The Origins of TF

[DollyBonnie]

Hey Everyone,
So I was talking about this with my step brother the other day (we're both big fans of TF) and we were both wondering when the TF community actually "started" online? Like how did a bunch of folks find out "hey we like the idea of physically being transformed (or watching others) into animals... let's build an online community!"

Now, I've only been around officially since I turned 18 (8 years at this point), but I was definitely visiting sites when I was not legally allowed. I can recall finding TF material c. 2010, but I am pretty dang sure based on convos with my step brother TF goes back well before that.

Anyone have any info on the "origins" of the TF community?

[The Zesty One]

There was this dude named Ovid back in the day who wrote a bunch of tf smut and called it Metamophoses and the rest is history

[Dr. Otto]

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

[Anahki]

Considering only Internet, you could find TF related content as far as the beginning of the 2000's. For example, the Blar's hub. And one of the first sites with a large set of gathered images and references was Werekatt's one... it was harder to find the movies referenced by the website, by the way .
But the no-turning point was maybe Transfur site. Many of the oldest artist currently in active started to post their works there, even though it was extremely furry-oriented. And DA, of course :P.

[Psychoman]

It's been around at least since the late nineties. That's right, there were new episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess when the TF community was learning how to walk.
One of my favorite old sites that predates Werekatt (though his was the best one by far in those days) was the Transformation Graphics Archive, probably the first TF media/art repository online.
http://web.archive.org/web/200005100....transform.to/

[Amahain]

Yeah, I was looking up TF stuff in the late 90s early 2000s. For me, the go-to sites when I first got into all this were Doc's Lab (mostly stories; there was a bit of art on the old site too), Transfur (art; this is also probably the oldest still-active TF site on the net), Werekatt's site (media archive), and Shadowlord's site (media archive). I recall that there was a web ring. I think The Process (ie. this site) was around back in the early days, mostly as an image archive and had a lot of Ranzab's sequences.

Edit: Oh yes! /\ /\ /\ I forgot about TGA. Plenty of good art to be found there.

[DollyBonnie]

Yeah, I mean there was TF stuff around in literature going all the way back. I mean Circe n the Odyssey? But I think it's really interesting to see where the community started and where it was going back then. And nothing starts in a vacuum so I was wondering about our community's origins.

Thanks folks!

[Fredthemarine]

There was an actual forum very generically called the 'transformation forum' or something very similar back then. I assume it closed down after a few years as since the mid 2000's the Process forum has been the main forum I check for TF info, alongside metamorphose.org.
Back in 2000 when I first found that transformation was a celebrated shared interest, the main sites I focused on were Werekatt, Shadowlordinc, Chica's website and the Anime Transformation Archive. I really miss the days of artists having their own webpages rather than everything being uploaded to a handful of large sites.

The first transformation work I ever found online in 1999 was actually a Pokemon fanfic called 'Poke Syndrome' where Misty is turned into a Pikachu. I was just a kid but I would sit there and stare at the sentence about Misty's body being enveloped in light as she shrinks to the ground in the grandest awe.

[Kyril]

Ah, a spot of internet archaeology, hmm? Well, the Process itself has existed since, according to my oldest records' claims, 1997. That'd be pretty close to the days of websites hosted on Transfur and the Transformation webrings, if not just before. I got in around late '04, myself.

[transformative]

TGA, Metamorphose, and Werekatt's were definitely some of my first haunts. I want to say the first site I stumbled onto back when I first started to just punch "animal transformation" into google was Samapuma's art gallery followed closely by Arania's.

[edwardfandango]

My introduction was Samapuma's art gallery and, of course, Arania's. Transfur was early, as was Werekatt's website. This was around 2006.

I also recall a forum called "ti erazor zone", but I never visited it. Does anyone remember what this was?

[Case Scenario]

Let's see, my earliest experiences were from the turn of the century, transform.to, tgfa.org, Metamor Keep, The Blind Pig, the Transformation Story Archive, Ranzab's stuff, Naga's Den.... God, that brings me back. Back when webrings were a thing, and this whole thing felt "niche" enough to be a relatively small online community. It's like a village that became a country.