At 8/26/10 02:38 PM, Spikrodd wrote: Can someone please make this post short-hand? I'd love to read it, but I just don't have the attention span D:

Newgrounds is awesome because they give a damn about you and what you do, they address your problems and the staff members are so cool you can actually give a damn enough to remember their names. Seriously, nobody even knows the google CEO's name.
Thats basically it.

At 8/26/10 07:44 PM, sweet21 wrote: Thats basically it.

While were encouraging growth of the friendlier community, whats your name?

Newgrounds is a brilliant website, with many talented and amazing artists on it, and if we stick with it, this site will become much more than just a funny website, it will be a place of beauty in art.

At 8/26/10 07:47 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

At 8/26/10 07:44 PM, sweet21 wrote: Thats basically it.

While were encouraging growth of the friendlier community, whats your name?

My name is Anthony and i am awesome :3
Some people say i have abit of an ego....i admit it i do kind of, but it doesn't get in the way, and having this much confidence really keeps me in an upbeat mood!

At 8/26/10 07:50 PM, sweet21 wrote:

At 8/26/10 07:47 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

At 8/26/10 07:44 PM, sweet21 wrote: Thats basically it.

While were encouraging growth of the friendlier community, whats your name?

My name is Anthony and i am awesome :3
Some people say i have abit of an ego....i admit it i do kind of, but it doesn't get in the way, and having this much confidence really keeps me in an upbeat mood!

Aw thats sweet :).

My name is Callum and you'd be hard pressed to find me in a bad mood.

Ever :)

probably the most enjoyable thread ive read in general forum

Now that i work here its hard to really reply to threads like these in honesty without people thinking im biased or getting some sort of back massage from tom or whatever but yea pretty much echo everything that was already expressed. I've always had alot of respect for all the hardcore users of the site. Maybe youre not a moderator, or celebrated animator/programmer/ whatever. But you always matter nonetheless. Newgrounds keeps its edge and personality through its userbase. I remember falling in love with the site with cartoons like Scrotum the Puppy and Blanco y Negro, and though i never did fall in love with/get the hang of the whole depositing system, I was able to find something that won me over. Thats why I find it so cool when shit like Pimp reaching level 60 happen, cause it always keeps me humble and impressed at the different ways people get into the site, adopt newgrounds into their lifestyle. I mean there probably isnt a user more opposite of me, he spent the majority of his time depositing and leveling up, not really finding interest in actively uploading to the portal(s), but rather taking the responsibility of being the filter of what does or doesnt stay there.

Same goes for audio portal artists, who lets face it, are crawling through the thick mud of a broken audio portal, with nothing but faith in something better right around the corner. Or the people who religiously wait for the next pico school installment, or the ng chat or whatever really. You guys are gems in an internet world where the attention span of an average internet user is close to nil. To have users who stick around AND even take active part in their day to upkeep the site, (be it by moderating, replying to a thread in Where is/How to, giving a solid review, blamming/saving things etc). You are a unique breed of people on the internet. And its always much appreciated, and i think the least we (i saw we loosely cause it would be unfair to answer on every staff members behalf) can do is give that same personal attention back.

I think newgrounds users always get a bad rep as being these obsessed hentai kids (which we may be), but they also do alot of incredible things, like rallying to save countless dogs, giving invaluable sexual advice, keeping tabs on all the medals in the site's existence, rallying to making the ng documentary a reality etc etc

I dont think much of that made sense up there because i didnt reread it but whatever, my intentions were sound.

Bahamut just mega flared the ignant ones

At 8/26/10 02:38 PM, Spikrodd wrote: Can someone please make this post short-hand? I'd love to read it, but I just don't have the attention span D:

Well, at least you were polite with your TL;DR.

Personally, I have had a love hate relationship with NG. It's mostly hate right now.
Eh. I've found good friends here, and that's about it.

At 8/26/10 09:21 PM, Luis wrote: probably the most enjoyable thread ive read in general forum

There's definitely some encouragement if I ever saw encouragement!

After reading the thread about NG being one of the top 50 websites, I've been thinking about how great Newgrounds is. And while reading your huge post, I was actually nodding like if I was talking to someone, because I couldn't agree more with everything you said.

When I think of other websites (like the ones you mentioned: YouTube and deviantART), I just think of them as companies, corporations which just try to draw users into their website to make more and more money, even if that means having a total lack of respect for their users. But NG is much more than that, it's a huge community. As you have mentioned, the staff cares about the people who visit this site every day, and we care for them. NG constantly encourages users to be creative, and you don't really need to be important or extremely talented to be successful because everyone can have their flash/music/art frontpaged and get lots of exposure: it doesn't matter who you are, everyone is treated the same.

Congrats on your 22,222nd post!

That was a great speech. Its nice you put your 22,222 post to good use.

