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So Herbiceps has become something similar to "Playboy" within the world of female muscle (they have a freakin' mansion!). At this point they've been around for 20+ years and there are lots of stories to be told. This is the thread to ask about or answer questions related to the history of Herbiceps.
Something I've always wondered... who founded HB? Was it a joint venture by the original photographers at the time, or someone else?
Also, and I'm sure I'm not the only one... I've always been intrigued by Muscle Mansion. Does HB actually own that property? I'm sure there were some great parties there over the years, and would love to hear about them!
Looking forward to hearing from Tre on this, but anyone is welcome to chime in if you have any knowledge to share or other questions.
Thanks for the vine - I will attempt to provide clarity where I can.
To clear up one thing right away, I’m not entirely sure how that rumor got started, but there is no mansion with a permanent address.😅 Our idea for “Muscle Mansion” was simply to lease a nice place for a week and do a bunch of shoots in a single location. We did this from 2004-2015 and I think Sean may have run one in 2016. The first edition was actually in a bangin’ suite at the Mirage in 2003, and notable shoots included Elena Siple and Colette Nelson.
From 2008-2010, Muscle Mansion was sponsored by a consortium from Unreal Muscle, the primary branch of which later became Wings of Strength.
HerBiceps was originally created by Mike Eckstut in a hosting/billing/security partnership with Diana the Valkyrie (DtV) in 2002. I had teamed up with Conor from FitSights and done a little site called FitSquad a year prior, but for a number of reasons, we had to shut down. HB started gaining momentum and Mike told me I should definitely start a site, so I teamed up with DtV as well to start FemFlex in early 2003.
Mike and I teamed up to create HBC in 2005, teamed up later on now-defunct Team HerBiceps, and then in 2015, we decided to merge our companies, including all site properties and daily operations. We completed development of our own platform in 2019 and made the switch from DtV that summer.
Mike continues to lead in setting our guiding vision today.
I wish you luck finding this info. Since the reboot alot of info and content has been scrapped. Real shame.
We’ve still got almost all the content we ever produced and a lot of older shoots currently live on the new platform with more being added all the time. I’m looking at the publishing schedule for the next 30 days and it looks like there’s content from as far back as 2009, and I know that I’ve seen material from 2010-2015 going up over the past month or so.
Back in the days of Unreal Muscle, I got an invitation to check out the mansion during the Olympia weekend. I couldn’t go due to being bum-ass poor. I regret not being able to go, it would have been fun to grab a drink with Tre and co. At least I met him, Annie, and James Cook at the O a few years ago.
Very nice to have met you!
I'm pretty certain the 2008 MM was our most highly-visited with respect to fans.
I think Tre had explained it somewhere on the site, but Mike Eckstut was the/a Herbiceps founder. Funny enough, he's from my neck of the woods in NJ. I believe it started in 2003? Around the same time Femflex(Tre) and Boomerflex launched, and later HerLegs which didn't really catch on.
I don't know many specifics about the founding. I was unfortunately a bit too young at the time to go around to all the shows in the Tri-State area (the NY Muscle Club of course being one of the things that happened while I was in high school).
I actually emailed Mike back in 2007 before going to college out in California asking if he needed/wanted anyone on the ground in LA to shoot, though it was contingent on me actually going up to women and asking them if they would be interested in shooting for HerBiceps. At the time Instagram wasn't around, and Facebook wasn't nearly what it is now so it was definitely a gamble, especially on campus.
I believe it was 2006 or 2007 that HBC launched, and I believe they already had their property in Vegas at the time where they had been shooting with Lyndsay Dejager and Lindsay Cope (and others) and Mike/Tre had already joined forces.
Regarding the site, wasn't it DTV that was helping host some sites at the time? Including HB, FF, Boomerflex, (FemForteFan's art site STILL works off this model), Cindy Phillip's site for a while, Wendy Lindquist's site (which was shockingly updated until 2020).
