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History of the Tickling Media Forum

Mortia

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Joined
Aug 18, 2016
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Hi,


I’m not sure where to post this but is there any place where I can find the history of this forum? I’m very curious to know when and how it got started. I’m assuming this site is the result of voluntary work. Was it a random person working alone on their computer or was it a community effort? Are the original creators still around? Also, we are now more open to discussions of sexuality and fetishes. Was this always the case on this site or was there a time when having an account here felt like having a dirty secret? (I guess the answer to this last question depends on the person). I’m curious to know how the tickling community has evolved over the years.

Anyway, thank you for all the effort and hard work you’ve put on this forum, TMF staff!


Regards,
Mortia
 
Great question! I suggest you move this thread to the Tickling Discussion section, (or ask the moderators to) since that is the most visited and many more people can chime in.

This place has been around for a few decades, I believe it started out as Psycho's Tickling Forum (probably wrong with that name) and had a whole different look,
I believe a black star field background.....would love to see old screen shots.
 
Hello,

This place is as good as any. I'm Myriads, your forum Admin, and unofficial keeper of the histories. Let me see if I can answer your questions without writing a tome.

The forums origins lie with an individual who used the handle Psycho. In the late 90's he created a number of websites Psychos world, and later Psychos universe that were some of the earliest tickling oriented webpages. In '99 using the brand new EZboard forum system he created the TMF. He appointed some admins and was off and running.

The forum was a success, and EZBoards had some limitations so he looked to create a dedicated forum of the nature you see here today. He found some backers, among them Jeff, who owned Magic Touch, one of the early independent video producers. Psycho also gathered almost all the significant players active the community at the time to be his mods. He had a 'Knights of the Round Table' sorta vibe. With all this in place the work to get the software, a server and so forth began and the TMF was scheduled to go live.

But life has surprises. And Psycho has a religious conversion of the sort that happens in a moment. And he felt that being involved in the forum was not proper and wrong for him personally. He chose to leave. Jeff as primary backer was left in charge, and he proceeded with the roll out, asked me to be site Admin, and we opened, and were successful. And are still here today.

So the inspiration for the TMF came from one person at its root, as a further expansion of his old websites, each which was better then the last. But it very much took a community of people to make it happen, and keep it working. It still does. Of the two founders Jeff is still here, and Psycho is gone. He never returned after he chose to follow his faith.

As to the changes in the demographics and sociology of the site things have changed. Very few women were active in the community when we started, and one of my first big initiatives was to encourage female membership and participation. That was very successful. We have one of the highest female active participation percents of online sexual orient forums.

When we started any form of tickling that was */m was often met with some pretty sad responses by the community. Over the years we have worked to make it clear that we are a place that supports all the combination of Ler's and lees and slowly the different combinations have started to all see more representation beyond the F/F which was the norm 20ish years back.

The TMF was also the earliest platform that enabled gatherings to really get going all around the country. There was a huge growth of face to face meets after we got established, and that really strengthened the communities identity in many ways, and bonded a generation of members. That is something else we are quite proud of.

The evolution of the tickling community as a whole is a question of huge scope, and extends beyond the TMF both before and along side us. But the overall trend is that it's better connected, more comfortable with itself, and visible. All things that help the constant flow of new people who pull this fetish from the deck, and help them feel a bit less odd and alone.

Hope that brief snapshot helped. I'm happy to follow up and answer anything you might want to follow up on.

Myriads
 
Hello,

This place is as good as any. I'm Myriads, your forum Admin, and unofficial keeper of the histories. Let me see if I can answer your questions without writing a tome.

The forums origins lie with an individual who used the handle Psycho. In the late 90's he created a number of websites Psychos world, and later Psychos universe that were some of the earliest tickling oriented webpages. In '99 using the brand new EZboard forum system he created the TMF. He appointed some admins and was off and running.

The forum was a success, and EZBoards had some limitations so he looked to create a dedicated forum of the nature you see here today. He found some backers, among them Jeff, who owned Magic Touch, one of the early independent video producers. Psycho also gathered almost all the significant players active the community at the time to be his mods. He had a 'Knights of the Round Table' sorta vibe. With all this in place the work to get the software, a server and so forth began and the TMF was scheduled to go live.