Yes newgrounds isn't like any other site in the world. They care about there users and the time they put into newgrounds o help make it what it is today. Yeah maybe I don't put a lot in like flash, audio,or art worth looking at but I still spend countless hours on this site for not even being here a year. I used to never go on this site and never wanted to look at it or here the words newgrounds. But now newgrounds is the greatest thing I have ever experienced. And the staff tries there best to make this site as great as possible but some people have to remember that they are a small team. and for 10 or 11 people managing the greatest site in the world is an accomplishment. They aren't like all the other website companies who don't really give a rats ass about the other people on there and just do it for money. But newgrounds cares about the people who make the website what it is by contributing to them. They care a lot about the users who truly love this site (like me hopefully) and would hate to see them go. And for the 9 months I have been here I say I have contributed a lot. Newgrounds does not get enough credit for this site. In my opinion it is the greatest site in the world. You can submit flash art and audio, post in the bbs, leave reviews on flash, stats, news post, favorite flashes audio or art, and a hell of a lot more. But I hope some people can realize how much I love this site and all I have tried to do for it. And for Tom and Wade to trust me with an icon modship is so awesome. And if my account ever gets deleted it will be the saddest day of my life (I don't break any rules so I should be ok though). And as im writing this im crying cause its so emotional and I got jalapeno juice in my eye. And its hard to get into it cause of my age and how people would disrespect me just cause im 14. They do such an awesome job running this site and I will be here for years come.

Newgrounds is the greatest place in the world!

Well said Bahamut

The thing I like about Newgrounds is that every day it's something new; a new movie that is well crafted, a new game that is challenging, or some art/music that peaks my curiosity and yes it's all because NG has really set the seeds for creativity to flow.

I thought it was a mistake changing the slogan from "Problems of the Future, Today" to "Everything by Everyone," but it really symbolized a turning point for NG. It really evolved from a shock site where you parody school shooting or kill celebrities to a place where you can showcase your talents in whatever area it might be, animation, art, music, etc. not matter how talented you are.

You can really see the communal effort the Staff breeds in Game Jams, Power of three, the old NG Jams, all of the NG holidays, etc. and how it just doesn't showcase one talent, but many. And from that it really grows in to many things; good flash, yes, but also friendships as well.

And Bahamut, I think you really hit it on the head when you said how much the Staff really cares for not just their success, but the many authors who contribute here. I don't think there is really anywhere where on the web where you can find such passion; certainly not Ebaums or Kongergate where their interest lies in only one thing.

And congrats on 22,222 post, it's certainly not an easy task to reach that far and put a huge stamp on the NG community as you have done especially the Wi/Ht?. :)

cool beans

I think the most un-Tom person I've met thus far is Tom himself.
When I first learned that Tom was attending PAX East, it made me explode when I realized that THE Tom Fulp was coming to MY city. That's when I truly realized that the city that I thought everyone forgot was going to be remembered.

That's also the day I learned that PAX was sold out.
That's also the day I realized that I MUST go to PAX East.

For the next week, I searched for hours on end for somebody who could give me ANY pass, luckily there was a PAX East Extra Tickets thread on their forums. I kept contacting anyone that had tickets, and EVERYONE had already sold it.

It litteraly came down to 7 AM on Friday, when I was about to go to the bus, I found ONE person who was willing to sell them, litteraly posted 1 second after I hit the refresh button on the tab I left open.

When I learned that I WAS going to PAX East, it was the greatest moment I have ever felt aside from the feeling of seeing 53 reviews for Super Adventure Game Land and a daily 5th, which wouldn't have happened without Tom.

So naturally, I started imagining how to approach him, litteraly thinking up millions of ways to introduce myself.

I botched it.

"Excuse me, what's your name?"
"Tom"
"HOLY SHIT IT'S TOM FULP!"

He looked like a regular guy, aside from the behemoth shirt and exhibitor pass.
Yeah, he didn't have a gold aura around him, and he didn't look like he just walked out of Street Fighter IV.

We talked until the Exhibit Hall closed, and what I noticed is that I didn't feel like this was the Tom I couldn't send a straight PM to before.

Tom didn't make a point in making himself be known that he was the founder of one of the most popular websites on the web, and I was that annoying little user.

And that's why he's such an amazing guy.

Now as for Newgrounds as a whole, I've known this is more then a website since the day I made my account here.

Yes, I will admit, my first experience with this site was in 2006 when a friend showed me Endless War 3, I didn't even know the site's name, I just thought of it as a place hosting some cool game.

But when I actually started visiting this site, I realized there was something a lot more here.

In the three years I've been here, I don't think I've ever thought of this site as just a site.
This is indie heaven.
This is where ANYONE can make themselves great.
Nobody is forgotten if they can work hard enough to make themselves a legacy.

Weisi is following me, the man I thought was an impossible legend is no following me... I'll never forget that.

Holy shit I've been here 3 years...

Thanks for making this post and thanks for all the kind words! People probably think I get my ass licked all day but my radar usually finds the negative comments before the good ones, and it takes a lot of good comments to make up for one well-worded negative comment.

