Not to **108**-**108** over anniversaries, but I personally don't pay them much mind. My current account here started on June 07, 2001, though like so many old timers, I had a prior account that I opened when the forum started 4-5 years earlier (the posts and user accounts for that forum were all lost in the big backup/restore fustercluck in '01, which should NOT be confused with the later backup/restore snafu that cost us a year-plus worth of image attachments after that (in '09?)).
Hey that makes
Kithara and Me old timers too! As we have mentioned a few other times we have both been here from the officially recognized "start" of the BEA
- June 22nd, 1997. * So, come the first of summer 2013 that makes 16 years!
Palomine thanks for indirectly answering or confirming the two major forum snafus:
The 2001 massive back-up / restore FAIL which took out 99% ~ of the 'Golden Era' of the BEA. Sometimes referred to as the "before times".
The 2009 mini back-up / restore / transfer WTF ~~ which wiped out around a year of attachments and took down or 'broke' some accounts.
There have been a least 2 or possibly 3 disruptive
Hack Attacks over the years, but not until the 2000's.
* The BEA "existed" prior to that date but it is
nearly universally agreed that the
June 22nd 1997 date is the closest thing to when the BEA took on the look, feel, scope, layout, re-launch, etc. that anyone would recognize as the BEA. Prior to that date it much more resembled a BBS / or early link / simple hub site. Subsequent forum-wide anniversary and special events have all been measured from that date.
~ This was a very significant event, effectively deleting the entire BEA forum. The fact that it reformed so well is a testament to the cohesive and surprisingly supportive nature of the forum members, mods and even the ever elusive Owner (at the time). What few items are still around from the "before time" were pulled from off-site personal back-ups. It is sad, because there was some great content from those early years that just from a historical basis give clues to why the BEA is such a unique adult fetish site.
~~ You will still come across remnant debris form this most recent event, but you have to dig. Odd gaps, missing image attachments, abrupt log-in name shifts from obviously the same person. It did not mess everyone up (appeared to like the newer accounts at the time) but it did seem to attack nearly every image as the paths were broken at the root.
Amongst the more paranoid at the time, there was a rumor that the 2001 event was actually a smoke screen or bungled hack to hide or remove some user(s) account participation and/or information on the BEA as a surgical removal of all that content would have been obvious and or time consuming making it easy to determine who it was. We lived through it and at the time that just does not feel like what happened.Other parallel rumors included:It was content or participation of someone(s) that were moving into a more public or political career and this was housekeeping.
It was due to a series of posts too numerous to simply delete that had revealed sensitive information, personal data or some such thing.
It was a hack attack gone wrong, or worse a botched repair from a hack attack cover-up that would have shown a lack of BEA security.
and the one that I still think is great...
There were just too many boobs.
When I look at my oldest archives I still get a smile from all the cool forum members and content from the pre-2001 times. Mod edit: thanks Nim for that cogent timeline/history. 
I'd just like to add two more cents:
Though I might not have been privy to the info, I strongly doubt that the 2001 loss of the entire forum (when we started over w/zero posts) was an intentional conspiracy to further some alternate agenda (political, housekeeping, etc...).
AFAIK, no significant amount of data (posts, attachments, anything) has ever been lost directly due to a hack attack. BOTH of the major data losses were due to human error on the part of BEA admins. Yes, the second one (the '09 loss of 18 months' worth of forum attachments) happened while the admins were cleaning up after a big hack, the pictures weren't lost due to the hacker's actions himself. -Palomine