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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

Dream Land 64

Joined on 10/10/04

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THE NEWGROUNDS WAR - DOCUMENTARY

Posted by Rina-chan - October 6th, 2008


THE NEWGROUNDS WAR
by Rina-chan

You can download via Mediafire by clicking the above link, or for a direct, no-BS download of the mp3 itself, just click here. This upload is courtesy of rtil; please be considerate of his bandwidth by right clicking and choosing "save target as".
______________________

Clocking in at just under one hour long, it's finally done. I know the feuding has calmed down a bit since the time I called for submissions, but the issue is still relevant and probably always will be.

To give some background: At the beginning of the summer, I held an open call for audio submissions from any and all flash artists who had something to say about the rivalry between artists who spend time making high quality original submissions and artists who make quickly animated video game parodies. I gathered submissions from both groups and put everything together, divided into addressing the following issues:

+ What are the main factors which influence the popularity of a Flash submission?
+ Do you think the Newgrounds voting system is a fair assessment of the quality of a Flash, and why or why not?
+ What is your take on the feud and the reason it exists (or doesn't exist)?
+ Is there a solution?

Yes, it's long. I edited and cut as much as I could, but it's still nearly an hour, and I apologize. However, I suggest listening to it while doing something else like animating, studying, working, or even just stick it on your ipod for the next time you have a long commute. There's a lot of stuff in here.

BIG THANKS to the following artists for submitting:
The-Swain
Kirbopher
Billy Monks/MrChocobo
Aeonstars
Jimtopia
Elder99
Kenkaku
Weird0
RPGsrok
HadoukenDude
Rtil
Squeef/50vmp
CZ-Backlash
Jared Johnson
RabidSquirrelStudios
YungJazz
DonaldM
Gerkinman
SpedsOnAPlane
Omegafinal
Kliff
Anigen

All the background music was composed by my good friends DoctorAttitude and Nubbinownz and used with permission. You can find all these awesome songs for download at their audio portal pages! (The song at 40:20 was originally by Father of Death; Nubbinownz added the drums as part of a contest entry.)

Disclaimer for conspiracy theorists: This is intended to be an unbiased look at the current situation, which is why everyone who sent something in got their submission heard. I did not submit my own opinion nor will I state it here because 1) I can see both sides of the issue and 2) I want the documentary to allow each group to see where the other is coming from and let the listener come to their own conclusion on the matter. No, I don't expect that this will change anything on Newgrounds, nor was that my intention---I just thought it was an interesting debate and wanted to document it.

Check back soon for a bonus Easter egg!


Comments

It was cool being mentioned a couple of times :]
The guy who mentioned me was right and made a good point about parody artists reacting to popularity, making another and another. Popularity goes to your head especially if you're like me and are tasting it for the first time.

Fortunately for him though, that doesn't always happen, because I decided popularity isn't enough if you stop enjoying it, and stopped making parodies. While I honestly think Indiada Jodes is much better than Irod Bad, I knew when I was making it that it'd get popular, and what kind of hack does that make me? They're fun once in a while, but if you continue to make them so similarly and consecutively you have no excuse. You just want to get more popular.

People who make parody flashes aren't the problem. It's the people who make a hundred identical sequels.

Hearing this kind of makes the internet sound like a big deal and it's hard to find it entertaining.
It's almost pathetic, really.

I still love you though, it's just how I viewed this documentary. :\

Fair enough, I mean it is an hour of people discussing Newgrounds politics.

these comments make me want to throw up

You know, just looking at all of these different posts really adds weight to what everyone said. It's true, the system isn't the problem, it's the fact that we're drawing in such a simplistic crowd that is the reason why there seems to be such a divide. One of the big problems I had with everyone's view, however, was the idea of seperating the front page or the submission area into parts for parodies and for original works. We have to look at music videos, for example, they can't really be seperated as easily since they involve copyright music, but they can be seen as original based on the actual animation. Thre are probably a bunch of other examples that could be applied that would end up leaving the submissions page cut into a million pages for each special little niches for every type of movie, but as of now I can't think of them.

Another thing that bugs me is people saying they can tell when someone has put a ton of work just by watching the movie. I have no skill for flash, plain and simple, though I have tried on more than one occaision. I could probably sit in front of my computer for a few months and at the end I would probably have something that would still be sub-par in the face of most things submitted to the portal. My point is that some people have an idea that they want to submit and they put a lot of time into it and still end up releasing something that looks like it was done in almost one week. Conversely, somebody with a lot of skill could probably fire something out in a few weeks and it would look absolutely brilliant, making people think it's his magnum opus or something.

Sadly I don't see a real answer to the problem, but I don't really see this as a problem and more as just life. Everything seems to devolve into a popularity contest no matter what you look at. The Hollywood example was extremely apt, but it could also include almost everything else, like popular books, television, and the like. It comes down to pleasing the audience and there isn't much room for individuality. At the same time, though, one of the big differences between palces like this and Youtube from the real world is the fact that there is almost no money riding on our movies, we're free to do as we please and press the boun dries of what's normal. Maybe not in a artistic sense since even Flash can only do so much, but in terms of storytelling or good taste, since we don't have anyone to answer to aside from ourselves. That's a double edged knife, however, since we can go way too far out of line with what is considered not only normal, but even tasteful or coherent.