And while we keep working to improve the tools, it really is the community that makes NG what it is. THANK YOU GUYS! <3

NG is one of if not the best website in the world. Good people, depens were you look, the admins and the owner are all well know here and actually care what we think of something, unless it's your bitchy they might care less, You got talented artist, animators and so on. NG is my favorite site and will remain so far quite some time.

Too true Bahamut. Too fucking true.

This isn't just a website, it's a community.

Bahamut, you're fucking awesome.

That was awesome. I think you really understand why the website's motto is "Everything, by Everyone". It is a great way for people to send their ideas out. Here, you seldom have to worry about your work being taken down whereas accounts on YouTube are banned day in and day out for copyright infringement. This is a great place for us to express our freedom that we deserve to have on the Internet!

I am overwhelmed by the responses I have received for this thread. I've never been a good thread maker besides birthday threads so I really am pleased with what I've heard from here. I'd say these posts are a great example of the thoughtful community we have here. To owe something back to you all, I've gone through all the posts and took the time to reply to most of them. Apologies to those I didn't quote but some things I felt like I was going to repeat myself after a while. Anyway, here are the replies:

At 8/26/10 02:36 PM, Oliver wrote: What a fucking milestone post. D:
Congrats on 22,222 Andy.

Thank you Oliver, even though the 22,222 post milestone was just the icing on the cake for the speech, I'm glad I spent this milestone on this speech.

At 8/26/10 02:37 PM, Cootie wrote: It is a family if users who should all come here to talk and have a good time.

A few times I have heard people referring Newgrounds as a family and it's easy to see why. Infact, Sir-Nuts said I'm like a brother to the Wi/Ht? community and considering the work I do over there, I can't argue about it. Come to think about it, the heavy metal universe shares similar thoughts to the musicians. When Dio passed away, many recognisable acts in heavy metal saw him as a brother. The reason why I'm comparing the two is because people can easily be deceived by parts of both worlds. However, if you look closer, you'll know both Newgrounders and heavy metal are very caring to others.

Unfortunately all of us can't get along which hurts the amount of fun that results from NG.

Sadly so but I suppose you can't expect us to be happy with everyone. There'll always be twats around but I did my best to not think about the negatives in my speech. Despite that, I have a hard time imagining Tom Fulp in a bad mood. For someone whose user icon shows him smiling, you can't relate him to anger or anything like that. Sure, there are things that he hates but like we said, we can't be happy with everything.

But, regardless of the users and their flaws this is still and awesome place that is filled with awesome people.

You definitely got that right.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say that you've made some fantastic threads around here and you certainly apply to the part where I mention BBS regulars and their great contributions to the forums.

At 8/26/10 02:37 PM, xenonmonkey wrote: Too bad no-one who disbelieves this will read this thread.

If you know anyone who thinks that way, maybe you can show this thread to them and see what they think. Of course, we can't expect everyone to agree with this but if someone had a few thoughts on what I said, I'll know I've done something right.

At 8/26/10 02:37 PM, Lagerkapo wrote: It's also a portal!

A portal with an endless amount of great content. There's so much that goes unnoticed but that's why we have the Treasure Hunts and give the underrated flashes the recognition they deserve. I'll admit, I've never contributed to the Treasure Hunts before but this year I'll be sure to share some animations I've come across from all the icon modding I've done since I got the position 2 months ago.

At 8/26/10 02:37 PM, homsarrunner3 wrote: wow. that's a huge post. and good job for sticking with newgrounds for 6 years!

Thank you very much. I don't really need to wish this as I already know there'll be more and more dedicated users of this site as time goes on but I really hope more users stay around just as long as I have.

At 8/26/10 02:38 PM, Spikrodd wrote: Can someone please make this post short-hand? I'd love to read it, but I just don't have the attention span D:

Haha, I had a feeling someone would want a shorter version of my speech sooner or later. I was thinking of making a summary of what I said but I feel it's more rewarding for the readers if they read the whole thing.

At 8/26/10 02:38 PM, Ejit wrote: More than just a website.

It's a business.

A business they may be but even a business who cares so much about their fans isn't easy to come by. The only other business I know that stays well connected to their fans is Valve who have promoted community maps for their games as well as making community maps and items (just for TF2) official to their games.

At 8/26/10 02:39 PM, iceimp wrote: Way better review system then youtube has!

No denying that. Although most of the "reviews" on this site are YouTube-esque comments, there's still the great users who write genuine reviews for the submissions they are viewing. If people aren't too happy with the reviews they see on this site in general, hopefully they come across the gems. :)

also besides the point we can meet up at comic-con and has some beers with Tom.

I'm more than willing to have a beer with Tom.

At 8/26/10 02:40 PM, Keith wrote: We all get together, share things, make things, and do a whole bunch of things with each other that other sites really don't do.

Don't forget drinking together. Now that shows how much we care for each other... Sorta. XD Seriously, though, it was great getting drunk with fellow Newgrounder earlier this month. One may find it absurd to get drunk with people who I only knew from the internet but it wasn't like this was a meet up arranged by anonymous people.

