When I first stumbled upon GainerWeb in the late 90s, 300 pounds was the pinnacle of hugeness for gaining. 200 or 250 were considered pretty damn big to most people. Yeah, a few guys would talk about wanting to be immobile as a fantasy, but in reality, few people made it to 300, much less anything higher. Even getting to 200 seemed hard for a lot of guys trying to find a way to integrate their desire to be big with what pressures they felt from their every day life.
It seems that now that 300 is much more “doable” than it was 10 years ago, and a lot more gainers are eying 400 as an ambitious, but not entirely impossible goal for their gaining. There are more guys gaining younger, and it seems, many more guys actually hitting 300 than there ever have been before.
I think a lot of factors have contributed to this shift, and I’m gonna try to examine a few of them here.
First, I think that the simple fact that people are fatter than they were 10 years ago making every aspect of getting up to and over 300 easier. The average American is fatter than ever, and I guess that kind of provides a universal camouflage for someone that is intentionally gaining. If everyone around you isn’t bone thin, being a bit bigger than the other more average chubbies doesn’t seem so dramatic.
Kind of going hand in hand with my first point, portion sizes are bigger than ever and as a result, it’s easier for a gainer to pack away more calories on a daily basis without drawing any particular attention to themselves. Public transit is becoming more accommodating of bigger people, the world, at least in countries like U.S. are accommodating the expanding size of its citizens.
As I mentioned before, the New York Times even did an article saying that beer guts were in!
I think the burgeoning of the community around gaining has been instrumental in letting gainers go bigger. Basically, the idea is that it’s tough to get to 300 on your own, but with a supportive group of like-minded people that share your interest in being bigger, it doesn’t feel as solitary a path. You often hear about guys that don’t want to gain on their own, or are waiting for Mr. Right, but few people ever talk about how the encouragement that people get from their pals on the internet, in addition to whatever gainer/encourager buddies they may have platonically around IRL really makes it easier to overeat and gain in a day to day capacity.
Apart from the obvious websites to look for fellow gainer/encourager types (
www.BeefyFrat.com being the gold standard of gainer/encourager social networking), gaining based communities have popped up all over the Internet. There are thousands of videos on
YouTube that focus on gaining. There are tons of new blogs, gainers on
Flickr, gainers on
XTube, all sorts of fat happy
tumblr accounts. It’s nothing short of amazing to see.
I also think that the general advances of the gay community, and the
gay rights movement, are just as important to the normalizing of gaining and encouraging as anything. Gays as a whole are more visible, coming out at a younger age, being afforded more rights, and all of these factors make it easier for someone to be himself. I think this sort of has a transitive effect when it comes to gaining and encouraging –if someone is going to feel comfortable enough to come out of the closet, it’s much more likely someone who has taken that step is going to feel like they should have exactly the kind of sex they want to have, with exactly the right type of guy, in a body that makes them feel good.
Building on that, I think that we've kind of hit on a post-Twink sort of gay world, that allows for a lot more varied body ideals. With the increased visibility of gays, suddenly there are a lot more ways a gay guy can choose to look, and that's awesome. And if the way you are supposed to look isn't as clear cut as many felt it was before, why not choose to look how you want to?
What do you guys think? How have your goals and your relationship with the gaining and encouraging world changed in the past decade? Is 400 a goal you eventually aspire to? Or is it too big? Do you think it's easier to be a gainer or encourager today vs. 10 years ago? I’m fascinated to hear what your thoughts are!
