Is it just my imagination, or did there used to be a couple of places that were PG-only? Heck, way back in the day, I can remember a couple email and usenet/yahoo groups that sent around pictures and told people about events coming up, etc.

I miss that, because I'm really only interested in real-life pie in the face events. If something is produced or designed for the "wam audience," I completely lose interest.

I've always had an idea (which will never ever work) to create a secret society that goes around to cover real-life events (which you can find on social media sites) - for example, posing as internet journalists. It would never work because some jerk would tattle on them. But, these are the types of ideas that make me wish there was a purely pg forum.

That was a forum run by an early Internet pie enthusiast named Shane. Seems to be gone for a while now.

There's tellygunge, which outwardly focuses on stories but has threads of civilian finds and TV finds: http://tellygunge.wordpress.com/

One of my guilty pleasures was visiting that site and laughing inwardly how alot of the members would say that their interest in pies wasn't a sexual thing at all. Maybe a couple people there thought that way, but come on man!

I hate to say it, but TG is mostly dead nowadays. I'd recommend ecgunge, it's still somewhat active and generally on the PG side.

Rich's running feud with Shane and the other members of the WAM Closet Case Forum was always good for a laugh back in the old days.

Oh, I remember those feuds well. You don't see them much anymore, probably because the "casual" crowd is not hanging around as much. This site took a clear turn to being not-pg, fueled by the usual concerns about "crossing the streams" between casual and produced material.

My recurring feud was always with people who had moral objections about involving "innocent third-parties" without revealing all of your motives for doing so. I never really understood that objection, so long as you don't make promises and break them (i.e. promise to donate to a charity so a pretty lady gets pied, and then don't do it...you know, that kind of stuff that used to sometimes happen...).

But, there was always a very vocal group of people with qualms about that kind of stuff. And between those people, and people who are just idiots or jerks, they'd usually ruin any decent plans for projects like that.

Yep, and that was back when my site was REALLY PG. Like, nothing remotely objectionable. And I enjoyed promoting my stuff on there and having conversations with some of the folks, who were (mostly) decent. (I remember Shane censoring the word "damn" when I published a couple scripts tho! Really just the tip of his weirdness, but that's coming later...)

But yeah, one or two guys wanted to start trouble and they absolutely used my posts here on the UMD as "evidence" that I was releasing porn. (And yeah, the UMD was already kinda porn-y then, but nothing like today. No graphic sex banner ads or anything.) One guy was trying to track down my model's real info so he could "warn" them about me. Kinda ridiculous, but it's worth remembering that there's always been a handful of shitty people in this community (like every other one) who can't have nice things. ANYWAY... I split, the other guy got banned, the forum kinda died slowly after that.

But yeah, the moderator himself? Shane Jensen? He's a story and a half. I don't even know all the sordid details, but beyond Smurfs and pies he was clearly a VERY closeted gay man who lashed out a LOT in the other Internet communities he was involved in... To the point that there's STILL evidence of a smear campaign against him on YouTube. You can find some traces of it if you look under his name (or "shanejensen" and "documentary"). Just really, really WEIRD.

Man, I forgot all about Shane trying to "expose" Rich, but it's all coming back now.

I've always appreciated Rich's work, because it's a sort of halfway-stop between completely casual ("real-life") material and straight-up produced material. It's probably more towards the produced end (I mean, there's models and profit and stuff, after all...), but it's clearly influenced by the older-school love for non-produced material. (Hurley's cliptapes, anyone?)

And, he couldn't be more right about the "We can't have nice things" line. The two groups (porn and non-porn, if you wanna call it that) could never co-exist. There were self-righteous lunatics on both sides, and very few people in the middle who were cool with both.

I just miss the small community of people who used to focus on mostly PG stuff. Now, if someone posts the occasional PG link here, it seems weird and out-of-place.

IMO, the driving force behind the shift in content here (from pretty much all rated G/PG to R to XXX) was the "sudden" wide availability of broad band which happened ("critical mass") around the Summer of 2006 (or 2005?)....suddenly, large files could be downloaded with ease and speed from the internet by millions and producers with existing material found a "second life" of increased sales (including me)...this increase in viewership and sales (via broad band) couldn't be kept contained (within a G or PG standard) for very long....Suddenly, within two months (not sure exactly) of the arrival of broad band cable to millions of folks in the US (and then Europe and then world wide) more suggestive, explicit and more 'hard core' producers started clammoring for a piece of the action (money) and put pressure on the UMD (a popular hub/portal for wam) to open the flood gates, so to speak, of explicit content (not that it was a hard sell)...by 2007, more than 50% of the content here was explicit in some way (verses, prior to 2006, 90% of the displayed content -- pics an clips -- was PG, maybe R, at worst)...content that could pass here as both conventional slapstick entertainment AND erotica (and/or salirophilia -- which is NOT the same as sexual fetishism) could no longer claim it was was all just good "clean" fun (or the pure enjoyment seeing a pretty face get demolished with pies, etc.)...To be sure, some still tried to walk that thinning line...but eventually (or continually) the overt fetishism of the genre seemed to win out....and then come to dominate the content of the umd (as it exists now).