It really fits the "Everything By Everyone" slogan as we are true to it as can be.

The more I think about the slogan, the happier I am with it. I know there are those who preferred the old slogan "The problems of the future, today!" but what we have now is more relevant to the modern age of Newgrounds.

At 8/26/10 02:41 PM, WTFClock wrote: I agree, the staff is very connected with the users here and I think they actually understand once-in-a-while innapropriate joke and such.

They understand inappropriate jokes well enough, although you wouldn't ever catch me making such jokes in front of them.

At 8/26/10 02:44 PM, Esshole wrote: I just wish I had been here longer, wish I had stumbled upon the site sooner, and wish I did more to help the site.

Part of me wishes I was here sooner but on the other hand, I felt my timing was right. If I came here sooner, I know my parents would have found out about Newgrounds easily and possibly never letting me come on here at all. Would have been completely different events.

At 8/26/10 02:44 PM, Spikrodd wrote: Ok, I read it all. Really, these were things that people of our era (04' users) already should know.

Then it's a good reminder for the later users. ;)

At 8/26/10 02:46 PM, Sindread wrote: We all know it isn't newgrounds favorite bird.

I believe you got my species all wrong. :P

At 8/26/10 02:53 PM, Donut wrote: Hell yes! If only more people came to Stickam, they'd find out what NG really is. A community, as stated by Bahamut.

That's funny, NG Stickam chat rooms get random people that don't know shit about the site.

At 8/26/10 02:54 PM, Limited wrote: Here's my song for the occasion.

A damn good song for this occasion. :)

At 8/26/10 03:08 PM, FBIpolux wrote: I was also impressed to know they actually knew me, like the first time I actually talked to Tom via Stickam and hearing him say "Ah that's FBIpolux, it's the first time I see him on cam"

I do wonder if Tom will be recognise me like that but considering how many people he must know and have to remember, I can't blame him if he doesn't notice me at first. I'm sure he'll be pleased if I ever see him and tell him who I am.

I mean... I met my Fiancée through Newgrounds, kinda, and now we're getting married next year.

That's another great reason (one of the best no doubt) that Newgrounds isn't just a website. Sure, you'll have people meeting each other over Facebook but it's more meaningful when you meet them over a site that has more specific interests. There are several couples who met on Newgrounds and you'd think NG would be the last place for that to happen. I'm familiar with couples who initially knew each other online since my sister found her partner on World of Warcraft and while I don't really like WoW as a game (I'm not a fan of MMOs in general), I can sure as hell respect the game for getting them two together. Infact, attending the London meet up wouldn't have been possible without them.

P.S.: JohnnyUtah drives fucking fast. x_x

He speeds at night!

P.P.S.: 17kpostlol

A milestone well spent! :)

At 8/26/10 03:09 PM, Scarab wrote: I still like using the place too obviously. I spent a bit of my free-time (see, a week or so) earlier this year writing a brief homage to the people I've met (which was also just a bit of a tongue-in-cheek essay parody too, but whatever), which may even need updating now to fit more people in.

I've yet to read about your time on Newgrounds but I will get around to reading it. Despite making a speech in this very thread, I'll probably write up about my history on Newgrounds but the only thing that makes me unsure about it are the certain times of my e-life I'm not proud of.

I'm not all happy for the staff, or a select bunch of the moderators and regulars, as far as I'm concerned personally for different reasons (I'm not angry at anyone or anything bear in mind).

I'll admit, I've had disagreements with some of the mods and staff in the past but I've put that shit behind me. At first, I didn't like Poozy becoming a BBS mod considering what I knew about him beforehand but I've become used to his position and how he takes care of his duties.

I'm held back a bit myself out of one problem in particular really: I cannot draw. Not just, 'this drawing isn't as good as so-and-so's', I mean I'm really terrible at drawing, and animating by extension, as much I love animations, and art.

I'm not good at drawing either but Flash at least helped me to draw slightly better. On paper, the best I ever drew in my life was this silly picture but maybe if I was more determined with drawing, I'd improve over the time. I'm sure this would apply even to you. :)

I work around it as best as I can, and I hope that the Writing Portal hasn't been given up on entirely... but that's something else.

Have no fear.

Glad to hear you're very happy (and lucky in meeting some of the admittedly friendly top brass), and congrats on the large and funny number of posts.

Thank you very much Scarab. It's a shame you didn't attend the London meet but there's always next time, even though my reason for being desperate to attend the latest one was incase I didn't have a second chance. You never know who decides to move on from NG all of sudden, thus taking away any chance I had at meeting a particular user on the site.

At 8/26/10 03:24 PM, Lorkas wrote: Maybe it's because newgrounds wasn't born to be a money making machine?

And it never will be. The only money they need is to maintain the site as well as giving them all a wage they can live on. Infact, Tom will NEVER trade this site for cash. Even if one company offered all the money in the world to buy Newgrounds, he'll never give it away. Now THAT is a man with a good heart!

