Has the era of flash animation come to an end?
Has the era of flash animation come to an end?
Elijah Anderson
Jonathan Martin
>HTF is largely dead
>Eddsworld is gone
>Homestar Runner is reduced to holiday specials
>nobody really uses Newgrounds to post new stuff anymore
>only long-lasting series is Neurotically Yours, which is likely on its deathbed
Seems that way.
Isaiah Harris
SU still has viewership, I don't know if clunky and comedic flash animation is dead, per se.
David Lee
If we're talking internet, probably. All the big names, as said, are either dead or close to dying.
In professional animation? Not at all, it just decided to upgrade to ToonBoom. Which really isn't all that different.
Jace Brooks
>They'll never actually get around to finishing High-Tail Hall...
Dylan Turner
It's coincidental that horse show got popular BECAUSE it looked like something on the internet.
Watching it on a TV feels very odd imo.
Sebastian Brown
SU doesn't use flash
barely anything on TV uses flash anymore
Ryder Reed
*American TV
Those Canucks are a cheap bunch of bastards.
Liam Reyes
It is vulnerable and should be updated.
Mason Ortiz
You forgot that most big animators became sellouts and now are dedicated solely to being Let's players. Yeah yeah whatever, being an animator doesn’t pay the bills but the issue is that they almost (If not completely) abandoned their original “passion” for a quick buck.
Grayson Foster
You're honestly a fucking faggot who doesn't realize how much work animation is. Getting like, 300 dollars per animation is a joke. You can make that in a week mowing lawns. See, these internet animators could focus on their passion when they lived under mommy and daddy's roof, most notable internet animators are now fully-fledged adults who have bills and responsibilities that get in the way of the time consuming animation process. I'm not surprised most internet animators have chosen to eat instead of animating painstakingly for an ignorant, unappreciative audience.
Ryder Cruz
>what fucking sellouts I can't believe they don't wanna be homeless why don't their parents just pay for everything like mine do
Evan Gray
God forbid they didn't consider this earlier and found alternative jobs or alternative means of income when they had the time. A job is a job and if they are making good money by yelling on a microphone and shilling for shitty games then good for them. It doesn't change the fact that if everyone is going over the same path then maybe these people were nowhere near as passionate as they claimed to be and were hobbyists at most that just happened to become popular and are using their popularity to keep afloat. And I assure you that the day being a let’s player stops being profitable (And I am not implying that will happen soon) they will jump boat and move to whatever else is popular if it keeps making them money.
Whatever, that is their problem, not mine.
William Peterson
If you're gonna be pissed at someone get on Youtube's case for making animation and other formats unprofitable while pretty much handing out free money for Let's Plays for so long.
Noah Gray
As someone in the industry making money off animation is a fucking joke these days. Established studios treat you like shit, those same assholes and a few others fucked over Crowdfunding for everyone that doesn't have nostalgiabait, and the viewer algorithms on social media are fine for some chad on his phone but the amount of work required per second between that and animation are so vast you wouldn't even make enough money to drink the pain away consistently.
You can talk about passion all you want but it means fuck and all in the face of reality. It just flat out is not a viable career option outside of a thin few people who pump out cheap shit, and even then just barely.
If you have literally any media skills it's easier to break into literally any other part of the media than animation. Gaming always has a shit ton of work in equivalent roles. Live Action projects will always need storyboards and editors. If you're internet only then playing the latest hot new thing will literally yield an equal amount for yelling into the camera on a jump scare as what would take you a fucking month to animate.
Nolan Moore
Option A: Work really hard on your art and then eight years later get head-hunted by an animation company and get a job in-industry.
Option B: Sell out for a flash-in-the pan popularity boon, then five years later when people stop watching you're back to doing nothing.
You know, they call it selling out for a reason. You really think it was a good idea to cash in this early for this little amount of money? Now you got nothing.
Zachary Price
Option C: Sell out for a flash-in-the-pan popularity boon, use your popularity to shill your art, then use your established credentials to get head-hunted for an industry position.
Cameron Gray
You're saying "this little" but the money is fucking good. People forget that Pewdiepie was literally just a random faggot from Sup Forums and now he's Fortune 500 tier by himself.
Tobuscus was like tier 3 by comparison but even he managed to parlay that into a TV career. He'd still be better off if he didn't bet on the wrong show to take off and get caught in scandals.
Jackson Peterson
> then maybe these people were nowhere near as passionate as they claimed to be and were hobbyists at most that just happened to become popular and are using their popularity to keep afloat.
What does that even mean? What do you want them to do? Just fucking keep making youtube cartoons and starve? Landlords and grocery stores do not accept "passion" as currency. They do other shit to stay alive and do their art in their spare time.