Now, I don't have any problem with the erotic aspects of wam -- I believe that most people unconsciously perceive an erotic or titillating component to a good sliming or pie in the face (especially if directed at a person we find to be sexually attractive, male or female)...nor the relative minority of the general population that finds it sexually arousing (although tastes here [in sexual arousal] vary ENORMOUSLY)...However, there are other aspects to wam that make it broadly appealing to many: salirophilia (enjoyment of seeing attractive people get messy = destroyed vanity = humiliation/shaddenfreude)...comedy/humor (the "unexpected chaos of mess" -- note how people tend to laugh both watching wam and "being wammed" -- and a good comic set up is still nearly universally appreciated here)...and... aesthetics. (note numerous threads concerning artistic wam; includes "burlesque" style wam, which is both erotic/titillating and aesthetically stylized)....any of which, for many here, is a NECESSARY component of wam, not just a "nice to have"...point being: these other aspects of wam and slapstick get over-shadowed or ignored (dismissed) by probably the majority here...

My other "issue"/problem with wam videos/photos is the liberal use of the term "porn"...now, without opening an old dispute: the blanket use of "porn" or porno for content here tends to scare away some content and/or would-be contributors (even if we accept as given that there's an erotic component at play)...because porn means "prostitute" which is someone who gets paid for sex (or to perform sexual content, such as masturbation, etc.)....

So, sure, call it porn, in general, if you must, but I suspect there would be FAR FEWER models out there (amateur or pro) willing to do straight wam (no sex or sexual imagery), or let their boyfriends post their pics, if you advertised: "looking for wam prostitutes", or, if you called them prostitutes (here or in person; "honey, would it be OK if I posted your porn/prostitute pics on the umd? Honey?")...or, if a would-be producer called himself a "porn producer" when he/she offers not one bit of sexual content (other than some sexy girls in sexy clothes)...of course, the line blurs when there is nudity ('cause for some simpler folks, nudity = sex!, as if one gets a boner when in a museum looking at nude paintings)...but, because there's an assume masturbatory element to home viewing of this content (if Rich's material were done exclusively on stage it would be pure "burlesque"), then the "wam is porn" crowd tends to get the say...

These are just my thoughts from posting and viewing content here since 1998...I appreciate wam from many perspectives...I hope that these other aspects of wam never go away here, as they tend to foster more diverse content and styles....which keeps things moving, innovative, and fun.

thanks

Yeah, A.Nonny Moose, I fully support what you're saying.

TV scenes really don't do THAT much for me, because the actress is reading a script. She's forced to act a certain way, which destroys the "natural" aspect for me. Now, if I could see her reaction before and after they start filming, that would appeal to me more. (...still, I'll take the worst TV scene over any produced model-in-a-chair video).

I tend to be more interested in the intellectual and psychological part of a scene. Like, if a girl is getting pied - I want to know stuff about her: where is she from, what is her personality, what kind of education does she have, etc. I also want to know why the pieing is happening: what is the context, did she win a contest, who is watching her getting pied - who are her family and friends, etc?

Those things are just as important to me as the actual pie-hitting-the-face moment. I suspect I'm probably very different from most in that regard. Porn does very little for me (whether it involves wam or not), because I can't intellectualize it...it has no context, it only exists because someone wanted to create it; it is detached fantasy.

I agree with several of you on this one! The use of the term "porn" for most of the wam in my collection is not accurate!

Most of what I have would be PG or PG-13, with some R thrown in. While I do enjoy the messy sex, BJ's etc., (so I *do* have some X or XXX stuff), my basic "thing" is a pretty woman getting a pie in the face, with clothes on. That is the basis for what turns me on. So when someone (ok, my wife ) sees a pic of a dressed lady totally obliterated with mess, and says, "That's gross!" & "That's porn!", I have to disagree!

Maybe it's gross if it's not your thing, but it's definitely not porn. It's G-rated slapstick comedy.

Also, while this is referred to as a "fetish", a fetish is something that is required in order to get aroused. Now I can get excited looking at a huge fluffy pie or a gooey cake in a bakery, thinking about it all over me or a lovely lady. But it's not required to get me aroused. I think of wam as more of a "kink" for me! And I'm definitely kinky!

Sorry, this may have veered a little off the original topic, but I think it dove-tailed pretty well with the points made by several others.

Norman