Ti-Ger is the name of the tiger cartoon character you see all over this website. He represents our stuttering.
Notice how happy, lovable and approachable he is? That’s because there’s noting wrong with our stuttering. Stuttering is not our fault and we should never feel that we have to apologize for it.
You have probably also noticed the mischievous look in Ti-Ger’s eyes. Like stuttering, he loves to pounce on you when you try to hide your stuttering.
How did Ti-Ger come to be?
In 1970, Fellow stutterer, Joseph Sheehan created the brilliant Iceberg Analogy of Stuttering which is still used today.
One sunny day, fellow stutterer Greg went to the zoo to play with the baby tigers. He had a blast. Greg noticed that whenever he turned his back on a baby tiger, the baby tiger reached for Greg’s hind quarters and tried to tackle him. Thus, the Ti-ger Analogy was born. Greg first talked about it on his podcast (listen or read the transcript).
A Ti-Ger is drawn
Danny (full name Daniele),  who also stutters and put this site together, was inspired to create a tiger character (which you see all over this website).
Danny and Greg shared the Ti-ger Analogy with their stuttering friends on Twitter. A fad started among their friends of keeping a tiger plush toy at work.
Meanwhile, a name was needed for the cartoon tiger so Danny crowdsourced the name on Twitter. Ti-Ger was chosen for the name. It’s written to imply a stutter (a block, actually).  Danny then created a Twitter avatar of Ti-Ger for a fellow stutterer (and then made a button out of it) and a smiley! (:o]
Ti-Ger.org is born
Ti-Ger.org was then registered as a domain name while Greg started spelling ‘tiger’ as ‘ti-ger’ on his blog in reference to not letting your stuttering take control of your life. Ti-Ger.org was launched.
Remember the plush toys mentioned above? Heather created a blog on her Ti-Ger! Check it out at The Adventures of an Apprentice Met Tech Ti-Ger
A discussion about the analogy took place on a German stuttering forum including members choosing a different animal to represent their stuttering. The analogy is flexible! One member knitted a cute Ti-Ger mascot for herself.
A University professor said “What an awesome website! This is how it should be rather than having ‘experts’ try to change you.”
Tell us your ti-ger related story and we will add it to this timeline!
