Issue 02: Inflatable Community Websites
As promised, this issue will deal with the question of which websites are there out there for the community, and which ones are any good. It seems there are a surprising number for such a small group. By far the largest is the site known as IYRU, advertising itself openly as an adult only site, and having taken steps to ensure its privacy and that of its members, I will avoid linking directly to it here, but it should be easy enough to find. First established back in late 2004, it seems to have been the first message board and file storage site for people that wanted something a little different in style to the Yahoo groups and mailing lists that were common back then, and has barely changed in nearly a decade. The site boasts what is by far the majority of inflatable related photographs and videos amongst all the specialist sites, and a membership nearly ten times that of any rival site, and consequently has far more than its fair share of drama, with comments that it is divided into competing factions, or that most of its active members care only about either advertising items for sale or starting arguments with each other.
Other specialist sites seem to be divided either into video storage, offering collections of files and little else, such as the C4S paid porn site, and the now infamous loonertube, known for hosting illegally shared content from pay sites, or specialist forum sites, targeting a particular portion of the community. Good examples of this are the two competing German forums, that came to attention recently when it appeared they were at war with each other, rumours circulating that one had even launched some sort of attack against the other's servers, though I am not sure whether anything was proven there. With the already small German portion of the community so divided, it seems neither gets much regular use. In comparison, the UKLooner site has proven popular enough to start drawing in people from other parts of the inflatable community, and in spite of targeting only one small country, appears to be a comparatively large, busy forum.
Then we come to Hollowpaws, the furry-specific site, which seems to have set itself directly against the aforementioned IYRU site, in being entirely family friendly, with no 'adult' content at all. As a result, the site consists mostly of a forum for discussing opinions on different toys, but it still retains a steady, if comparatively small following. Then there are a couple of new sites that have popped up only recently, seeming aiming at a broader audience, The first is Inflatanet, a huge, ambitious website by the same person behind Kitutal Toys, and a couple other similarly large projects that look good on paper but never quite seem to manage their full potential. The forum itself offers a more updated and organised layout but remains only infrequently used, often days passing between message posts, whilst the rest of the site is still under development, as it has been for some months. Though I would hesitate to write it off just yet, at least it seems to be being regularly visited and worked on by its admin, unlike certain other sites. The same can be said for the newest offering within the community, Inflatatube, another small site seemingly set up by one person, hosting various features, but in spite of much work and regular advertising, it also retains only a very small number of visitors, but then, everyone needs to start somewhere, and I look forward to seeing what they end up doing over the next few months.
Of course, there are other places to go around the internet, for example a large quantity of inflatable related videos are hosted on sites such as Youtube and even Xtube, appearing easily enough to even just a quick look, though uploaders to the former need to be a little careful, more than a few have had content removed for being too close to their guidelines of acceptable family friendly videos. On the contrary Xtube uploads are much more 'adult' to the point where they start to objectify toys as just sexual aids, and focus much more on the people and physical act instead. Perhaps a site is needed to host videos that fit midway between, but I cannot think where.
Social media is involved as well, with plenty of people maintaining dedicated Twitter and Facebook accounts for their involvement in the community, posting images and videos and stories and discussing their shared interest with friends. Facebook hosts a large number of Looner groups and a smaller number dedicated to other inflatable toys, though it seems there more so than elsewhere the popper/non-popper divide is still a major issue. And of course, there is still FurAffinity, for various reasons it seems there is a substantial overlap between the furry and inflatable communities, to the extent that a lot of inflatable fan non-furs are creating FA accounts to access the large body of artwork and stories hosted there. Though there is the ongoing issue of content being removed from the site when it deviates too far from the original target market, and despite the site's infamous reputation for hosting the worst of adult content, any more than slightly suggestive photography is banned. Though, to be fair, photographs of people riding inflatable toys is not the site's main reason for existing.
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