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Rina-chan
I did all the female voices for Castle Crashers! Check the favorites for flash I was in, and suzumiya-haruhi.net for my voice demos. *Yes, I played Meryl in Metal Gear Awesome.* Email me at DizzyAngelXX@gmail.c om if you need a female voice.

Age 36, Female

voice actress

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Flash artists, I need your help!

Posted by Rina-chan - May 28th, 2008


Lately, some of my Newgrounds buddies and I have noticed an interesting and slightly disturbing trend within the Flash community: a fierce division between two types of artists and their fans.

On one hand, we have Flash artists who produce random, often quickly animated shorts that are a parody of a videogame or movie. Such videos often end up becoming viral, getting hordes of 5s, portal awards, and plenty of fans for the artists, who may or may not have expected their projects to be so well received. Some may write specifically to target the Newgrounds audience while others just make whatever they find funny.

On the other hand, we have artists who spend several months to a year (or more) working on a project, often original, and find that while it may be featured on the front page for as long as the first type of submissions, their work tends to get overlooked. As a result, they may become resentful of artists who churn something out in less than a month and get portal awards and/or lots more views. They believe that the Newgrounds system should award quality and originality and that the average viewer is too focused on whatever is familiar or makes them laugh. However, they may have a hard time marketing their work to another crowd (such as YouTube, where because there are so many videos, it can be much harder to get one's work recognized).

Lately, a sort of rivalry has sprung between the two sides, with fans of each type of artist attacking each other through forums, review spaces, blogs, and even other Flash movies.

Newgrounds community, I want YOUR take on this for a special episode of the podcast. From both "sides" or those who believe that there are no sides at all. From a variety of artists, both well known and not as well known. It is important to note that I am going to do my absolute best to make this podcast episode a non-biased, documentary-style look at this phenomenon, which is why I want input from a variety of artists.

So if you consider yourself to be currently active in the Newgrounds community (preferrably as an animator, but exceptions will be made for community members who contribute in other ways), I want to hear your take on this. You must send in an audio file (mp3 preferred) as this is an audio podcast. Do NOT post your responses/opinions here; they will not be included. Please use the following questions as a guide for your response:

+ Start off with your name and/or NG username along with a VERY BRIEF summary of your involvement in the community (example: name of a couple of your most recognized movies). This is just a short introduction so everyone listening will know who you are.

+ When viewing submissions by other artists, how essential is the quality of the art/animation to your enjoyment of the flash? How about the humor? Do you think that in general, a flash needs to be funny in order to gain a large following?

+ Do you think that, in general, the voting system is a fair assessment of the quality of a Flash? (For instance, if a flash is based off a game or movie, the people who automatically vote zero tend to even out the amount of fans who will five it?)

+ What are the factors that influence the popularity of a Flash artist? Is it important to you that your work and/or you as an artist are well received in the Flash community? Why or why not?

+ Do you find you receive a large amount of criticism from a certain type of viewers in general? What is the biggest criticism they tend to give you?

+ What is your take on the rivalry mentioned above? Discuss your opinions and the reasons behind them. Please feel free to draw on your own experiences to support your views.

+ How involved are you in the critiquing aspect of the community? For instance, are you involved in Flash-related forums where discussion or debate on this subject tends to occur? Have you ever been involved in a "flame war" over your work or that of another artist you appreciate?

+ What do you think is the best solution to the current problem? Or do you think Newgrounds should stay the way it is and become "survival of the fittest"?

RULES. Read before you send!
+ You may reference specific Flash artists for examples but no abusive talk or insults aimed at specific Flash artists will be allowed. For example, you may say "I personally don't enjoy RandomNewgrounder's work because it seems to lack effort yet gets plenty of awards" but NOT something like "RandomNewgrounder is an unoriginal faggot". If the main point of your submission seems to be to take jabs at other artists (regardless of which "side" they seem to be on), your submission will probably not be used.
+ NO trolling/joke entries... it's simply a waste of both your time and mine.
+ In general, the time limit is pretty open...I will cut and paste quite a bit to fit the format of this edition of the show. But as a general rule, keep it under ten minutes total.
+ Please record in mp3 format in as clear, high quality audio as possible. If you absolutely cannot do mp3, I will accept wavs.

Email your file(s) to midori.ninja@gmail.com no later than Sunday, June 8.


Comments

Newgrounds really is getting enough traffic for a new view on artist's work.
The first step to solving this problem would be to have a heavier moderation, of course.
However, I believe a lot of the rivalry can be shoved off to the side by a new type of moderation: Moderator's Categorization
Flashes could be categorized by meek moderators, where the flash would be rated normally by the Latest Submissions list, but later rated amongst it's own genre. This would keep the serious animations flowing in the system, while the others could go "unclassified" and be rated amongst each-other.

Please feel free to submit an audio file of your opinions if you would like them included on the show~

SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENT!

i think i will send something, i am not an artist, but i am pretty much active on the newgrounds community and have seen many of these so called 'awsome' styled flash movies, as well as original good looking flash.

I might do something but probably not because most people on NG probably hate me.

Controversy makes it all the more interesting!

Uhh, I might do something!

These problems have always existed, mainly back in the days of foamy and illwillpress, but then it got to a point where the "I hate overrated artists" movies were becoming more overrated than the people they flamed, thus destroying the entire purpose.

Because NGs is an open community, whatever appeals to the mass viewer will always win, a while ago groups such as the NG army, Lock Legion and Star Syndicate used their massive voting powers to balance this flaw. But there is no real way to fix it. Overrated crappy VG reference movies will always be overrated, and not that theres anything bad with them, I find some are pretty funny. Its just the way it is with NGs being an open community, and taking that away would ruin the site.

