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WaterShake
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Age 30, Male

Graphic Designer

Edinburgh

Joined on 6/7/09

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WaterShake's News

Posted by WaterShake - March 24th, 2014


( ; (  )

2882767_139567415152_sadeyes.png


Posted by WaterShake - February 12th, 2014


im a new person now. here's a new poster to represent that.2882767_139226540071_Untitled9.jpg


Posted by WaterShake - July 7th, 2012


I'm working on a new drawing, the first that i've done in a while. It's nothing particularly special - but it will be the first drawing that I work with digitally. Once the sketch is complete i'm probably going to create 2 or 3 pieces from it. Should be fun.

See the most recent WIP of the drawing below:

A New Face


Posted by WaterShake - February 15th, 2012


London 2012 Olympic Branding: No More Gradients


Preamble

I'm reasonably interested in the Olympic games rapidly approaching this summer. I still remember the excitement cum impatience I felt upon first hearing we'd [obnoxiously proud Brit speaking here] won the games bid. 2012 seemed a lifetime at that moment. But it's here now.

As such, we're beginning to see more and more promotional material released into the public domain e.g logo, mascots, advertisements and such. As a marketeer and graphic designer, the saga of London 2012's logo has most definitely caught my attention.

The logo has been called ugly, phallic, seizure inducing, too edgy, too try hard and a myriad of other things. But i'd like to take this opportunity to stage a rebuttal.

It's Not Boring

Subheading is suitable for both these paragraphs and the subject as a whole
The bright colours and distinctive design of the logo definitely do stand from out it's cliche ridden peers. It's both memorable and recognizable. Can anyone draw the Beijing Olympic logo from memory? Or the logo prior? Didn't think so.

Apathetic designers and marketers are continually attacking the monotony of the status-quo; London breaks the mould.

It's Different

The London logo avoids all the obvious/facepalm pitfalls of current logo design. No brushstrokes. No feathered drop shadows. No mirrored reflections. No gradients. No patriotic colours. No rainbows, ribbons, landmarks, symbols of unity, maps, swooshes or globes. It's different.

It's Reproducible

Vitally important for an Olympic logo given the variety of media forms it needs to appear upon e.g application forms, receipts, tickets, televisions, websites, posters etc.

Aside from the kerning and x-width of "London" inflating when sloppily rendered for the web (most notably the initial BBC reproduction that ended up on all websites critiquing the logo), it's good to see a logo that's so easily printable, broadcastable, embroiderable and moldable.

Think of how horrible this Chicago Olympic logo conceptwould look when it's process-printed-from-a-register with a 100 line screen on a McDonalds cup. The London logo works both in colour and B&W.

It's Flexible

The logo is available in a variety of colour combinations, shapes and patterns, keeping the logo fresh upon each viewing but coherently consistent. This is a godsend for corporate partners needing to incorporate London branding within their own.

It's Simple

"I could have drawn that/done better" is a common insult of the London logo. Ignoring the fact that genius/creativity are required for creation not reproduction, some of the greatest logos of all time involve merely two to four lines (Christian cross, Mercedes etc.).

Its The Basis For A Graphic System

Hallmark/Mega-Events such as the Olympics require masses of signage, identification, oranmentation and architectue (both permanent and temporary). The London logo and it's associated colours, shapes, type and patterns are the perfect foundation for some fantastic signage, event icons, banners, tickets, uniforms and merchandising etc. You can say goodbye to Union Jack bric-a-brac.

Its Timeless

Complaints about the sources of inspiration of the logo range from "Never Mind the Bollocks" to Tangrams to 80's new wave to MTV. Some said it's "too current" and would look dated by 2012. Others say it's too futuristic or modern.

But in truth, all design is influenced by previous design. This design manages to rise above it's influence, yet remains simple enough to stand on its own.

It's British

By far the most prominent names within British design are Neville Brody and Peter Saville. Without being a direct reguritation, the 2012 logo is evocative of their work and everything great about the United Kingdom.

-Rant Ends-

What are your thoughts on the London Olympic logo?

