The history of Bigfootery, as opposed to that of the phenomena itself can serve as a primer for the political and volatile world that newbies can otherwise find themselves in. Of course in the beginning you had Native American folklore of the creature, then some interesting stories from pioneer days and a little later, but organized research begins with the likes of the John green so we'll start there, but the focus on this writing is the recent history of online bigfootery.
Old Timer era: Our story begins in the PGF era with the originals like John Green and Renee Dahinden and those who paved the way for the rest of us.
The BFRO era: Modern footery likely begins with the BFRO which seems to have begun in 1995, and has had expeditions during that time in just about every state where there's reputed activity. In some ways the BFRO serves as the orginating spot of other groups as time went on. The reason stems seemingly from the leadership, which revolves around the sole leader of the group, and the rumor has always been that it's his way or the highway and that is what led to the first schism in which many curators left the group for greener pastures. One of the byproducts of the schism was the AIR, or Alliance of Independent researchers, which is in fact a precursor to the present AIBR.
The AIR ended up being ill fated as the group itself underwent an apparent schism into two factions, one the group that would form the AIBR under the Strains, the founder and the former Chief Admin of the Bigforums and some others, and the other a circle of folks whom would form the nucleus of the SRI or Sasquatch Research Iniative under a group "affectionly" known as the Jimites an dknown for having a rather elitist attitude. I suppose I would call this the era of the Research Group as it saw the rise of the AIBR, the Rise and fall of the SRI, the rise of NESRA, the MABRC, and the rise and fall of and rebirth of the ABS, among others.
It's during this era that it seemed everyone and their mother had a blogtalk radio show, some still do and the regional groups got out there and actually did field work. The AIBR underwent a mini schism of it own, the SRI more or less died on the vine, in my opinion due to the negligence and mistreatment of much of it's non "inner circle" members, and it all semmed to culminate in the Georgia Hoax of 2008. There were other other events also, but the big one was the claim by two yocals from georgia and Tom Biscardi, to the point that they even had a National Press Conference. In the end, it was a hoax, and if you have one lesson from bigfootery history, if Biscardi shows up, run, don't walk away.
In the fallout of this era, the beginnings of the end for the Bigfoot Forums began in my opinion, many took on a lynch mob mentality after that wnating blood after the hoax. The other large event that occured, was the Michigan Recording Project, the ongoing efforts of those Jimites eralier mentioned. It is my opinion, given their elitist attitude that they assumed they would recieve a good reaction to their evidence, The fallout of this fiasco is more complicated than that, it has a few factors.
1) The MRP guys themselves were too generous with information, they are indirectly responsible for outting their own site.
2) The treatment they had given others on the Bigfoot Forums had created more than a few vendettas and this also played a healthy role.
3) Rumor has it one of the guests to this spot, known as Drewbot lied to them as well. But multiple people have come forth claiming evidence that the Jimites were in fact hoaxed. They refuse to consider that.
Their site was outted due their generosity and the efforts of a member of the TBRC and one in the ABS, leading to lies from the MRP, one person screamed bloody murder that the site was outted while another claimed it wasn't because the map had been altered enough to conceal the real location. Obviously it can't be both. Claims were made that the area was heavily forested when the greater truth is that it is rurla farming type land ith some woods.
In the end, you had an outting, rumors of them being hoaxed, vendettas coming back, and their own embellishments that led the group to take their ball and go home once the questions got hard. to this day this group seems somewat isolated and bitter over the situation. One can't comepletely blame them but can't overlook they bear a good deal of the blame as well.
Shortly after this, one Cheif admin of the BFF stepped down and another was named, a Jimite who wasted little time swearing in most of her cronies as moderators. It had long been my suspicion that this group wanted to run the show, a failed restructure attempt in the BFRO, a failed coup in the AIBR of it's Board of Directors, and the effort to create a unified reportings Database that they would control all lead me to that suspicion. But with them in charge of the BFF after all that time, the First Bigfoot forums was taken back by the roiginal founder, and was going to be shut down.
Instead a deal was brokered where upon the BFF would come under the control of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, and basically starting over under completely new management. With the old one dead, I am left wondering if in fcat it should have stayed that way, but that's me. Since then, most folks have ried giving the new BFF a fair chance, but some things are, in my opinion hurting it, a lack of knowing whose really in charge, in my own opinion, an active obsession with the Patterson-Gimlin film and some other things, but that brings us to about the present. The lessons to be learnd here are that online bigfootery canbe treacherous at times, and that is why the main focus of any would be researcher should be on the Research itself, be it armchair, field or both. The internet stuff is mainly bullshit and that isn't likely to change anytime soon.