But life has surprises. And Psycho has a religious conversion of the sort that happens in a moment. And he felt that being involved in the forum was not proper and wrong for him personally. He chose to leave. Jeff as primary backer was left in charge, and he proceeded with the roll out, asked me to be site Admin, and we opened, and were successful. And are still here today.

So the inspiration for the TMF came from one person at its root, as a further expansion of his old websites, each which was better then the last. But it very much took a community of people to make it happen, and keep it working. It still does. Of the two founders Jeff is still here, and Psycho is gone. He never returned after he chose to follow his faith.

As to the changes in the demographics and sociology of the site things have changed. Very few women were active in the community when we started, and one of my first big initiatives was to encourage female membership and participation. That was very successful. We have one of the highest female active participation percents of online sexual orient forums.

When we started any form of tickling that was */m was often met with some pretty sad responses by the community. Over the years we have worked to make it clear that we are a place that supports all the combination of Ler's and lees and slowly the different combinations have started to all see more representation beyond the F/F which was the norm 20ish years back.

The TMF was also the earliest platform that enabled gatherings to really get going all around the country. There was a huge growth of face to face meets after we got established, and that really strengthened the communities identity in many ways, and bonded a generation of members. That is something else we are quite proud of.

The evolution of the tickling community as a whole is a question of huge scope, and extends beyond the TMF both before and along side us. But the overall trend is that it's better connected, more comfortable with itself, and visible. All things that help the constant flow of new people who pull this fetish from the deck, and help them feel a bit less odd and alone.

Hope that brief snapshot helped. I'm happy to follow up and answer anything you might want to follow up on.

Myriads

Nailed it sir!

Oh those early days!

The fact that this site is still here...and THRIVING...after 16 years is a thrill to me!

~ toyou
 
I am glad to have read this because I did not know of the ultra early days. I originally discovered this place around 2004, but I mostly kept to Tickle Theater then.

While I think your post could have been expanded upon a bit more, because it doesn't necessarily talk about anything after Jeff took over, I also don't know what exactly to say concerning that period. Of course fluctuations in the userbase, the birth of clips for sale, tickle theater, fetlife and the other little clusters and networks, but those are also beyond the scope of TMF and more about the tickling community as a whole. That's certainly a broad subject haha, well beyond the scope of this post.

And to be fair, I don't believe much has changed since the middling days, anyway. Users come and go, but I think you hit the major points, concerning acceptability within the forums. I very distinctly remember thinking this community was not nearly as, hm, welcoming compared to TT when I first stumbled upon this place. More people and more posts, to be sure, but certainly more and varied cliques that I felt shunned by at the time (this is not a statement of fact this is my interpretation of reality, Im well aware that wasnt actually the case; I had a bad run in with one, maybe two members).

Ah, if I came off as berating or overly critical, I'm not trying to be. Im more just reminiscing on the fact that most everything has stayed the same since I really joined up, haha.

Anyway, as always Myriads, thank you for your insightful post. It was worth reading.
 
I've been here since almost the beginning and have to say, the Mods do a pretty good job overall keeping things running smoothly. Don't know where I'd go if this place ever went tango-uniform!
 
I've been here since almost the beginning and have to say, the Mods do a pretty good job overall keeping things running smoothly. Don't know where I'd go if this place ever went tango-uniform!

Off topic but I,just relized judging by where you are according to your location setting you live like 25 minutes from where I am currently staying for vacation
 
he chose to leave

That's one way of putting it.

For a while (Days? Weeks? Months?) he repeatedly told people they were sinners and going to hell unless they left the forum, purged all their smut, etc.

An important part of the forum is the chat room and especially Sunday night trivia, which has happened almost without fail every week for the past 16+ years. That was my first interaction with other ticklephiles, and it was awesome when I eventually met some of my trivia rivals (and spectators) in person many years later. Thank you Myriads for making that happen.
 
That's one way of putting it.

For a while (Days? Weeks? Months?) he repeatedly told people they were sinners and going to hell unless they left the forum, purged all their smut, etc.

I remember that! I thought that was a guy who went by the handle "noeyes", though. Obviously, I was mistaken. Oh, how time rots good brain cells. And alcohol. Also I was like 16 and sneaking on when my parents were out lol. I, too, have fond memories of the chat room.