I've gotten off on a bit of a tangent, but what i'm trying to say is that we aren't going to find our answers any time soon. I would like it if we could all jsut remeber this is just a website and this is all supposed to be for fun, but getting teenage kids to play nice is about as likely as making marshmallows rain from a sherbert-colored sky. Overall the entire thing was well put together and was trully unbiased, and I'm, glad I listened to this. Thanks to all those who were in this for giving me something to think about, and thank you, Rina-chan, for organizzing this and sending it out to the public.

You animators are so dramatic..
I've never met an Artist who deals in primarily games that I didn't like and get on with, but then I suppose I'm biased.

it was a great documentary. Some really good arguments.
it's all in the mind...

oh silly rtil :3, anyways, will give it a listen when I have time..

you're not just biased, the-exp, you label people. w2g!

If your panties could talk, what would they say to you? In this recording, you get to find out! Put on your prettiest pair of panties and get ready for a fairytale fantasy come to life! Become hypnotized to feel tiny (and horny) fairies who have magically taken residence inside your smooth panties.

They should call you ZekeySpammyLizard.

Heard the entire documentry. NG's War is pretty good.
I now realize how I don't even have a piece of the pie, am fairly lonly here and talk rarely to maybe 2 or 3 other actual artist, don't even have a small fanbase really, and have basically improved my skills but, gone absolutely know where.
HOWEVER! I come to the self-realization that I am the representation of those scum, the men amoung men who are looked down upon. I'm the Hunter S. Thompson, the epic stoner, the "dude" on NG.

Even though I wasn't involved at all in the NG war I do have a comment after listening.

"I'm quite happy what I represent and have confidence in system that I'll get my 15 minutes of fame when it comes - everyone gets thiers if they wait long enouph. From the eyes of a somewhat isolated and broken yet creative mind... the system like all systems in this system of systems we're all stuck in, will eventually break I believe - but, eventually fall back into place quite perfectly. I think everyone will be surprized at the results."

I'm about half way in and this is really interesting.

Hi Rina-chan,
How are you doin'? How's my favorite lab tech?

I'll gladly listen to your documentary as soon as I find some headphones. I just dropped my laptop and the speakers (among other things!) are dead :)

Great to hear from ya
JB

hey i just litnded to the docuementary and wanted to just say fuck rtil. maybe rtil woudl hage some more higher scores and get blamed less if he made somethin thatp eople care about like sonic or somethin. as if anone cares about some fuckin pretty drawings LOL

neywes maybe hell cathc the drift and make something that people will actualyl watch like SONIC or NARUTO or BELASH rather than progject shittown

PS FUCK METAL GERA FUNIES IT WASN"T FUNNY AT ALL AND ITM MADE FUN OF THE METAL GERS

haha whose alt is this?

Yeah, I listened to to the whole thing. Of course I agreed and disagreed, but I kept thinking to myself, If someone listened to this and had no Idea of any of these people, would they find this as a geeky rant or actually care what these people had to say?

I also believe that the idea expressed involving a separate zone exclusively for animators and musicians to give strong useful artistic advice, while allowing the submission to be viewed and commented by the general public as well is a good idea. (CZ-Backlash?)

You would then have "Reviews" and "Comments"
Reviews would allow you to see if you satisfied the Artistic community while the Comments permit you to see how the community loves it as a whole. The rating system would still be an issue though.

SERIOUS BUSINESS

awesome...not much else to say

I can't say I care for the dramatic tones, but I appreciate all the work you put into this, Kira. And between you and me and everyone who reads this comments, I think all this "controversy" can be a good thing for the site as a whole as far as keeping the community active. I don't wish any hurt feelings, but the feuding provides enough points of interest to keep more people coming back more often, hence keeping Fulp and Co. off the streets. So yeah, thanks for that. I love this place and I wouldn't change anything about it... well, community-wise anyway.

Sausage Fest.

Big-Mama, you are either a comedic genius or... WOW.

I just Finished it...

The last statement around 51 minutes said just how I feel about Newgrounds.

Newgrounds isn't stupid...it's the people who act stupid.

Art is perceived differently, is objectionable, and is often unappreciated or misinterpreted (a Good example is the ending of Jazza's flash : The Composer - how everyone goes for the IN thing Rock Concert and forgets about the Composer)

People are SELFISH...they only seek to entertain THEMSELVES.

But being an Artist is Passionate and only for Heart.

There is a distance difference between artist and an artist out to seek idolization.

We should all just learn to enjoy our talents...and forget what the people who criticize and review.

We Create...because we WANT to...not to seek Fame...

"He who idolizes himself...has no inner light."

Thank you for all your Hard work Rina...and thank you "rtil" for your upload of an MP3 format.

-JBK

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