Link to original thread

London 2012 Olympics


Posted by WaterShake - October 26th, 2011


DoS & Russian Mobsters


Introduction

As most of you are most likely aware, Newgrounds suffered from an accidental DoS (denial of service) attack in the past week. It was triggered, innocently enough by the over-excitable fandom of Homestuck.

While I was away from Newgrounds at the time of the meltdown (most likely sleeping), reading about it afterwards did pique my interest in DoS attacks.

The term first came to my attention during the 2011 spring/summer hackfest (when Anon, LulzSec and other groups were romping around the internet and causing havoc for businesses like Sony and Amazon). A friend explained the concept to me quite aptly:

"Think of a website as a building on a high street, people are ambling along in and out the front doors, going in to have a nosey around and maybe leaving with a shopping bag or two. Now think of a thousand, two thousand people all trying to fit through those front doors at once, some of them are genuinely wanting to get inside, others are just acting with a crowd mentality and flailing around everywhere. The end result? Nobody gets in. That in essence is DoS"

He was also quick to point out that DoS attacks aren't really "hacking" and that those responsible are spotty faced teenagers, empowering themselves with a vague sense of rebellion for fighting against the "man". Probably not all that far away from our aforementioned Homestruck fandom.

The problem is, turns out he's wrong. Dead wrong. Some investigative journalism from Evan Ratliff for The New Yorker back in 2005 describes the DoS world not of spotty teenagers and flash fans, but of Russian mobsters, protection rackets and thousands and thousands of dollars. This is some scary stuff.

The Scary World of Online Racketeering
But first, some further background is required on how DoS attacks are orchestrated (feel free to skip this section if this is old hat to you).

DoS attacks require large networks of computers sending out enough requests for data to bring the data providers (i.e servers) to their knees. This is done with herders and their respective zombies. "Zombies" are computers hijacked by hackers, usually without the owners knowledge. Hackers garner huge pools of these zombie computers and "herd" them to their chosen target. All this can and does take place hidden from the view of a zombie computer user. The problem is so widespread that even computers from within the United States Navy's Network Operations Centre and Department of Defence Military Sealift Command Network are infected.

Online criminals are using these huge hordes of zombies to bring businesses to their knees. They tend to target online industries, such as pornography and gambling, that occupy a gray area, and may be reluctant to seek help from law enforcement.

Protx, an online-payment processing company has also been attacked by these online extortionists. It began in August 2004. The company received an email with the subject line "Contact us", sent from commerce_protection@yahoo.com. The message was written in broken English:

"We attack your servers for some time. If you want save your business, you should pay 10.000$ bank wire to our bank account. When we receive money, we stop attack immediately. If we will not receive money, we will attack your business 1 month". The note went on to say that $10,000 would buy Protx a year's worth of protection before concluding "Think about how much money you will lose, while your servers are down. Thanks John Martino".

Protx had never heard of John Martino and decided to ignore the message. Fast forward two months and Protx's IT department is working overtime, dealing with complaints from customers that the system was offline. The source of disruption was clear, a DoS attack.

Another email promptly arrived from John Martino reiterating his demands of £10,000 and it took the IT technicians 2 days to get the systems back online, with every second of downtime losing the company money.

All returned to normal, for a short period of time until April, when Mr.Martino contacted the company again and used a horde of 70,000 zombies to keep the website offline for 3 days.

The company now spends roughly $500,000 a year to protect itself, fifty times what Martino had asked for. This includes a $100,000 annual contract with Prolexic, an online security company that specialises in defending against DoS attacks.

Protx is only one company though. There are literally dozens of other online services currently under siege with similar threats today. With federal resources within America already stretched to their full capacity, handling everything from child pornography to identify theft it's becoming clearer for private businesses that they're very much on their own in this, much scarier world of DoS.

What does this alarming trend mean for us as consumers of online services and netizens of online communities?

DoS & Russian Mobsters


Posted by WaterShake - January 10th, 2011


Endless, Senseless and Anti-Human: The Future of Technology?