There were a TON of sites too. Maybe someone remembers that old portal site that wasn't DTV, it was a lot of links to geocities pages, and then there was AMG, the old WPW.com still offering hardcopy longform videos, Femsport (which was actually my gateway drug, and they hosted some competitions WAY back in the day with Brooke Ence and a woman I would end up doing Crossfit with almost a decade later), plus links to all those all photo aggregation yahoo sites. But no one was really doing a lot of original content, or doing it very well. To me, the baton was passed from WPW to HB in this way.
Good recall!
I know you wanted to do a thread about HB, but it's impossible to overstate how key the DtV site - especially the chatroom - was to the female muscle fan landscape during the 00's, which of course heavily influenced the 2010s as well. There was Muscles of Deekay and Andy's Muscle Goddesses, then we had the emergence of FTvideo and Awefilms in the digital space, and the transition of Builtmore from VHS-only to web delivery. There were others, of course - not the least of which was WPW - but I just want to offer a general overview for the interested here.
At a minimum, HB, FF, Boomerflex, HDP, WoS, FemSport (wow, there's a blast from the past!), TomNine, TK Femuscle, and FitSquad were all started by people from DtV chat, though TK had his site before, I think. Other chatters included Cedric (husband of Marilyn, Dark Princess), Troy Envall (husband of IFBB pro, Christine), and Amanda Doherty.
FemSport.ca still exists today, which is crazy when you think about where we were back in 2000. Initially, FemSport.com was started by Anthony, Mike, and myself, and that whole spring/summer is an adventure course all its own that you guys would not believe. We had a grand master plan that could have worked, but the "anti-internet" whisper campaign was in full effect. So, we pivoted, with Mike and Anthony continuing their studies, and I pitched DtV on the FemSport (then FemSport Valkyrie Fest) competition, which she she sponsored for the next few years. The first one was held in Maryland with a lot of support from the DtV family, then moved out to Vancouver in 2001 and has been there since. I partnered with JP Erickson in 2001 and after a few years of trying, we couldn't make this thing profitable, so we sold the company to Nancy Lockington and she's grown it into something women all over Canada talk about.
The New York Muscle Club deserves a thread - or at least a post all its own....
The first time herbiceps.com appears on archive.org is on 24 May 2002.
Wow - great find!
In the days before HerBiceps, the New York Muscle Club was started by Mike and Boomer. DtV was an early cash sponsor, and I remember FTV and Awefilms being swag sponsors in the early days, too. James and Steve each donated videos and show attendees got a free video. The shows were held in a small, box theaters in Manhattan, and during their run, had some awesome women on stage. There may have ever been some fans invited to the stage for dances or lift & carry. I attended a few, but by then, I was already living out west, so I couldn't go all the time. At some point, Mike transitioned away to devote more time to the upstart HB and Boomer took over the NYMC operation until it closed.
Many thanks, Tré, for all of that great information and nostalgia! All of us who are female muscle fans owe a debt of gratitude to you, Mike, and DtV for providing us with some terrific resources throughout the last few decades. I can only imagine some of the challenges you had back in those early days with slow internet platforms and computers, etc. Egads, you may even have had to shoot film! Anyway, I am glad you guys persevered and brought us some fine content. Take care. 😃
We’ve still got almost all the content we ever produced and a lot of older shoots currently live on the new platform with more being added all the time. I’m looking at the publishing schedule for the next 30 days and it looks like there’s content from as far back as 2009, and I know that I’ve seen material from 2010-2015 going up over the past month or so.
The new layout is awfully confusing, mixing old stuff with new, dozens of categories with overlapping content. There is a membership, but then there are still videos you can't access as a member unless you pay extra. It is not appealing at all.
Wasn't the HerBiceps URL originally owned by some French dude? He would collect pictures and screencaps.
Wasn't the HerBiceps URL originally owned by some French dude? He would collect pictures and screencaps.
