Heyo everyone, and happy 30th to Newgrounds!

I know a lot of people are releasing songs, art, games, whatever the heck they want for the day. I really wanna encourage people to go check those things out, because I can tell you from experience that a ton of hard work goes into every single collab and piece that’s done here.

Instead of a song or a collab or anything of that nature though, I just want to reflect today and just talk. I’ve been on the site for just over seven years now (I feel old just remembering that), and while I haven’t seen everything, I’ve seen a bit through my time and I’ve seen both the site and its community change. And let’s be honest, I’ve seen myself change too.

I've considered sharing my thoughts about abuse in relation to a certain recent issue on here, mainly about the larger issues of power and respect that permeate that issue and is present beyond NG (read: the current American administration). I'll table my larger thoughts for another day, but I’ll still say a pleasant surprise that relates to what I love about NG and its community.

It’s been a few years since I deleted Twitter since it was just filling up my brain with negative information, but I’ve found that the lack of information meant that I had to rely on word-of-mouth for some information, for better or for worse. Recently though I’ve been using a publicly-available client called XCancel, which allows me to see only whatever I search up (anything that’s public of course, I can't see private accounts using the client). I get to select the information I look at, and it means I get to see a little more of the world's light to balance the anger. It’s kind of a “best of both worlds” if you will - looking at Twitter without looking at Twitter.

When I first heard about the issue, I thought the community's reactions were one way; it wasn’t until I looked through XCancel that I found the general community, including some of the larger names and people working on the site, is saying themselves that they are 100% against the issue. And it doesn’t surprise me, seeing how a similar incident happened a couple of years ago and the community responded in the exact same way, including larger names and people working on NG.

I think one of the strengths of the NG community isn’t just that it’s strong, but that it’s smart and, from a general standpoint, it cares. It’s more than just a community of content creators like a YouTube community is, it’s a community of legitimate people that generally care, that want you to be safe, that want you to speak out if something's troubling you. And I say this from experience: I know that not everyone on the site is a saint - it's realistically impossible in a community of this size, despite all we can do to limit the power of those who aren't saints - but the best part about Newgrounds is its community and all the stuff that we put on for ourselves and for others because we care.

In the past few years, collaborations have exploded in quantity and I don’t see that inherently as a bad thing. Projects are starting to seek Newgrounds talent, and even university capstones from across America are utilizing talent from the site. There's a resurgence of meetups, in fact the LA meetup is happening as I post this. Heck, it’s kind of insane to think that Tokyo Machine, a Monstercat musician, recently decided to make an account here on Newgrounds - it makes sense considering a ton of Newgrounds talent has worked with them in recent years, but it’s still crazy to think about.

I legitimately feel the reason that’s happened is because Newgrounds has the sort of “screw it, let’s vibe” general mentality. If you go onto a site like YouTube, you find people worried about making money or having their videos taken down due to copyright strikes; here, there’s just a sense of underground experimentation that permeates everything. It’s like Newgrounds wants this kind of collaboration and this mentality instead of the corporate mentality you’d find in other larger places.

In fact, I legit don’t care if Newgrounds isn’t the biggest thing out there - I want NG to profit of course (I would love to buy some Supporter but financial issues are abound, hopefully the future will fix that) but I think the charm and the strengths of this community more than make up for the size. Is it perfect, no, but I feel there’s a reason why people flocked to the site in 2018 when Tumblr became more restrictive in its art. There’s a reason why people flocked again around 2020 when the first Sponjibobbu episode was struck down on YouTube but remained on Newgrounds. There’s a reason why Newgrounds has stuck with “Everything by Everyone” for so long while YouTube’s “Broadcast Yourself” got forgotten or the butt end of a joke.

It’s because I believe the site puts its value where its mouth is. Simple as that.

I know life is hard in general right now, but I wanna end with three things.

I’ve seen some posts from @Irisia talking about them trying to flee Russia as things become increasingly dangerous for LGBTQIA+ individuals there. If you have some cash and want to help someone out, take a moment to head to their profile or listen to their story in their news posts.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I have a ton of stuff on the way for this second half of the year. Yesterday I popped up a song from an old and defunct project, which is more of a chill song, so you can check it out if you’d like.

Lastly, I know some people aren’t into country music, but I (fun fact) grew up with it and there’s one song that I thought of on the Fourth of July, for a variety of reasons. It’s an old but chill song that hopefully could lift your spirits if you want it, either now or maybe later on if now isn’t a good time.

Remember that you matter, now and always. You should never be afraid to speak up, be yourself, and have fun. The true power in Everything, in my opinion, is the power in Everyone.

Happy 30th, Newgrounds. Here’s to 30 more 🍻