Preface

I often wonder what the future of computer technology bears in store for us. Computers have developed at such an incredible rate within the past 50 years that it's hard to envisage what they will be capable of in the future. With that in my mind, I recently began my own research into both the history, and future of technology. I was mortified by my initialI findings.

Many of todays technologies have embedded themselves, almost accidentally within our lives. Web 2.0 threatens to decrease our personhood and shrink our understanding of what it is to be a person. We are destined to be simultaneously locked within our design flaws and outclassed by our own tools. Within this essay, I plan to explore the worlds of both software web 2.0.

Locked-in

"Lock-in".While this term may seem alien, we are all almost irreversibly destined to become more familiar with it as technology develops further. Jaron Lanier describes the theory of lock-in at the beginning of his book: "You Are Not A Gadget"; he uses the example of MIDI. MIDI may (somewhat ironically) sound unfamiliar to most of us, but I can guarantee that all of us have heard it. MIDI is software embedded at the heart of almost all music software. MIDI was created in the early 1980's, for one man and his synthesiser. He created the software to give himself a broader spectrum of sound to experiment with. MIDI could represent simplistic musical ideas, e.g a key being played; MIDI worked well at what it was designed to do, and thus it rapidly expanded. There was MIDI this and MIDI that, everything was vying to support MIDI. However, MIDI had soon expanded far beyond its original scope of design, it was being used to represent things much more complex than a keyboard; things much more complex than it was capable of. Better, tidier and more advanced alternatives to MIDI were created, but it was too late. So many pieces of software and hardware had been created to support MIDI by this point that the fiscal investment to replace the software was unfathomable. Thus, still to this day, musicians are bound by the limitations of software almost 30 years old. MIDI is locked-in. It's quite a frightful thought indeed; that a small project of work by one man could have such a drastic impact.

Many of the technologies that we use on a daily basis are actually locked-in solutions, alternatives to which are almost unimaginable. Websites for example, were not always destined to be designed as "pages". Computer "files" were not always a certainty, yet the concepts of a "file" or a "webpage" are so fundamental to our technology that it's tricky to seriously envisage any other systems. All of these (and many, many more) concepts had equabilitylly (if not more so) credible alternatives.

"Lock-in" does not exist solely within the world of technology, it can be seen in any aspect of life with either a history or a future. Lock-in can be seen within the world of railways for instance, e.g the dimensions of tracks. The London Tube was designed with narrow tracks and matching tunnels. Many of these tunnels cannot accommodate air-conditioning because there is no room to ventilate the hot air from the trains. Thus, tens of thousands of modern-day residents in one of the world's richest cities must suffer a stifling commute because of an inflexible design decision that was made over one hundred years ago. But unfortunately, lock-in within software is much more painful than railroads. Software must always adhere perfectly to a boundlessly particular and messy system of rules. So while lock-in may be an annoyance in the world of railroads, it's death by one thousand cuts in the digital world.

There are some, although depressingly few, situations in which we escaped "lock-in". For instance, there was an active campaign in the 1980's and 1990's to promote the importance of visual aesthetics within software. Thankfully, the movement was successful due to the efforts of influential engineers within companies such as Apple and Microsoft- thus we have been saved from ugly fonts and software, for now at least.

Whilst lock-in lurks menacingly within the world of software, our online world faces dangers of its own. Anonymity, fragmentation and laziness are diminishing what it means to be a person in the online world. Lanier claims that web 2.0 is asking us to shrink ourselves and join the anonymous online masked mass.

Web 2.0

Tom Young used his last column article on computing.co.uk to highlight some of the "creeping dangers" embedding themselves within the internet. He claims that the foremost, and most prominent danger is anonymity. He asks us to "glance at the comments below any newspaper opinion article and you will be given a whirlwind tour of the most unpleasant aspects of the public psyche". Whilst I do disagree with his assertion of "any", I think all of us are very much aware of what Young is referring to. The freedom and anonymity offered by the internet encourage many people to express themselves in ways they may be unable to within the "real world". Young suggests that this freedom has negative consequences, as people with controversial opinions are given free reign to broadcast themselves. However, if we begin to judge and censor the internet; then we risk net-neutrality and the nature of the internet itself. Whilst I agree that anonymity is an ailment, I disagree with Young's diagnosis.

