supplement companies. It wasn't until I got around real lifters that I understood that even the smaller naturals were on decent levels of drugs.

[Wiggs]

Kofo fella how about some photoshops with Big Ramy?

[galain]

I stopped reading the mags around the early 90's. My first inkling that all was not as it was portrayed was when I read Samm Fussel's book, Confessions of a Bodybuilder, but to be honest, I never really gave it a second thought until I started reading Getbig.

And once it was in front of me, it all kind of made sense anyway.

[oldtimer1]

Shocked? Absolutely not. I've been around the game for a very long time and I know what a subculture of misfits this "sport" attracts. It's a sport based on drugs. Without drugs there would be no oiled up bloated men with cosmetic muscles posing in their underwear. Without drugs the sport wouldn't exist.

Getbig is a forum that really entertains and makes me laugh. I don't take it seriously but it is sometimes disturbing finding out the character of the average bodybuilding fan.

Another aspect like BB said, the "sport" is filled with steroid users claiming to be natural. I can only conclude that they claim natural because in their eyes they don't take half of what the other guy is taking. They also want the credit for their physique and not attributed to the drug but they know they are nothing without it. Every once in awhile you catch a picture of these naturals off cycle and it is an eye opener. They closely guard their image so no off cycle pictures appear anywhere.

[gym**rat]

Getbig was my first forum of any type to go on and was I shocked? Fuck no, why the hell would anyone be shocked over this? It is the internet, it isn't real. 

[cswol]

Not really because when you train at golds Venice you know everyone and everything that people who have never been there know, I know not everyone has that opportunity but seems 95% of getbiggers who never been there or ever lived in Venice know everything already just by typing on their keyboard with 13 inch arms

[viking1]

Training at the gym back then was like a live, virtual get big forum. Nothing's shocking on the screen.

[Pet shop boys]

To be honest with you, Forums at first were nicer than the magazines  actually, a lot of ass kissing and people (fans) scanning pics of the greats.....even in the late 90's Ben and Joe were trying to get "Olympic recognition" for bodybuilding....So go figure .....

Remember, ESPN, and other major oulets were covering Pro BB up until 2000 so it was still perceived as a "sport"

It was around 2002 or so (when bodybuilders started to make money doing web cam/G4P",guest apperances" etc ) that the pandora box was open "online style" but little by little .....

I know it seems much longer than that for the youngsters...

Btw the biggest punch that the internet has given to Bodybuilding its the clear evidence that is a "sport' based on drugs.

A truth that every BB magazine will deny till their very last issue  (coming soon)








WoooSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HH

[gym**rat]

To be honest with you, Forums at first were nicer than the magazines  actually, a lot of ass kissing and people scanning pics of the greats.....even in the late 90's Ben and Joe were trying to get "Olympic recognition" for bodybuilding....

Remember, ESPN, and other major oulets were covering Pro BB up until 2000 so it was still perceived as a "sport"

It was around 2002 or so (when bodybuilders started to make money doing web cam/G4P",guest apperances" etc ) that the pandora box was open online style "little by little" .....

I know it seems much longer than that for the youngster...

Btw the biggest punch that the internet has given to Bodybuilding its the clear evidence that is a "sport' based on drugs.

A truth that every BB magazine will deny till their very last issue  (coming soon)





WoooSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HH

Very true about the boards being nicer. I was wrong in my prior post, Muscle Mayhem was the first board. I came to this one because it was way too nicey nice. The ass kissing and cliques that were on there was too much to take. If you dared question the select members you would be shunned. I lurked for a while on here, then posted some, then lurked, then decided to get into it with Squadfather. Once that happened I was hooked on here.

[_bruce_]

More amused than shocked - glad that it's so weird.
I remember buying ye ol' MD mags(pretty pricey here in Austria ~20$) and while reading them while waiting for the train every now and then a chick would stop and be like "yuck, why would you wanna be like that?".

I was in heaven 

[Master Blaster]

BINGO!

Sam Fusell's book is what started the doubts for me as well. I grew up pre-internet more of less. All the bodybuilders claimed they were drug free back then, LOL.

This is embarrassing, but I actually believed Lance Armstrong was drug free as well. Hahahah! Ah, the innocence of youth.

[RRKore]

Not shocked at the drug side at all.  Back in '85 my friends and I were passing around a xerox'd copy of Duchaine's The Underground Steroid Handbook so we knew that all BB'ers were taking more than protein and liver pills.

I was a little shocked at the Gay4pay side of it. Think I first read about that stuff on the T-mag (or whatever it was called then) website.

[Soul Crusher]

I'm 38 and got into BB in the early-mid 90's.   Got involved w a few NPC competitors who did Atlantic States, the Bev, I did a few shows too.  Definitely a sub culture of people.  Being around the actual people and culture of it made me realize the m,agazines were total bs.

[no one]

I'm 38 and got into BB in the early-mid 90's.   Got involved w a few NPC competitors who did Atlantic States, the Bev, I did a few shows too.  Definitely a sub culture of people.  Being around the actual people and culture of it made me realize the m,agazines were total bs.

like in a soapy, lets hit the shower after our sauna kind of way there, stud?

[Soul Crusher]

like in a soapy, lets hit the shower after our sauna kind of way there, stud?

Nah - more like hanging out w these dudes , doing the pro tan helping w the last few weeks prep, going to pre-judging in the am, all the bullshit the last 4 weeks, etc 

[Ronnie Rep]

Shocked no, entertained absolutely!

[Powerlift66]

Showing my age:

Been on since early 90's, there were no forums, just the newsgroups:

MISC/FITNESS/WEIGHTS, etc...

[AbrahamG]

Nah - more like penetrating these dudes , doing the pro tan helping w the last few weeks prep, going to pre-judging in the am, all the bullshit the last 4 weeks, etc 

da fuk?