Newgrounds- Everything, by Everyone
Are you tired ofthe relentless monotony of college life, or do you need a break from soulcrushing assignments and studying? If so, you should check out Newgrounds.com,an art and entertainment forum made entirely of user generated content. Thesite includes animations, artwork, music, and games. If you’re looking to kill alittle time, Newgrounds is the place for you.
Onceentering, you are brought to a neatly organized page topped with Tom Fulp, thecreator, valiantly commanding his tank in order to combat internet boredom. Thesides of the page are also typically adorned with a colorful collage of artworkdone by one of the sites many artists. This artwork usually involves popularcharacters from creators on the site. The page is broken up into severalcategories mostly including the latest and greatest art, animation, featuredartists, contests, and games. It also includes links to news about upcoming eventson the site as well as news from the artists themselves. The top of the page isalso split into categories of art, movies, music, and games where you cansearch for entries in those categories. When clicking on each, you can thenfurther narrow your search into the latest, greatest, and most popular resultsfrom those four categories. However, this site does have advertisem*nts whichcan be annoying at times. Another drawback from the overall layout of the siteis that you cannot search for an individual artist. You are limited tosearching only through the medium of the work, the title of the work, and anyrelated tags. With this system it become quite difficult to find a specificartist unless you can remember the title of their work or get lucky by typing inrandom related words. However, the vibrant colors and artwork are quiteappealing to the eye and help draw attention to the different works of art andcategories. Overall the site’s organization functions quite well to allow for easeof access to anyone using it.
Beingthat this site is comprised of user generated content, anybody could create anaccount and submit their work, hence the motto “Everything, by Everyone.” Newgroundsalso allows for collaborations between different users on the site. Setting upan account on this site is much like setting up an account on YouTube, eBay,Amazon, and many other sites; it involves entering personal information, mostlyyour name and email address. In creating a profile you must also create ausername. Much like a YouTube channel, this allows for the option of anonymityof the user. Upon submitting something to the site, you must agree to a fewterms and conditions, then wait to allow for your submission to be checked forplagiarism and rated. The rating systemon this site is comparable to that of movie ratings, ranging from E for everyoneto M for more mature audiences. The rating system allows the user to sort outcategories involving violence, nudity, and profanity. Setting up a profile onthis site also allows you to favorite, rate, and comment on other people’ssubmissions. The site also commonly features contests between the differentmediums. These contests are typically themed around holidays or other eventsand are decided by the ratings of other users. The prize for winning variesfrom contest to contest. This account setup easily allows for people to have aplace to submit their work and have it published and recognized, allowing for aperson to create an online identity to base their work around.
Themovie category consists of a gallery of flash animations. These animations havea running time that ranges from about thirty seconds to thirty minutes if it’sa compilation; however, most only run for about two to three minutes. These animationstypically are a comedic satire of some sort to game, movie or other bit of obscuresubculture. There are some animations that are completely original with theirown characters and animation styles, sometimes even having an entire series. Withsuch short running time you could watch an entire series of original contentpossibly in less than thirty minutes. These animations also range from being ultra-violent,silly, comedic, and totally bizarre or any combination of these. Since thissite is dedicated to entertainment and art it’s rare to find something that isserious or trying to bring light to a serious issue, most of the content is nonsense, createdpurely for fun. Although, to be honest a majority of these animations aredownright unwatchable. They are devoid of any plot, animation ability, artisticability, or creativity. Yet, taking in consideration the painstaking effort andcomplexities of creating flash animations it’s not a surprise that there is a myriadof horrible content. However, taking into consideration the tedious effort ittakes to create these animations the horrible ones contrast the good videos. Theorganization of the site also helps sort out the garbage by being able narrowyour search by the most popular or highest rated. The site also allows for theanimations to be set up like YouTube videos, with a progress bar to jump fromplace to place in the video, as well as pause it. Only some of the neweranimations have this feature though, almost all of the older ones require youto play through the video all the way. Overall the well-made videos are quiteimpressive, both artistically and entertainment wise, they’re great for whenyou have a little bit of time to kill.
Thegames category is a gallery of flash based games. This category includesaction, adventure, puzzle, strategy, simulation, and many other various genres.Like the movie category you can narrow your search by looking at only thelatest, greatest, and popular. The games themselves are typically very wellmade, developed by either independent companies or users themselves. Many ofthese games are also borrowed from other sites. This site was thebirthplace of a few popular games that were made onto game consoles. For example,the game “Castle Crashers” started as a project on this site. All these games arefree and aren’t very long, which is great for killing some time.
Theart category features a gallery of mostly digital based artwork including pixelart, illustrations, 3D art, and other various types. Most of the art is digitalbased, you don’t see very much physical paintings or sculptures. A majority ofthe content in this category is typically based on characters, people, and fanart; very rarely do you see landscapes. The variety artwork also typicallyinvolves abstract imagery and vibrant colors. A majority of the content on here is verywell made, showing off the artistic talents of the creators. However, there area lot of submissions that lack any type of developed artistic talent. Not that there’sanything wrong with that, nobody can become a good artist without practice. Butagain, the ability to narrow your search to the latest, greatest, and mostpopular comes in handy. Although, due to the sheer volume of submissions inthis category, looking up a specific artist becomes difficult since you can’tdirectly look up a username; only medium, title, and tags. There are little tono loading times on these pages so you can view a lot of artwork in a short amountof time. So, if you’re interested in viewing some awesome artwork Newgrounds isthe place for you.
The final category on Newgrounds is audio. Thiscategory holds a wide range of musical genres that were all user createdincluding electronic, hip hop/rap/R&B, rock/metal, southern, and voiceacting and many other subcategories within those genres. Most of the music onhere is instrumental or simply short sound loops; however, there are completesongs and albums. A lot of the music on here is reminiscent of older video gamesoundtracks, especially in the electronic category, and would make forexcellent background music for a video. The music on here is remarkably wellproduced considering they are being made by independent people. All the musicis free to listen to. However, the site also allows you to download music directly ifyou want, but sometimes you have to pay. With such a diverse collection ofmusic and a large amount of content, the ability to narrow down your search bygenre and sub-genre undoubtedly makes this category user friendly. So, if youlike to explore free music check out the selection on Newgrounds.
So,instead of wallowing in self-pity and pools of anxiety over finals, sit back,relax, and treat yourself to some good old mind numbing internet nonsense. It’sgood to take a break once in a while, since all work and no play makes someonea dull person. There’s no better place to slack off a little bit than Newgrounds. In fact, the opposite could be true, this could be a place to be productive. If you’rean artist, animator, musician, or game developer you could submit some of yourwork to the site and get recognized, maybe show off a little.