I think the real danger of anonymity is the impact it has upon our individuality.I think that the individuality of internet users is rapidly losing ground to a collective, unknown, omnipresent crowd. As Lanier states "Real people must has left all those anonymous comments on blogs and video clips, but who knows where they are now, or if they are dead? The digital hive is growing at the expense of individuality".

WriteSomething epitomises the anonymous, digital hive described by Lanier. WriteSomething asks us to write anything, something, as long as we do it quickly and without thinking (and of course, anonymously). The website was established as an "endless, senseless, collaborative book". However, the project has somewhat predictably degenerated into picayune chatter. Interestingly however, the rare, well written pieces on the website usually stem form the few registered and named members. This somewhat crude pattern of identifiable=good and anonymous=bad seems to apply to other online communities as well.

Lanier embellishes upon the idea of a "digital hive mind "in an online essay "Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism". He states "If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people [creating the content] and making ourselves into idiots.".

Wikipedia is often targeted by Lanier for a multitude of reasons. The sterile style of writing on Wikipedia removes any flavor or trace of humanity. In doing so, it filters the subtlety of authors opinions and essential information is lost. Furthermore, the collective authorships approach of Wikipedia tends towards the ideas and opinions of the crowd, potentially devaluing its own content.

Web services such as Twitter ask us "what are you doing now?", yet the question is fundamentally flawed. Twitter does not ask us to share ourselves, it asks us to share fragments of ourselves. Twitter is asking us to adapt our own behavioural habits for ease of exploitation; it's much easier to collect fragments than it is to collect people. It's worth remembering that "you have to be somebody before you can share yourself".

But even more worrying than the prospect of computers changing us, is the idea of computers "replacing" us. There is a peculiar, but increasingly popular trend of thought within digital communities: "Anti-human". Kevin Kelly states we no longer require authors or identifiable writers as all information can be compiled into one single, global book. Chris Anderson (editor of Wired) proposes that science should no longer seek theories that scientists can understand, because the digital cloud will understand them better anyway. This anti-human rhetoric is literally madness; people seem to be willing their purpose away. Computers were created as tools for humans. To say that humans are useless because of computers is akin to saying gardeners are useless because of lawnmowers. "You can believe that your mind makes up the world, but a bullet will still kill you. A virtual bullet however, doesn't even exist unless there is a person to recognise it as a representation of a bullet. Guns are real in a way that computers are not."

Ideas of computers replacing or outpacing humans are evident within our popular culture as well. Successful film franchises such as Terminator and Matrix have made millions of dollars from the concept. Literature such as I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream explores similar concepts.

People seem to be becoming blasé with their own intelligence. It's true that computers have achieved many remarkable things: they've beaten the world-chess champion, they can recognise different types of dog bark, heck some of them can almost climb stairs. But let's not forget that a computer is just a tool.

We are quick to blame ourselves when software or hardware doesn't work as it's supposed to. Instead of demanding that technology be created that suits our needs, we continually adapt ourselves to the whims of our own tools.

Bumblebees can perform calculations faster than supercomputers. We can generate grammar and understand language at a rate unimaginable within the world of computers. We can build computers. We create life and some of us create art. We feel; we're alive in a way that computers will never be. As Pablo Picasso once said "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers". We should stop aiming to be mechanical or robotic with our decision making and remember how very good it is to be human.

We have allowed computers to become much more than the sum of their parts. The first step to avoiding Lanier's future is to wake up and remember that these things are our tools. We think of them as integral and invincible, but they're mostly just plastic. Stupid plastic.


Posted by WaterShake - October 1st, 2010


Hi guys

As previously mentioned, I won't be on NG as much as I was in the past, for the foreseeable future at least. For those of you who didn't catch my last newspost, i'll quickly describe the situation again.

I got a job at Ogilvy & Mather (the world renowned marketing agency). This is a job and company i've aspired to work at, and work for, for the last few years of my life. As such, i'm putting my all into it. My colleagues are fantastic and the work is challenging and satisfying. I can't actually go into too much detail about the work as I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I got the job (which is understandable given the nature of the job).

