Greetings those who live lives amongst other humans!
How are things going for you? I haven't really posted anything here for...
....
....
Five years!
It's been a long five years. I'm not around much these days because I write for a living and having to work eats up my time and makes it harder to make the kind of stuff I'd put up here. I actually write video games for a living (among other things) as a narrative designer.
My real name is Matthew Ritter. I'm 33. I'm a dude. I've worked at places like Telltale, Dontnod, other less cool places where I wrote shovel-ware. I've done comics with dark horse, had a failed TV pilot, made a few weird indy games no one really gets. Most importantly...
Newgrounds is where I learned to do anything, really. This is where I learned how to make games, record audio, edit videos, figure out timing and basically if this place hadn't existed I'd really not be the creative type person I am today.
The last thing I put up on newgrounds was Dead Horizon: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/698298
A lot of people, professional people, don't know why I made the game. It took a long time to make. It cost me real world money. I gave it away for free. It's short. but... newgrounds is where I learned that games could be more than just a game. Games could be short stories. Games could be evocative of a single moment or time or thought or idea.
Newgrounds is where I first realized that people treat you differently depending on what gender they think you are or how old you are. Newgrounds is the place where Egoraptor decided I was a bitch for reasons I don't even remember and made my life a living hell totally by accident because of how popular he was at the time. Newgrounds is the place where I first realized that games and videos and things like that wern't produced by massive companies but where made by people. Normal people and if they could do it so could I.
It's where I learned to do pixel art which is how I paid my way through college.
It's where I learned that people often say they want to do something, and do, but often don't have the energy to actually see it through, and that any job is people management.
Newgrounds is still the place I go when I want to see detailed interesting and oddly analytical comments on things. Where the reviews and reactions are going to have 500% more insight than somewhere like youtube.
It's the place where I got my first fan mail and realized that not only are videos and games and books and things like that made by other humans but REAL HUMANS also read watch and enjoy them. That everything is just made up of people.
Other people in my life often make fun of me because I sometimes mention this place. However, I still come here, and view and play the random stuff. Stuff that is often very interesting. Stuff that makes me think. Stuff that there isn't always a place for (or at least a place where people will actually take a look at it) anywhere else.
I will say without irony that in my late teens I was a terrible person. I dropped out of high school, I flunked out of several community colleges. I lied. I grifted people. I probably was going to end up at the very least being utterly useless to everyone. My family put up with me and tried their best, but it got bad. It got trying to burn the house down bad. It got 'you should be in jail you pathetic human being' bad.
It was deciding to actually start making things that changed me. This was before youtube. This was when really there wasn't a way to get yourself out there unless you had your own website and even then no one would go to it. When web comics linked to each other through web rings.
Newgrounds gave me a place to put my creativity up and show it to people and get their feedback right then and there.
Newgrounds in a very real way saved me.
Sadly, you can't REALLY thank a community. I can send a letter to Tom. Thank him for the time he put one of my videos on the front page literally just because I asked him to. I can write this and thank everyone who reads it. But, you can't think a community because they don't exist. They're just made up of people. It doesn't mean they're not real. They just aren't the kind of thing you can thank. They don't have feelings or emotions.
That doesn't mean you can't be grateful. Very very grateful.
Thanks newgrounds. Please have a fabulous day.
Xuvero
Nice! This is a pretty good story of how this place was great for someone. I'm sure there are plenty of other stories like this around here, I bet most have.
I don't know if he has read this yet. But @TomFulp needs to read this. And maybe he should know of everyone else's story with NG, our relations with this place. We have much to thank him.
Emptygoddess
I have much to thank you. Thanks for taking the time to read my rantings.