I also remember a time about 10 years back when there was this clique of female posters who really seemed to run the gamut on posting. Can't remember their names, though...
 
Off topic but I,just relized judging by where you are according to your location setting you live like 25 minutes from where I am currently staying for vacation

If that's the case, you're vacationing in a pretty nice place! :p
 
I also remember a time about 10 years back when there was this clique of female posters who really seemed to run the gamut on posting. Can't remember their names, though...
I do, and they're really cool and chill now, much less cliquey. I'm not gonna call them out on it, they know who they are. :)
 
It's the first tickling forum I discovered. I found out after clicking a link on Magic Touch Productions which was owned by the same person who's the admin here, Jeff.
 
Regarding Psycho.

Yes, he spent a period 'preaching' about the things he felt were wrong about the TMF. I always felt that with his conversion he felt guilt in aiding in the creation of what he had come to see as a path to 'sin', and needed to try and correct that. It was a short phase, and in the grand scheme of the forums history not all that long. We had Denial of Service attacks that lasted longer. So 'He left.' sums up what happened fairly well. He was never banned or ejected.

Trivia has happened every Sunday since the forums earliest days. I was asked to run it by Psycho in the forums earliest days, and 1st EZboasrd incarnation and was in fact a chat mod before I was a forum mod. I've tried to keep it going. So far so good.

To the poster who wished my tales were longer. I could easily write them up in greater depth and detail. And have a pretty fat binder of notes I've made over the years tracking the forums and the communities history as a whole. I've interacted with producers, models, and members for a long time now, and have a lot of the "rest of the story" on many things, and have kept it. I can always find time to shed some light or history. I recently did a post on the evolution of video styles based on technological change in a thread a month or so back. That was from the history files, from the tech/sociology side. I'll drop things like that when they fit, and I have time.

Myriads
 
I love that this place is still up and running and how the people that have been here from the beginning or close to it, have matured as the site has. Psycho was a cool dude to talk to back in the day before his religious breakthrough. He was Psycho4048 or somethin like that...site was all red and shit lol. But I must say Jeff and Myriads have held the fort down since the beginning, as well as the old and newer mods that peruse the boards. Well done by all.
 
Regarding Psycho.

Yes, he spent a period 'preaching' about the things he felt were wrong about the TMF. I always felt that with his conversion he felt guilt in aiding in the creation of what he had come to see as a path to 'sin', and needed to try and correct that. It was a short phase, and in the grand scheme of the forums history not all that long. We had Denial of Service attacks that lasted longer. So 'He left.' sums up what happened fairly well. He was never banned or ejected.

Trivia has happened every Sunday since the forums earliest days. I was asked to run it by Psycho in the forums earliest days, and 1st EZboasrd incarnation and was in fact a chat mod before I was a forum mod. I've tried to keep it going. So far so good.

To the poster who wished my tales were longer. I could easily write them up in greater depth and detail. And have a pretty fat binder of notes I've made over the years tracking the forums and the communities history as a whole. I've interacted with producers, models, and members for a long time now, and have a lot of the "rest of the story" on many things, and have kept it. I can always find time to shed some light or history. I recently did a post on the evolution of video styles based on technological change in a thread a month or so back. That was from the history files, from the tech/sociology side. I'll drop things like that when they fit, and I have time.

Myriads

I and I think everyone else would love that
 
First of all, thanks a lot for your long post Myriads! That was certainly insightful. If you ever do write the "rest of the story", I would be very interested in reading it.

One thing I noticed when I started lurking around this site (I lurked for a while before I finally created my account) was how close-knitted and active it seemed: I saw the same usernames everywhere, most people seemed to know each other and how older members were still active and genuinely trying to share their wisdom and experience with younger members. That, along with my love for tickling, was what made me stop lurking and join the forum. As a newcomer, I can only congratulate you and the rest of the staff on maintaining such a friendly environment.

As for the question about the evolution of the tickling community, it would be an interesting thing to investigate but I understand that it is a very broad topic and well beyond the scope of this website. Thank you for your input.

Finally, you mentioned that there is a high percentage of female active participation on this site, which is also something that I have always been curious about. Is it possible to know the demographics? From my (admittedly short) experience here, there seems to be more men than women here. Is that the case or are women just not as active as men?

On a side note, what is Sunday Night Trivia?
 
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