At 8/26/10 03:32 PM, Coop83 wrote:

At 8/26/10 02:34 PM, Bahamut wrote: The fact that Newgrounds have people like Tom and Luis

Dammit Andy! You never changed the piece of proofing that I gave you!

Hey, it can get confusing, especially when NG's full name sounds plural. :P

At 8/26/10 03:33 PM, LoliTastic wrote: I agree, this community is so close that it's beautiful. I would like to go to one of these meet-ups one day. But when i'm older

Be sure to attend one of them when you can. I may have only attended one NG meet up so far but it was one hell of an experience. Just don't delay it as long as I did.

PAt 8/26/10 03:36 PM, JKMonkey wrote:

its a 2-d website, with or without it our lives would be exactly the same.

Eventually, websites will be in 3D. :P

At 8/26/10 04:04 PM, Auz wrote: I've been on websites with much smaller communities and with most I didn't have the feeling that there was much interaction between the administrators and the userbase. As a matter of fact, sometimes I didn't even knew who the admins were.

I'm sure we've all been to websites with smaller communities and for the ones I've been to, while I talked to a few of them on MSN, the sites themselves died off eventually. Newgrounds on the other hand, while it's not as big as YouTube, we're still a big enough community to stay strong for a long time. We're a big community but not too big.

There are a lot of great people around here, and of course there are a few rotten eggs but heh... you'll find those everywhere.

Haters gonna hate, sadly. Even if there are those rotten eggs around, the positive side of the community completely outweighs them so I can easily look at more good part of the community than bad parts.

I've practically spent the second half of my teenage life on NG and I think hanging around this place has definitely had influence on my development as a person and changed my points of view on many things.

I've pretty much spent most of my teens here but that doesn't mean I neglected the outside world. I'm still outside of the house for a lot of the time but I find enough free time to do a lot of stuff here.

At 8/26/10 04:08 PM, ChainsawNinjaZX wrote: When people say things that happen on this site, they are usually referring to something that upset them or someone else. Most of the people who get upset don't realize what is so different about this site or why it's worth going to at all. Honestly we're better off without them. And yes, the staff members are great, except for poozy, he can go eat a dick. Fuck you poozy.

For one part, you're right about people expressing their thoughts on the site that way due to butthurtness (is that even a word?) but for the other half, it's trolls/those who don't care about the internet that much in the first place that say people are wasting their time on this site.

Sounds like some YouTube bashing and staff suck-upery. I like it. This is also true, in this paragraph you seem to give specific examples as to why NG is better than other sites.

I couldn't go without reasons as to why YouTube isn't so great with customer feedback while Newgrounds is. However, I didn't really state why deviantART is bad but I already made a whole rant about why I hate that site.

If you did compare this, one would be able to speculate (and rightly so) that YouTube is a better place and has much more content and a much larger user base than that of NG.

I may have come across a lot of great content on YouTube but at the end of the day, quality is better than quantity.

At 8/26/10 04:08 PM, ChainsawNinjaZX wrote: Well, you have a large amount of post, are a productive user, and even noobs know your name. Of course you're a legend.

When I think of legends and names that new users recognise, I think of the most recognisable names on Newgrounds such as Tom Fulp, StrawberryClock, Egoraptor, illwillpress and Adam Phillips. Those should be names almost any new user should know on top of their head whether you love or hate them. As for myself, I am nowhere near on the same league as them and I doubt I ever will.

However, if we're considering users on the BBS, now that's a whole different story. Still, I think there are many other names that are more recognisable than myself, despite having over 22,000 posts and been a regular poster since late 2004. My name often falls under the radar at times which could explain how I managed to win Most Underrated twice in a row in the BBS awards. Not saying my name is rather unknown around here but you do get those moments where my name isn't mentioned as much as it probably should be.

While we're on the subject of Newgrounders and legends, I used to look up to a few users around here and saw them as legends. ramagi and Denvish are great examples as back in 2005 they were the top rankers in B/P since they were in the portal most of the time and along with that, they were managing their moderating duties. They were big names back then and could easily be considered as legends but I'm not sure if their names stick out well for the newer users. These "legends" come and go.

Notice you hardly ever talk to flash or audio submitters

Hardly may be right but I'm still grateful for the flash authors I've come in contact with. I used to talk to Team Lorio (the duo are well known as Mithrandir and TheGreyPilgrim) a lot and they even acknowledged me for always reviewing their flashes whenever they submitted something to the portal.

Another flash author who I have to give a shout out to is RupeeClock. I remember him being a BBS regular around here and I really enjoyed all the flashes he worked on from the Sonic parodies (some of the very few Sonic flashes I EVER enjoyed) to the epic Clock movies. I always enjoyed his responses to my reviews and we even talked to each other a few times on Google chat. He's moved onto other projects now but I know he's still around. :)

Gaia, 4chan (ew), Facebook (or any other networking site), and most MMO forums and games.