You mean this guy? his old site is still up(from 2004!) https://frenchman.pagesperso-orange.fr/index.html
You mean this guy? his old site is till up(from 2004!) https://frenchman.pagesperso-orange.fr/index.html
Good lord, that's the one.
Many thanks, Tré, for all of that great information and nostalgia! All of us who are female muscle fans owe a debt of gratitude to you, Mike, and DtV for providing us with some terrific resources throughout the last few decades. I can only imagine some of the challenges you had back in those early days with slow internet platforms and computers, etc. Egads, you may even have had to shoot film! Anyway, I am glad you guys persevered and brought us some fine content. Take care. 😃
No debts owed at all, my friend, though I/we do appreciate the kind sentiment. For us, the reward is the continued support we receive going into our third decade of operations knowing that so many current customers have been with us since Day One. Hell, not too long ago, I received an email from someone who said he remembered my old Geocities site. We haven't always gotten it right, but that kind of loyalty is an indication to us that people enjoy our products and like the value they get.
Yes, we did use film in the earliest days barely usable stuff for DtV, and then when the Sony Mavica came out, everything changed as we realized we could produce significantly more and better content in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost. Even without the buy-in of the models, that was still the primary driver. Many of the then-OGs clinging to a film and print legacy refused to acknowledge, let alone adapt to the notion that the world was moving digital. Technology and progress can be slowed, but when problems are being solved, they can never be defeated.
The early days were tough, but I'm glad we had the energy to see it through. There's no way I could do the same today. lol
My bad!
We had the right idea, but horrible execution.
I blame y’all on my 7th grade suspension from the school comp network 😂😂
Yeah the quick switch to digital was key. My uncle was a Film photographer and he saw the promise of digital and switched immediately. I imagine that the old heads would’ve been doing very well through now if they also had made the switch faster
One thing I like about HerBiceps is the free membership. It makes this type of content more accessible, compared to other sites. What made you guys decide to do that?
Iirc, Mike may have acquired armfan.com...
Maybe that's the one. Some brand name URL was bought from a previous party producing content.
I blame y’all on my 7th grade suspension from the school comp network 😂😂
Yeah the quick switch to digital was key. My uncle was a Film photographer and he saw the promise of digital and switched immediately. I imagine that the old heads would’ve been doing very well through now if they also had made the switch faster
I feel your pain. After discovering "Marble Madness" and "Earl Weaver Baseball" for the Amiga, I was pretty much no more good. There was also some adventure game we played, "Bard's Tale", if I recall correctly. My grades went to shit.
One of the things that was happening in the mid-90s was that everyone was trying to figure this thing out. True story, I accidentally stumbled onto the www at work one day. I was working in Nursing Admin at a military hospital at the time and to this day, I believe I merely clicked a little globe icon or something on the desktop of the work computer and my world was forever changed. Here's to Bianca's Smut Shack...
It was on that same computer where Mike and I first crossed paths via the Femuscle Mailing List, which I believe may have originated at another military base.
One thing I like about HerBiceps is the free membership. It makes this type of content more accessible, compared to other sites. What made you guys decide to do that?
Glad to hear that, thanks for the feedback. We decided very early in the development process that we wanted everyone to have access to the club, even if they're not VIPs. A part of our guiding philosophy, commerce-wise, is to meet people where they're at. Just as we've had some customers for 20+ years, we've also had people who have become customers after 5 to 10+ years of being fans. And let's not overlook the fact that there's so much free content out there in a world ruled by IG. We wanted to play, too. We hope that all the Free members will eventually become customers, but if they don't, that's totally OK - we feel good about being able to share more than just our YouTube promos.
There were several sites that grown out of DTV (dianathevalkyrie.com), collegeflex, boomerflex, femflex, herbiceps, and probably others I don't remember.
The actual OG forum for me was armfan.com, that was around since the 90s (later also hosted by DTV), but was abruptly shut down after someone doxxed the guy running the site.