The solution?

Join a club and get everyone to mass 5 your movies if you want them to win awards.

Psssshhh whatever, no one cares about the game artists D:

Oh man, this episode is gonna be awesome, I cant wait. I'd totally do something if I actually had some real flashes on Newgrounds, and wasn't so busy at the moment. Oh well, this is sure to be a good episode, I love this podcast. When is the episode going to be up? Also, while i'm here, why isn't the podcast on iTunes? I'd really like to be able to subscribe to it so it's with all my other podcasts.

Check the post before this; it explains how to subscribe on iTunes ^^

I always thought that Newgrounds needed some kind of documentary but I didn't think I had what it takes so I always hoped for someone to make one. First interviews and now this? Thumbs up.

About the post, I would send something, but, as you probably noticed from my name, I'm not known so what's the point.

Looking forward to this.

brilliant idea

TheSwain has definetely fell victim to this. I feel the same way you do, but however. I'm not currently in possession of a microphone so I cannot submit. So as a strong supporter of this i'll "jot" down my thoughts. Somehow I feel this will never shine light in this discussion.

To be honest, whenever I get the nightly Newgrounds email I quickly skim through the top 5 and see if the title will catch my attention. (TOM IF YOU EVER READ THIS) I suggest you put the small 56x56 picture teaser of the movies into the email as you do on the front page. I'm being straight up with you here, I never come here to watch a movie called "Mastermind 3" since I dont have a clue what it is. (I've watched the first 2 beforehand but that was just as an example). However, if there's a cartoon called "Nin10Doh", I'm strung right into it since it's related to video games. Now the title gave it away didn't it? If there was a preview picture in the nightly emails you send a lot of people will be driven into other flash movies. All i'm saying to you is to sort of...step it up on the advertising.

Now, Rina. I was shocked that Brawl Taunts was even put on the front page. But yeah, it was submitted by Chris. Now I don't know if you agree with me on this point but that was made within 3 days of work. Yeah, it was incredibly funny. (Oh shit, i'm being hypocritical here) but the animation closed the case on the fast paced work you guys put into it.

Even though this probably wont matter to you since this isn't an .mp3 but bear with me here. These words may be valuable.

I Would like to add my two cents but I'm more or less just a viewer not really doing anything to help out newgrounds. BUt hell why not said what I think... maybe someone read it.

When it comes to this little "pissing match" as I call it there will always be people bitching about some one get awards when there is almost no work placed in to the flash. NO matter what happens to will happen here or in the real world. Human just can't accept that other maybe better then their are and the most often want to wine about to call it garbage or trash or it looks like a two year old drew it. By better I mean in drawing style or comdey style. Hell I come to this site to see something funny. But there are a few flashes I had seen that I loved due to the art style. Valhalla Knights was done well and was purely made by the user Jerry ,more commonly known was Granfaloon. The art was breath taking and it left me wanting more of that great art. The you have the well know Metal Gear Awesome 1 and 2 done by none other then Egoraptor. I watch the flash and base them off what I think of the flash... then vote. I never let what the flash is based off because most things I like have crap for flashes. If only if other did this then this pissing match would never had happened.

Sorry but I had to get that out there to see if any one reads and starts to think different. Odd are they will not but hey.... can't hurt can it?

This issue isn't something you 'noticed' lately. It's been a quite strong issue for a very long time. It just so happens you experienced the negative backlash of it when you released Brawl Taunts and are feeling butthurt. Now your fanning it's flame and making it an even bigger issue. Make what you want to make, and accept that people have freedom of speech on this site and they can critise it however they like within reasonable extremes. I'm sure critics come off alot stronger amid so many reviews of 'LOL funny but Sonic is cool ohwell 10!'.

Please don't accuse me of things like that.
What sparked this idea has actually nothing to do with anything I'm involved in, it was inspired by a certain issue that arose over at another forum regarding things on Newgrounds.
Believe it or not, this project is not going to take any "sides", it's just going to show what's going on.
I don't know why you feel this need to constantly flame me but I'm getting rather tired of it.

i agree

(some generic metal gear awesome quote)

I find this whole situation, for lack of a better use of words, a load of bollocks. Newgrounds is a conjoined community, where everyone is free to upload their works and if they get blammed, it's not an excuse to be negative, it just means that you'll have to work harder on that project. Keep at it until it gets accepted. I can't seem to think why our community can be serperated over something as stupid as this.

I may not have any submissions, but I would really like to take part in this. Would that be possible?

Sure, send something in.

I know I would be fucking pissed if I worked on something for a year, and it has only a small number of views compared to something that was done in two days with a higher score and a million views.

why do people even care anymore? its never going to change. you can hope and hope and hope. but it will never change. nothing ever changes around here.

You get a lot of shitty comments

I guess this isn't helping matters at all really

Who cares...? You're trying to change what people like and find interesting. Let me take the absurdity of what you said and let me magnify it so the flaw in what you're trying to do is more easily seen.

Let's say you think Sex shouldn't sell as well as it does. People shouldn't buy products on it because it has a cute scantily clad woman on the box cover. You want to try to change the way people think so Sex no longer sells. The intent is identical with using a different bigger more blatant example but the intent is the exact same. It's c-r-a-z-y. The world isn't fair with people liking Metal Gear spoofs that become viral over people that take massive amount of time to create an all original frame by frame 1 year animation. People will always have that tendancy...

I'll admit to only reading about 50 or 60% of your blog before posting this because it's 4:11 AM and I need some sleep but yeah...

I'm not taking a side here. I'm asking people to send in their opinions.

Heck, I just helped make a video game parody that got absurdly popular XD

hehehe this should end up interesting can't wait to see how it comes out

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