Some of those sites I've tried avoiding all this time for very good reasons. I doubt you'd see as much if you looked further in those places but for Newgrounds, there's tons more to this site than adult games.

I've been here a very long time and I am not compelled to meet Tom, but I guess I could. It's no big achievement, he's like anyone else except he's the founder of an awesome site with a mature user base.

I have a good reason to look up to him. Not only is he the founder of this site but he's also the founder of The Behemoth as we all know and he attends many events for his companies. On top of all of this, he has a wife and child and it's amazing how he manages all of this in his life. I just wonder how much energy is inside him.

I'm sure you realize this, but it needs to be said; this website would be nothing without its users. I even value you more than Tom, think about it, you as an individual have probably inspired Tom more than he has inspired you.

I'd say this website couldn't live without either of them. You know, I would have doubted that statement on inspiring Tom but look who showed up in this thread. :)

To make this a possibility, I have a proposition for you, and the staff. I doubt it will work however, but my idea is this: We could make a group dedicated to NG meets, that financially supports those who can't travel from one place to the other.

That really is a stretch. As much as we love to see each other, relying on Newgrounds for funding our travels isn't a good idea. It's only fair if we all sorted out travel expenses on our own behalf, even if you live in a poorer country.

There will always be haters. They will eventually move on. Don't be too concerned about them. Nice 22,222 post.

Not to worry, I've received a lot of hatred in the past but that only made me stronger. ;) Even if they say people on this site should get a life, I've showed everyone that there's so much more to Newgrounds.

At 8/26/10 04:21 PM, ThePigeonMaster wrote: No matter how... But organizing a Wi/Ht'ers meet-up, is a must to.

It's a crazy thought considering we're all over the world but if we could all attend one NG event, I'd be more than made up. Wi/Ht? may be a very small fraction of this site but we're a community that knows how to take care of each other and even go as far as giving out heartwarming thoughts to others.

At 8/26/10 04:24 PM, Wolfos wrote: About Adam Philips: did you know he was working for EA now on Dragon Age: Journeys?

I can't believe I overlooked this. Would have thought I'd catch this on his Twitter. Although this is the flash game spinoff, this just gives me more of an urge to start playing Dragon Age.

It's nice how much the admin's are doing for this site, but how about the audio portal?
It doesn't seem like they care much for it while it could be quite simple to make it more popular (audio submissions featured on front page, experience for voting on audio, etc).

It's hard for me to say a lot about the Audio Portal since I'm not there as often as others but I know the admins have a lot of focus on the Audio Portal. I mean, if they didn't, then what would the new audio icon format mean to us all?

At 8/26/10 06:53 PM, Andersson wrote: I've stopped visiting a few sites after they've launched new (horrible) designs.

There should be nothing to worry about for the upcoming layout for Newgrounds. I've noticed how many sites do a terrible job at working on new layouts but the NG staff know what they're doing and what not to do. My mind was blown when they released the current layout in 2007 and I'm sure the same thing will happen again whenever they launch the new layout.

Also, I was planning to head out to the next 'BIG' London meet-up. Maybe I can get Rucklo to get to the same one. That'd be pretty cool. =)

I don't know when there'll be another 'BIG' London meet up (heh, the one I went to felt big enough) but I'm already looking forward to the next event in London, even if it happens to be a quieter meet up.

At 8/26/10 07:47 PM, Sectus wrote: Newgrounds is a brilliant website, with many talented and amazing artists on it, and if we stick with it, this site will become much more than just a funny website, it will be a place of beauty in art.

I thought it was a place of beauty in art already. ;)

At 8/26/10 09:21 PM, Luis wrote: though i never did fall in love with/get the hang of the whole depositing system, I was able to find something that won me over.

We'll never forget your lollipop. :)

Same goes for audio portal artists, who lets face it, are crawling through the thick mud of a broken audio portal, with nothing but faith in something better right around the corner.

I always hear about the struggle the audio artists get but if they're patient enough, their patience will be rewarded.

Or the people who religiously wait for the next pico school installment, or the ng chat or whatever really.

Haha, that just makes me think how much there is to look forward to from this site, even if Pico 2 and the NG Chat are Newgrounds' Duke Nukem Forevers. :P

I think newgrounds users always get a bad rep as being these obsessed hentai kids (which we may be), but they also do alot of incredible things, like rallying to save countless dogs, giving invaluable sexual advice, keeping tabs on all the medals in the site's existence, rallying to making the ng documentary a reality etc etc

Unfortunately, a few friends of mine are put off by this site due to the adult nature but if they took the time to look further in this site, they'll know the adult content is only a small portion of the site and not the majority of Newgrounds. Since they haven't done that, it's their loss but they're still my friends. I'm not going to make a huge fuss over which websites we go to, even if some of them are regular users on deviantART.

I dont think much of that made sense up there because i didnt reread it but whatever, my intentions were sound.

I'm really glad you and many others took the time to read my post as well as inputting your thoughts on the matter.

