What is the backstory of Friday Night Forking?

Sorry if this has been asked already but I can't find this information anywhere.

In the first episode of FNF, people in the chat were already referencing the show's memes before the show even started, and I think the episode also featured some fan art. So this means FNF was already a thing before it became associated with Giant Bomb, right? How did it start and how long was it going on before Giant Bomb got involved? I tried looking at The Windbag's Twitch page for some clues, but I'm not super familiar with how Twitch works so I couldn't really find anything informative. How exactly did FNF come to be?

@funkyverb: I don't have too many answers to your questions since I was only just introduced to his streams via giant bomb. But based on his twitch, it looks like he uploaded his first channel trailer 6 months ago but that already has footage from his streams so it must have been earlier than that.

Okay upon further research, he started posting on his Instagram screens from early streams in 2020. So he's been at it for a while. But it seems like his viewers count has ballooned out of the tens range into the hundreds more recently.

@funkyverb: I doubt there is an exhaustive summary out there.

I was mildly curious and did a bit of Googling. To try to answer your questions:

• FNF seems to have existed in one form or another for 2 years-ish, from my skimming of Henry's Twitter
• It sounds like a viewer/acquaintance of Dan's randomly suggested the_Windbag's Twitch stream to Dan in recent months, and eventually GB was able to feature FNF (this was said on the recent Voicemail Dumptruck)
• His Twitter and Instagram are mostly promoting the Twitch livestream, and the Discord is there for the community to joke around and be a community. If there's some massive Google doc that summarizes all the storylines so far, I didn't see it anywhere. Also I hesitate to even say "storylines." Narrative continuity, I suppose.

• As for the overall origin, I couldn't tell you. I gather that Henry's background is as an actor/comedian. I'd imagine FNF is a creative project, and he has other gigs that are paying the bills. That's all I got.

Maybe long term fans in his Twitch chat/Discord server would know more, but I think you're fine to just watch it as-is. I appreciate that the chatters on his streams are pretty bought-in to the concept and know how to roll with it, and know the running jokes quite well.

Yeah I didn't worry too much about what happened before it was spotlighted on GB. But I've been watching all the Twitch streams since then.

His name and some of his old work is out there and publicly available. Get to googling if you're curious. I don't want to ruin the mystery too much.

He's a stage and occasional film and tv actor who has been making silly online videos for the past decade. FNF is a natural evolution of a lot of his earlier work.

@bisonhero: thanks for the summary!

Here's an older article covering his slightly more serious work:
https://hudsonvalley.org/article/five-minutes-with-actor-henry-vick/

And linked-in profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-vick-01439413/

Friday Night Forking is a tradition that began at the University of Texas at Austin. Every Friday night, students would gather in the dining hall and enjoy a delicious meal together. But the real fun began when dessert arrived - students would get to choose their own toppings for their ice cream sundae, and then they would use giant forks to mix and eat their sundaes.

The tradition has continued on even after the students graduated from UT Austin, and it's now a popular activity for people all over the world. Whether you're gathering with friends or family, there's nothing more enjoyable than an ice cream sundae with all your favorite toppings!