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♫ *Sound of blaring music* ♫
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There are two reasons the majority of established web animators all came from Newgrounds
and it isn't money or notoriety.
It's freedom and community.
This is Tom Fulp, the creator of Newgrounds.com.
A site that's remained uncensored, unfiltered, and unadulterated while shepherding in an entire
generation of talent for over twenty years.
And as it evolved over those twenty years from an icon of controversy
with things like "Club a Seal" and "Teletubby Fun Land"
to an established multimedia, social networking platform,
It was able to make its mark on internet history by
by becoming a hub for artistic expression and a constant trend setter for the online world.
Like with the launch of the Portal in April of 2000:
The first ever, automated, real time, content submission system.
And this was put into place five years before YouTube.
It also introduced flash ads monetization before YouTube's partnership programs
as well as the first site to offer a community voting system.
with "BLAM" and "Protection" points.
It's what prevented Newground from becoming another video dumster.
And it gave users greater control over the site's content making the platform more refined.
Something that's since been adopted almost universally online.
And it also set trends with content itself,
Giving birth to the first ever viral video:
The Numa Numa dance.
♫ *Dragostea din tei by O-Zone playing* ♫
In fact, most viral content from the early 2000s has its roots in Newgrounds,
but most of the site's allure in those early years came
from its animation.
And it made its reputation by being subversive
and strange and a bit nonsensical.
"Aha Wingardium Leviosa"
But, also beautiful
and stylish.
Newgrounds has a house aesthetic.
But these were all individual voices, each with their own stories to tell.
And it gave a platform for audiences to share and discover but also to learn the process of animation.
More than Loony Toons and more than Disney,
Newgrounds will probably have the biggest impact on the future of the animation industry,
in terms of inspiring young artists to pursue a career in that direction.
Because it's by far the most accessible.
When you're young and you have an interest in animation, you look at a film like The Lion King
and you ask:
"What tools were used to achieve this?"
"How many people?"
"How much money?"
"Where do I start?"
"When do I finish?"
"How does this get seen?"
These are all questions that, when growing outside the industry, can take quite a while to figure out.
Some of them behind the paywall of formal education.
And for decades, the only path to a career in animation was through those art schools.
But we finally have different avenues emerging.
In the late 90s, the advent of consumer grade digital cameras
and inexpensive, audio equipment, brought the rise of the independent film community.
Anyone with the dedication and the drive could produce a film.
And that's exactly what happened in the world of independent animation:
If you had an interesting idea, you could finally just make it.
Everything you needed was available.
There were obtainable goals and accessible software.
And, of course, it was limiting but it was all about getting your foot in the door.
Flash and Newgrounds became the two most useful learning tools
for young, aspiring animators and game designers.
And it really democratized the production and distribution of animation and games.
It brought a generation of artists whose individual creativity could flourish in mediums that were typically
very labor intensive.
It was the new flipbook.
But rather than finding it in a cereal box or the corners of classroom textbooks,
it was online - for everyone to see.
These kids in their bedrooms were building massive audiences,
before the age of social media.
But it wasn't just a community of appreciators,
it was a community of like minded creators.
All inspiring, critiquing, and elevating one another.
As Tom Fulp said:
"The world is full of gatekeepers and the web was the first place where anyone could share anything
with everyone."
Everything, by everyone.
Animators, voice actors, programmers, illustrators, and musicians.
There was a Portal for each one to submit and grow and learn.
And it's that tight knit community that's really responsible for the site's longevity and success.
Newgrounds is unique in that it's one of the few independently operated sites that survived
the .com bubble,
without being swallowed up by larger digital media conglomerates like Google or Amazon.
And it's always been heavily creator focused, which is why Newgrounds today
isn't nearly as large as it could've been.
Total creative independence, unfortunately,
isn't very lucrative.
And that's why you saw many creators use Newgrounds as a springboard to YouTube,
which, in the early days, was much more beneficial for web animators due to its higher ad rates.
Until, of course, it was overrun by user exploitation.
Which caused a shift in YouTube's monetization priorities in 2012,
from a view based model to a minutes-watched model.
Which, once again, made high-quality, short film content,
much less profitable.
And it left a lot of talented artists without a revenue source practically overnight.
But it never stopped them.
In fact, some of the creatively, exciting content on the internet still comes from those artists
raised on Newgrounds.
And there's also been a lot of successful mainstream crossover.
Animation teams like Studio Yotta, which started out as a freelance tech submission on Newgrounds in 2012,
has since worked on projects like Skullgirls and Cartoon Network's OK K.O.!
Or creators like Tomas and Adam Vian,
originally known as the Super Flash Brothers,
are now first party Nintendo developers with Snipperclips on Switch.
You always hear about the CalArts class of the 1970s,
that went on to lead the Disney renaissance.
A community of like minded individuals, all challenging and motivating one another.
Eventually transforming an entire industry.
And right now,
we're on the verge of another animation revolution.
Only this time,
it's the class of Newgrounds.
It was the advent of television that wiped out theatrical cartoons
and cable wiped out broadcast cartoons
and now we have the internet.
But the medium itself hasn't disappeared,
it's just evolved.
So, ignore the claims that traditional animation is dying or dead.
Because it's not and never will be.
We're just in the midst of another generational shift.
And when compared to legacy media,
new media is still in its relative infancy.
And we're figuring out where animation fits into this new system.
But the foundation for the future of animation has already been laid.
It's a whole new playground for creators.
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