At 8/26/10 09:37 PM, DarkMatter wrote: Bahamut just mega flared the ignant ones

It's to be expected from the king of dragons. ;)

At 8/26/10 10:35 PM, Ismael92 wrote: After reading the thread about NG being one of the top 50 websites, I've been thinking about how great Newgrounds is.

Even if Newgrounds didn't get a mention from Time, we should still know how great this site really is but the fact that this site is still well known is a good thing.

NG constantly encourages users to be creative, and you don't really need to be important or extremely talented to be successful because everyone can have their flash/music/art frontpaged and get lots of exposure: it doesn't matter who you are, everyone is treated the same.

And creativity seems under appreciated in this age. I know several games in the gaming industry had very poor sales when they should be earning more recognition than they have. I'm just grateful we have places like Newgrounds and Steam that do what they can to support creative works.

At 8/26/10 10:50 PM, Domo wrote: And the staff tries there best to make this site as great as possible but some people have to remember that they are a small team. and for 10 or 11 people managing the greatest site in the world is an accomplishment.

And that's a great team of 12. Other sites may have more staff members on board but as I said before, quality is much more important than quantity.

And for Tom and Wade to trust me with an icon modship is so awesome.

I don't care what others say about icon mods, I'm really happy to help out for the future of Newgrounds. Being an icon mod is a huge step up for my time on here.

At 8/26/10 11:37 PM, reverend wrote: I thought it was a mistake changing the slogan from "Problems of the Future, Today" to "Everything by Everyone," but it really symbolized a turning point for NG. It really evolved from a shock site where you parody school shooting or kill celebrities to a place where you can showcase your talents in whatever area it might be, animation, art, music, etc. not matter how talented you are.

Despite the change of direction for the site, the older days of NG aren't forgotten. Infact, people still make shocking content and the staff back them up all the way for their freedom of speech. I like how they don't take down these flashes after getting bad reputation in the media and stick to their guns.

certainly not Ebaums or Kongergate where their interest lies in only one thing.

I thought eBaums stopped being relevant years ago.

At 8/27/10 12:08 AM, squidly wrote: I think the most un-Tom person I've met thus far is Tom himself.

I really wish I could read more great experiences like these on the site. I know people have written news posts about their times at the meets and seeing Tom but if I wanted to read more stories similar to these, I've got a lot of searching to do.

At 8/27/10 12:23 AM, TomFulp wrote: Thanks for making this post and thanks for all the kind words! People probably think I get my ass licked all day but my radar usually finds the negative comments before the good ones, and it takes a lot of good comments to make up for one well-worded negative comment.

And that's something I've learned today. I'm actually surprised at how many negative comments you receive. I always thought the negativity was saved for the mods and Wade rather than stressing it out on you. Then again, it's impossible for anyone to avoid negative comments all the time.
-----
Phew, I finally got through all of that.

At 8/27/10 10:54 AM, Bahamut wrote: I've yet to read about your time on Newgrounds but I will get around to reading it. Despite making a speech in this very thread, I'll probably write up about my history on Newgrounds but the only thing that makes me unsure about it are the certain times of my e-life I'm not proud of.

I think putting things behind you is a nice tactic, one that gives you sense of looking forward positively, but I think living and learning from your experiences is a vital tool in portraying or developing yourself too. I personally find doing so to be a great source of humour, albeit of disappointment, regrets and possibly anger also, but it's the way I work, I'm very analytical like that at the moment (possibly to quite an unhealthy extreme at times). I think Newgrounds is a good arena for this sphere of thought for the reasons you pointed out: it's a close-knit community where you always get feedback from others, but not necessarily yourself.

Yes, I am one of those people that believes that telling the story of someone's life can be something of an art form. An exercise in ego-bending maybe, but there's no one saying that can't be an art form in itself.

I'll admit, I've had disagreements with some of the mods and staff in the past but I've put that shit behind me. At first, I didn't like Poozy becoming a BBS mod considering what I knew about him beforehand but I've become used to his position and how he takes care of his duties.

Unless I am caught at a bad time, I am not the one to hold grudges, offline and online. I suppose what irks me the most about the community is a by-product of people getting to know and collaborate so easily with another in the first place, that some select attitudes are constantly misplaced... and possibly really quite unnecessary at times.

But it's not my place to really judge individuals, and if I thought it was, I would be being downright rude (and hypocritical), I think. Even when I've made suggestions in the past on some topics, I have almost always avoided naming names, and I think we're preserve a bit of harmony, maturity and friendliness here that way. I'm just an asshole like this, essentially.

I'm not good at drawing either but Flash at least helped me to draw slightly better. On paper, the best I ever drew in my life was this silly picture but maybe if I was more determined with drawing, I'd improve over the time. I'm sure this would apply even to you. :)

I'm not a natural artist, that's just a fact. My 'talents' (I use the inverted commas; a more accurate term would be 'interests') lie in photography and film production. With drawing, establishing positions is an incredible struggle for me, and seeing as how I really cherish perspective experiments, I'm at a bit of a loss. There's obviously no accounting for lighting either (I mean, of an ever-changing sort, tone is a necessity when drawing something of course), which I've found comes very naturally if you find yourself behind a camera a lot, even if you're just messing around at home with one.

