NEWGROUNDS IS NOW 30 YEARS OLD!!!

HERE IS MY ART:

Since I thought this post was too interesting to be only on the Supporter Forum, I decided to post it as a newspost.

Here's something that I thought was interesting. Newgrounds is one of the last places to express creativity without any algorithms or bullshit paywalls, but what if it stopped being that way? Now, obviously, I feel that the website itself is designed to prevent itself from becoming enshittified unlike other popular social media sites without a dramatic overhaul. But, let's just imagine a future where Newgrounds actually comes to a decline in its quality just to maximize profits. How would that go?

Here's how I think Newgrounds could become enshittified. The first thing that came to my mind was the Supporter Rank. At its current state, Supporter feels like a way of just, well, supporting Newgrounds with some quality of life features, and you obviously don't have to buy it to enjoy being on Newgrounds. However, if Newgrounds were to turn for the worse, then I feel that Supporter would start to feel more like a necessity. It could start off by being a paywall to many things, considering it already gives extra space for private messages, forum signatures, and extra images for posts, why not do the rest for all of the writing spaces? Why not have it so that supporters get a larger character limit for forum posts, blog posts, comments on blogs, even the reviews? Now, these aren't exactly bad per say, I would be fine with these possible changes I just mentioned. However, it could get a whole lot worse. Perhaps forum threads and blog comments get formatted to have supporters be at the top, regardless of whether or not they were the first to post? P-Bot's Daily Posting would have it so that the movies and games made by supporters become more likely to win and less likely to be a runner-up? Perhaps have it so that movies, games, and art made by supporters be more likely to be front paged? I just feel that if Newgrounds were to take the wrong steps, it could end up feeling like you have to pay in order to have attention, to have success, to gain a following. This is a future that if combined with the site allowing for algorithms and with a more corporate feel to how Tom and the others run the site, is one that I will forever dread and wish that it never happens.

This song had topped the charts during the day of my birth.

Last night, I had graduated my senior year of high school which means I am free (for the most part)! I plan on going to a nearby trade school that focuses on animation and game development which will be around July. In the meantime, I will be enjoying this summer the best I can and I will hopefully be able to post some more art! I know I definitely will during the 30th Anniversary of Newgrounds!

This is pretty much the actual reason why I changed my name to ShockASH

edit: welp now I don't have 200 followers anymore lol

edit: okay now I have 200 followers again thanks @ChiralAnomaly!

Decided I didn't exactly want my username to basically have my real life nickname, so now I go by online as ShockAsh!

I based the "Ash" off of Ash Crimson from King of Fighters because their name is cool and is three letters, which fits the my irl nickname. Also, I lowkey kinda kin Ash (still repping Shocklord since I know more LISA than I do KOF). From this point forward, all stuff that's created by me will say that it's from ShockAsh.

Okay, so as I was b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ touring the HQ of Newgrounds. I got to see Tom Fulp's computer and discovered something absolutely mindblowing! The 10K Forum is REAL!

Don't tell Tom!

It's wild to think that I am actually 19 now. That also means new fan art of Shocklord!

@KittyhawkMontrose gave me a surprise gift, which is now my profile pic!

Check it out!