There is nothing connate to your existence that makes you special:
After viewing a bunch of front page posts bitching about newgrounds, and the lack of "traffic", and "exposure" artists here are getting, I feel I need to break my silence on the matter.
The main underling problem with newgrounds isn't that any features that are missing, the source of all this malaise is simple; everyone here can't accept they've become pathetic entitled brats.
There are 6 billion people on the planet, and being an artist is one of the most competitive and saturated pursuits one can choose to be a part of, art is intrinsic to our origins after all (cavemen paintings, tribal markings, ect).
If you feel your material is better than others, you'll need to prove it, so fucking be ready to claw, and scratch to make a name of yourself, this is a winners game and the failures will die off...
Life owes no one anything, and the beauty about newgrounds is that there is nothing that makes one better than anyone else, the ONLY thing that will separate one's work from another's is one's skill in their respective medium. If you want exposure without lowering yourself to creating parodies, you're going to need to create something amazing, and be ready to promote it.
The complaint I don't understand from all these "artists" is about how they feel the portal system is broken, or the "lack" of tools to promote ones work, they can't possibly be serious?
If you've cut your teeth, and garnered an award in your medium, YOU CAN FUCKING POST ON THE FRONT PAGE!
Name one other fucking mainstream website that gives you this wonderful privilege, or even better name one that allows you to do this for free, you certainly won't find that feature possible on youtube...
The portal system is perfect, it makes it so your work needs to be seen, and rated prior to being allowed on the website, it filters the good from the bad, and allows the exceptional works to shine. Furthermore take into account that newgrounds offers a financial incentive to those voting on submissions (the $100.00 draw at the end of each month), so what more can really be asked?
The experience system is another magnificent aspect of newgrounds, those users who've seen and voted on more films are given more voting power, it gives those who've put in the time to develop an opinion and understanding of the medium a say worth more than that of the layman. Doing so helps make those submissions that deserve to do well a better chance of getting exposure, vs a poorly created submission crammed with stupid pop culture references made to pander to the lowest common denominator.
I'm a pragmatist, I know there are a few things that could be done to make the portal more efficient, but the system itself works, look at TastesLikeAnya's "Fire Tiger Vs Acid Pather", it's her first submission and it has 42000+ views, the reason why is because it's quality content.
She's not the exception to the rule, these are some other recent submissions from first timers that did exceptionally well:
- dex00's Ninja Action
- ianmichaelmiller's Cheap Joke
- Pennaz's Cartoon Genders ( this is actually the artists second submission, but his first was also well received).
The trait that all these submissions share in common is that they are well done, the good films/games do get recognition, it's the mediocre, and poor efforts that fall into obscurity.
An astonishing thing about newgrounds is it's tolerance towards darker adult oriented material, can you imagine something like Anusboy, The Worst, or Powertrip, getting the same amount of in house support or exposure outside of newgrounds?
I mean fuck, most of the time on other websites adult content isn't permitted period...
The ability to express oneself without compromise is something so rare, that newgrounds deserves serious commendations for allowing adult content to be hosted, even though it must cut into it's advertising profits.
Newgrounds is still a bleeding edge website, everyone with a dream and enough of a desire can get some recognition, but no one here should just feel entitled to it, that's hypocritical ostentation at it's worst, and it's repulsive and makes me sick.
Stop complaining, grow up and live up to your potential, or fuck off cause the world doesn't give a shit for crybaby failures.
With love,
- Celx
LazyBucks
This guy gets it.
I too noticed a lot of moaning threads and posts recently, thanks for taking the time to set them straight :)
Celx-Requin
It's what I do...