I'm afraid that I might have just come off as though I am slamming the great many artists here. It's really not the case, this is just a personal preference thing.

And writing is where my passion is, partially because of how the many, many concepts run into one another, which I find is hard with art, as much as I enjoy looking at what people have drawn. Talkin' NG, I wrote this about a month ago out of humour, wanting to perhaps make people think a little about something, out of exercise (I'd love to have my own Catch-22 in a hypothetical list of works some day), and out of boredom in all honesty, hence my mindless exhibitionism.

This all sounds really off-topic, I know... maybe you can assess it with the bit below.

I work around it as best as I can, and I hope that the Writing Portal hasn't been given up on entirely... but that's something else.

Have no fear.

It's hard because I hear mixed reports from those who are in a better position than me. However, I'll leave that...

Thank you very much Scarab. It's a shame you didn't attend the London meet but there's always next time, even though my reason for being desperate to attend the latest one was incase I didn't have a second chance. You never know who decides to move on from NG all of sudden, thus taking away any chance I had at meeting a particular user on the site.

I genuinely do think it's neat that you have such a passion for the place, and I hope you manage to keep up with what you do, to maintain your own enjoyment if nothing else in particular.

I may attend a meet-up some day, but it seems unlikely as of right now. I would like to meet a fair number of users here. We'll see.

Thanks for the response.

Great post, man! I agree with most of the stuff you said. Newgrounds rocks!

Hey sexy Bahamut, Gagsy here.

I couldn't help but feel a desperate need to post here once I read your fantastic topic (well it was more than a topic really).

I recall when I hit 20k posts I made this topic. It's no where near as epic as yours is but I too felt the need to confess my extreme thanks to a site that had become more than just a site to me, but also a way of life.

While currently I am trying to cut back on my time on NG to get my life priorities in order, I don't pretend for a second that I dislike it here. I find it impossible to think that and it's thanks to Newgrounds that I have discovered wonderful people with who I can talk to.

For example Mechabloby himself, I consider a dear dear friend who I just can't imagine not knowing for the rest of my life now, and that is all thanks to Newgrounds. If neither of us had discovered the site, and used it as we do then we wouldn't have formed what I hope to be a lasting friendship.

I agree with everything you said too about the staff and how they do an AMAZING job here. I find their monthly competitions to be a superb way to keep the users involved and contributing and how they encourage users to keep trying. Remember thay thread recently that just went overboard with users downvoting a flash made by a young new flash artist until the admin stepped in? That topic was an eye opening to how much Tom and his staff care about Newgrounds and it's userbase. You cannot help but like that.

It's not just the staff though, as we know the users themselves can be great. At the last meet I didn't see a single person who wasn't friendly and happy to just be there amongst people they knew from the internet and drink and sing with them as if we were all best friends. How many sites can do the same? Not many I'm sure.

You're right too about the whinners who complain here once they've had enough. If they wish to leave the site then that is their decision completely, just like it is ours to stay here and keep enjoying what we like.

As for wasting our time? Well if I wasn't on NG I'd probably just be playing video games and watching dvds. Is that really time spent doing better stuff when NG gives me much more enjoyment?

IN CONCLUSION (which seems to be my favourite phrase of late);

You're awesome.

Great thread Bahamut, and there's been some excellent points brought up about how NG is more than the sum of its parts, and the sense of community, so rather than reiterate old points, I'd like to share something more personal.

Almost 2 years ago to the day I'd been an NGer for just under 6 months, when my mother died at 47 years of age. Now it was a complex and emotional situation for me which I'm not going into now, the history of it went back years and years. For some reason, don't ask me why, when I heard the news I was more shocked at the time than upset, and for some unknown reason I came on NG, went into a thread I frequented (think it was the EGB - I don't think I was a Wi/Hter at this point) and spilled my guts.

As I wrote I thought "What the hell am I doing, going deep into personal issues and discussing them with people I don't really know". I started to feel more and more stupid as I got to the end, and very nearly didn't hit the Post It button. However, I did, and the reaction was overwhelming. I got responses of sympathy, genuine sympathy, from these guys on the internet. I received PMs from a few people telling me to speak with them any time about it if I needed to. I was so taken aback; I was maybe expecting something along the lines of "I'm sorry, hope you are ok". Instead, I got a true, deep sense that these people actually CARED about me, beyond just posting sympathetically. Funny as it sounds, that really helped me sleep that night, which I did not expect. It also made me come to a decision: that as long as I both enjoyed it and could afford time for it, I would contribute to this site as much as possible. Some 2 years later, that is still my stance.

That is my take on why Newgrounds is much, much more than just a website.

tldr

Congratulations on the modship!