As a direct result of this, I now have significantly less time to spend on Newgrounds. So i'm probably not going to be writing any more of my discursive threads for a while, and my time on the site is going to take a significant hit. Those of you that know me know how much this job means to me, so i'm sure you can understand though.

Feel free to send me PM's if you want to talk about anything, I'll still respond and what have you; just not as quickly as in the past.

I'll still be poping in every now and then though, so this isn't really a good-bye. It's just a new stage.Much love, WaterShake.


Posted by WaterShake - September 20th, 2010


Ogilvy & Mather

Well today is a great day, After a somewhat exasperating few weeks of waiting, telephoning and hoping; I have secured an interview with Ogilvy & Mather. Tomorrow. This is a big deal.

For the past few years now, it have desired to work at Ogilvy. I consider them the best at what they do. They wrote the book (literally, three to be precise) of modern advertising. They have won countless awards and titles. They have produced some extraordinary work; and now, I have been given an opportunity to show myself as worthy of their company.

Today is a great day.

If you are interested, you can find out more about Ogilvy & Mather here on their website. Their work speaks for itself.

Post Interview Update

"Why aren't you lazy and ignorant like a normal 17yr old?"

It went quite well.

Update

I got the job. I start this Sunday.

Other News

If I do secure a place at Ogilvy, then somewhat understandably, WaterShake will have to take a temporary hiatus from Newgrounds.

Recently (and currently) I have been researching the impact of family structure and hierarchy. My writing on this subject can be seen within this thread. I'll post the summation of my research in the near future when I have reached that stage.


Posted by WaterShake - September 13th, 2010


Over the past month or so, i've spent a considerable amount of time researching fear within society. Heres is the collection of my thoughts thus far. I will edit this as more information comes to light, for as long as this interest sustains itself. Enjoy.

You can see the threads which evolved surroundings these writings via these two links. 1] Do We Fear The Wrong Things 2] Fear & News

Do We Fear The Wrong Things?

Recently, i've been fascinated by fear. Not necessarily, horror film, axe murder fear (although more on that later) or scary hairy spider fear; but societies anxieties. The things that we collectively fear.

After some research, it's become clear that the majority of fears are unfounded. Writer and acclaimed researcher, Barry Glasner, also thinks so. Now, due to the nature of the statistics i've been able to unearth, we will be largely looking at America.

Fear of crime
Crime rates plunged throughout America for the majority of the 1990's. Yet, at the time, over two thirds of Americans believed they were soaring. By 1995, 62% of Americans described the status of crime rates as "truly desperate", almost twice as many as did in the late 1980's, when crime rates were actually higher.

A survey conducted in 1997 showed that more than half of Americans disagreed with the statement "This country is finally beginning to make some progress in solving the crime problem". Yet, at the time, crime rates had fallen consecutively for a half dozen years.

Fear of crime far outweighs incident of crime, yet it hasn't always been this way. What change has occurred to cause this "culture of fear"?

Fear of youths
There has been a steep downward trend in youth crime throughout the 1990''s. Yet it seems that these comforting statistics, are either ignored, or unheard. Adult Americans estimate that people under 18 commit about half of all violent crimes. The true percentage is much closer to 13%.

Bill Clinton said in 1997 that "We know we've got about six years to turn this juvenile crime thing around or our country is going to be living with chaos". The youth violent crime rate had fallen 9.2% from the previous year.

Violence related deaths in schools dropped to a record low during the 1996-1997 academic year. Yet during the same year, Time magazine ran an articles with headlines such as "Teenage Time Bomb" and "Children Without Souls".

What "should" be feared?
It seems to me as if the things that are truly worthy of fear, are those that go the least talked about. You are far more likely to die in a motoring accident, than be killed by violent crime for instance.

Fear is also often, "misplaced". After a series of school shootings in America, the New York Post ran articles with headlines such as "It's Not Guns, It's Killer Kids" and "Guns Aren't The Problem". Yet statistics indicate that guns are indeed the problem.

