Trust me now, you will probably not like it, at all. For an English Comp class, we were to choose a subject of our enjoyment to write an MLA format essay and I just so happened to choose NG for it. I aced it, and now I share my utter frustrations unto those who actually READ the Goddamn blogs anymore.

You will probably not like me very well after this, but lately, I have been not caring about the dumb shit things that people write. Enjoy!

PS: It's not in MLA format, if you know what that is, so don't be a picky dipshit.

The Flaws of Newgrounds from a NG User's Eyes

For those who don't know what Newgrounds is, Newgrounds is a site where Flash
animation/games and audio music flourish. It has given birth to some of the internet's most well-known videos, including "The Numa Numa Dance", "Charlie the Unicorn", and "Metal Gear Awesome", and even having a game reach home consoles under the name Alien Hominid. For the last three years, I have had an account with Newgrounds under the alias of ConnerBomb, but only have been active on it since November 2007, even submitting some audio pieces of my own with excellent feedback. Within the short time that I have been using this name, however, I have discovered some issues with this site that I find irritating, mainly due to the site's community. Though Newgrounds has brought forth some great Flash artists and superb audio artists, the site is riddled with flaws because of the immaturity level, the severely flawed rating system, and the misleading and often inappropriate Flash that make this site at times unbearable.

Perhaps one of the main issues that stand out in my mind about this site is the immaturity level of the other users. This is mainly due to the majority of the users on Newgrounds being under the age of sixteen and the older users acting like the users who are under sixteen. They are the main contributors to many of the blog entries and forum discussions on Newgrounds. The forums on this site, especially in the General section, are bombarded with some of the worst topics I have ever encountered on any website I have visited. Many of these topics involve sexual acts/topics, racial or religious bashing, and some even post mutilation pictures of either animals or people. The blogs on Newgrounds are around the same topic as the forums, but are more concealed, making the blogs iffy to click on. How so? A user could just put a "Hello Everyone", but then throw in a hentai picture to throw you off guard (which is supposed to be not allowed by Newgrounds rules, but of course, nothing happens). Not only do the users on this site post inappropriate content, they also have a tendency to spam other user's pages. I personally have gone through and deleted responses stating "YOU ARE A F****T!!!!!!!", "UR GHEY!!!1!!1", "F*CK YOU!!!", the list goes on from users who get a personal enjoyment on doing so. This shows how immature most of the users on this site can be.

Another problem that I found on Newgrounds, and perhaps one of the biggest contributors of the trash that is on this site, is the rating system for the Flashes. On Newgrounds, the rating system consists of a bar with the numbers 0-5; 0 being lowest, 5 being highest. This rating system for Newgrounds is one of the most broken systems I have ever encountered. One of the reasons why it's broken is the fact that you can rate on your own works. So basically, the author of a piece of Flash or audio can vote a 5 on his or her work when it deserves much less. Also, the blam and save system also contributes to the brokenness of the site's rating system. On Newgrounds, a "blam" is when a person votes 0 or 1 on a work and when the rating gets to a certain level, gets deleted. A "save" is a 2 to 5 rating that keeps the Flash on Newgrounds for all eternity. When someone helps blam or save a Flash from getting through, they receive a point on their page. But, in my opinion, is the reason why decent Flashes get deleted and terrible flashes get passed. This is because that some users on this site could care less for the Flash that they save or blam as long as they get that point for their page. It sickens me on what gets passed or blammed because of it.

Therefore, this brings me to my final point on why Newgrounds is riddled with flaws: the Flash itself. I have watched countless Flashes since I've been on Newgrounds. Many of these Flashes I took the liberty of blamming because they were beyond terrible. Many of these no-talent flashes, which include badly drawn and animated stick figures half the time, usually get deleted. However, there are "crews" on Newgrounds that will 5 vote a terrible Flash out of spite of everyone else, and it passes through the judgment stage, which poses both an annoyance and a problem on the site. Not only do these terrible Flashes pass judgment, some of them are wrongly rated. On Newgrounds, the Flashes are rated by the content that is in them, from All Ages to Adult. However, some users get a kick of wrongly rating their flash. I have actually encountered Flashes rated All Ages where there are genitalia flying across the screen and Adult rated Flashes with no adult content whatsoever. How can you watch a Flash when you can't even trust the rating on it? In fact, the users that are guilty of this trend are the ones that being in "spam crews". These crews on Newgrounds get a kick of passing their so-called spam Flashes to anger the community, and they do an excellent job in doing so. Though I have tried desperately to try to find some control over this, I have been unsuccessful, due to the rating system, the blam/save system, and people's uncaring nature.

In conclusion, because of the immaturity, the rating system, and sub-par Flash that get passed, Newgrounds is slowly becoming worse overtime and looks as though that it will not reverse anytime soon. Now, being a vigilant Newgrounds user (rare on this site), I have noticed this trend since I have visited this site the first time in middle school. As much as I want to make the site better for other users, no one on the site seems to give a damn about it. My thing is that the administration needs to wake up and fix these problems so that the site would no longer be compared to another site of the same qualities; 4chan. Newgrounds has some of the most memorable Flashes that are being overrun by other people's garbage and it seems as though no one cares, and I have grown tired of fighting a seeming losing battle.

Okay, if you read all that, it was all basically a rant, as you can see. This is all obvious to most of you (hopefully), and I was only stating it. I aced the damn thing as well.

If you DIDN'T read it, you're a fucking dumbass for even scrolling to the bottom in the blog in hopes of a "pretty" picture that I usually post. Tough luck asswipe, there isn't one.

I hope you enjoyed it, leave comments, I always respond.

PS: I saw Wall-E today; it was the shit :P