In America, more guns are stolen from owners each year, than other countries have gun owners. In America, private citizens own approximately a quarter billion guns. In America, 15000 people are killed each year with guns, 18000 commit suicide, and another 1500 die accidentally from firearms each year. In other nations like Australia and Japan, no more than a few dozen in total die from guns each year. American children are 12 times more likely to die from gun injuries than children from any other industrialized nation.

Fear, News & Personal Experience

News coverage has been shown to have a direct effect in levels of fear and anxiety regarding issues and problems prevalent today. Should it be this way?

Personal Experience Versus News Coverage
University professor Esther Madriz has conducted surveys which have proven disproportionate news coverage to have a direct impact on the fears of it's readers and viewers. When she interviewed Americans about their fears of crime, they often responded with the phrase, "I saw it in the news".

The interviewees identified the news media as both the source of their fears, and the reason they thought those fears were valid. A national poll asked "Why do you think America has a serious crime problem". 76% of people responded with citations of stories they had seen in the media. Only 22% offered any personal experience or insight.

Furthermore, professors Robert Blendon and John Young of Harvard collaborated to analyse 47 surveys regarding drug abuse conducted between 1978 and 1997. They also discovered that news media, rather than personal experience provided America with their predominant fears. 8 out of 10 adults claim that drug abuse has never caused problems within their families. The vast majority report relatively little direct experience with problems related to drugs. So why then, do the vast majority of Americans think that drugs pose one of the biggest threats to American society today. It seems irrefutable that fear stems from scare campaigns in the news media, specifically televised news.

Disproportionate Media Coverage
It seems that television news programs survive on scares. Producers live by the dictum "If it bleeds, it leads". Drug, crime and disaster stories make up most of the news portion of televised broadcasts.

Between 1990 and 1998, when America's murder rate declined by over 20%, the number of murder stories on network news increased by 600%. Surely news networks shouldn't be allowed to air such disproportionate coverage of events.

Scaremongering Statistics
One infamous incident occurred in 1998; Barbra Walters made the following overtly romanticist claims on ABC: "It can happen in a flash. Fire breaks out on the operating table. The patient is surrounded by flames...". She continued to say it happens "more often than you might think". Per year, out of all surgeries, the chances of fire breaking out are approximately 0.000007%.

When doctors wrote back to the news network alerting them to the extreme rarity of the incidents, the network responded showing pictures of the victims, claiming "this is for those trying to marginalise this issue". Whilst at first instance, it may seem like the new network has a point. It doesn't. Emotion does not negate rationality.

In 1994, there was mass panic over the "flesh eating bacteria". News media ran stories claiming that it was "spreading like underground fires", claiming it the virus to breed rapidly to reach over "billions of flesh eating bacteria". The bacteria was even described as a "merciless killer" by some networks.

During these coverages, news media ran footage of science fiction films. This became known as the "Cuisinart Effect". For example, a report by Dateline on deaths in Zaire, intersected clips from the film Outbreak. The plot of Outbreak featured a virus that threatened to wipe out the entire human race. Throughout the report, dialogue such as "We can't stop it!" was sampled.

When medical authorities contacted the news networks, informing them that an American is over 55 times more likely to be struck by lightning, they were ignored. Or ridiculed, a similar "emotional" approach was used to rebut their claims as in the Barbara Walters incident I mentioned earlier.


Posted by WaterShake - September 1st, 2010


NG:A Hateful and Hypocritical Community?
At times, if you look at NG objectively, it seems as if we're a spiteful, hateful and hypocritical community. But surely this can't be true? Let's delve further into the issue.

If you spend time on the Forum section of Newgrounds, (or perhaps more specifically, the General forum) then you will most likely be exposed to some form of anger. Anger is ok. It's a natural human emotion, and is quite prevalent amongst white western male teenagers (the largest social demographic of Newgrounds). It's the nature of the anger that irks me.

The anger isn't constructive or productive in anyway. The anger isn't channelled into a source of motivation. It's not a spark to ignite change. It's not used in any immediately productive way. It's projected at others. It's projected at pop icons

Let's look at what some of our community members have to say about someone they haven't ever met.

At 6/15/10 09:17 AM, leftBrain wrote:
: I don't know why, but he gives off sickening vibes. That's why I hate him. I think it's his narcissistic expression.

At 6/15/10 09:50 AM, XPWN wrote:
: Bieber is a little faggot who got castrated and is fucked in the ass. And has shit music.

Charming. The anger is projected at popular communities.

Let's look at what some of our fellow community members have to say about a completely open armed, popular internet community; YouTube

At 8/6/10 02:46 PM, psychicpebble wrote:
: I can't fucking stand them. They're all so stupid.
: People are just idiots. Every comment is "Thumbs up if-" or they just quote something from the youtube video. Not to mention the loads and loads of 12 year olds and memes that stopped being funny in 2006. I just can't stand them.
: Overall, it is the worst place on the internet, the absolute bottom

People often comment on the "stupidity" of the YouTube community, they say that a quick look at the comments section tells you enough about the site. If thats the case, what does a quick look at the review section within our flash section tell us. Let's have a look shall we. Heres some reviews posted on yesterdays top 5

"I think this game is better than warcraft great job dude!"
"the perfect song to go to a bar listening to, thank Jebus!!!"
"i lol'd at this"
"The best game ever"
"that was ok......"
"awesome retro"

Perhaps we shouldn't throw stones in glass houses?

This anger is also projected inwards. People are overly hostile to each other, at times it feels like you have to browse the BBS walking on eggshells to avoid causing chaos. In some instances, merely offering an alternative viewpoint, or pointing out potential flaws in logic is enough to provoke a torrent of anger.

Let's take a look at some examples

At 9/2/10 03:20 AM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
You make shitty threads.
At 9/2/10 03:18 AM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
Why should we give a shit?
At 9/2/10 03:21 AM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
At 9/2/10 03:19 AM, twilightown wrote:
exactly.
why should we give a shit?
I don't fucking know, you're the one who copy and pasted this stupid shit and then posted it here.
At 9/1/10 11:24 PM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
Just what we need, another youtube video game reviewer.

Fuck off.

At 9/1/10 04:43 AM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
Seriously, please give up. You've become the idiots you're trying to make fun of. There is no wit in your insults, bad joke delivery, and you just look like a fucking tool.

At 8/31/10 05:32 PM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
At 8/31/10 05:15 PM, RDSchley wrote:
lol gamestop. Seriously, the only people who would do a gamestop poll are the final fantasy fags: the only people who think a video game store is 'hip' and 'cool'
Gamespot you fucking retard, not gamestop.

Anyway, how come Pyramid Head didn't make it onto this list?

At 8/30/10 05:55 AM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
At 8/30/10 05:35 AM, Tribalfusion-X wrote:
This thread has potential!
Yes, maybe on a forum with actual comedically talented people. But not on newgrounds.
At 9/1/10 07:13 PM, Im-A-Pirate wrote:
OH HAR HAR HAR, Get it guys? These fine gentlemen are saying phrases which under normal circumstances they would not say were they actually engaging in intercourse with a significant other.

HOW FUCKIN FUNNY!

Can't you guys think up something funny just fucking once?
All this perhaps suggest that maybe it's not just anger. Perhaps insecurity plays a factor as well. Maybe it's our dissatisfaction with ourselves, that causes us to act this way. It's hard to say, and it's best to avoid generalising.

It's easy to poorly portray a community. Perhaps I have poorly portrayed Newgrounds here. But i'm sure a long time member here, will at least have an inkling of what i'm talking about.

Regardless, I hope that we can mature collectively, and get past petty, trivial rivalries.

What are your thoughts on this NG?
Note, I love this community, and have no plans to leave or such like. But as mentioned above, there are some elements of it, like the pointless, petty arguing (that I am ironically contributing to) that I just find exasperating.

Some elements of the NG community are wonderful. I've had many great experiences within the various forums and have had many interesting and entertaining conversations. Many of the people within this community are thoroughly entertaining and pleasant, but a minority paint a negative image of the community.