Ethan Sanders
This is why I don't get people who get mad at the players instead of the game.
The system in place is what's rewarding random faggots with millions while people who work hard and make good shit can't make money off it so turn to something quicker and easier. And people are suggesting that those guys already on the losing end should suck it up and work even harder for less.
That's fucking retarded.
Jacob Reyes
Yes, mostly due to the technology behind it being absolute cancer for the web as a whole. And 99% of the flash content that was being produced at the turn of the century was irredeemable garbage.
Source
James Howard
>people actually think that video game parodies were internet animators' "passion"
Evan Foster
well, the brother chaps are in the industry. I rather them animate and making good checks than keep doing this site consistently and not making as much money as they could to feed their family
HTF and Eddsworld are fucking dead though. Tom dragged his dead friend's show until it was unrecognizable, and Mondo Media is basically a corpse on display while I'm glad Baman Piderman got out as fast as they could
Elijah Taylor
Lets put it this way, Harry Partridge does some fucking great animation but he sure as shit don't work fast. When that video comes out it's popular sure, but it's about as popular as some Vine comedian's work if he spends like a week just doing random skits that pop into his head. So Harry is making in a year what that other fag makes in a week. This is ASSUMING he becomes a hit every time.
SexuaLobster pumps out one mediocre to decent video a month. That's mostly just either talking heads or a few gags based on things he can do quickly, and the animation is never great. He only just bothered to do his first rotoscope very recently. But even then being about six to eight times more prolific than the norm he's just kind of barely holding on, even with those occasional machnima videos. But Machinima can hire some other guy who'll do it for less in a different medium if they want regular content anyway.
Animation is affordable at a macro scale. You can do decent 2d work for cheap on a relative scale, provided that scale assumes it's a big production where everyone has dozens to hundreds of people. 3D can have similar properties. But for individuals it plain doesn't work like that.
Joshua Roberts
Sexuallobster has a patreon. He isn't living off of cartoons, he's living off of donations.
Samuel Myers
Look, I am not saying they should starve. Everyone has a need to survive and they just did what was best for them. As many people have already said it is a shitty system where those who work hard get the short end of the stick and those who barely do anything get all the attention and partnership. I befriend a lot of artists and just a handful can survive off their art. But these people saw an opportunity, took it and ran with it and it just seems spineless because their content is hardly recognizable from one another outside of their annoying personalities. If they are happily making money like this then good. I just hate the message behind it; to abandon all creativity and become a corporate whore.
I understand working on the industry might be hard and even unrewarding but unless you live under a rock most people are aware that it isn’t a paradise and it involves a lot of hard work; and that is where my argument for passion comes from. These people were decent or even good animators but lacked the creativity to create anything new or the need to pursue a career opportunity off their work. I know Egoraptor tried but he quickly gave up shortly after. I know life isn’t fair and it will never be but I wonder how hard some of these people tried before jumping on a bandwagon. I also understand career opportunities in these areas pay like shit and I’ve told a lot of my friends not to pursue an art college degree for the same reason but it just seems (To me at least) that these people didn’t try and decided to settle down for something anyone can do.
Zachary Taylor
Flash as a plugin is kill by google, so it's also inevitable.
Josiah Perez
Nope, they refuse to die
they keep making videos, this one is 4 months old, can't tell if it's good or not, I haven't watched it
youtube.com
Levi Richardson
To be fair, anyone can do a patreon, not just an animator. The point is still kind of valid.
I think you don't quite understand the problem. The industry is bad BECAUSE of people who stick it through as you describe. It's based on the premise that there's a neverending stream of barely legal adults who have doing this as their dream, and so you can continually pay them like shit and fuck with them. You can be amazing and bursting with passion and it won't matter because there's a dozen others like you with that same skill and passion.
Sometimes giving up, or shifting gears so rapidly it looks the same from the outside, is the only viable solution. The animation industry is a fucking rat race run by glorified gangsters with a joke of a union, and the social media market is a fucking joke.
Juan Morgan
>Sometimes giving up, or shifting gears so rapidly it looks the same from the outside, is the only viable solution.
And I wholeheartedly agree. My only problem is that most seem to give up without even trying. But I agree some of them could’ve tried and gave up, to whom I have no problem. Or they realized how hard it was to get into it and gave up. That is understandable as well. There are multiple variables that are subjectively acceptable or not depending on your point of view but in the end nobody seems to recognize these people anymore (Or to remember their past as hobbyist animators to begin with) which is kind of sad.
In the end adulthood fucks up all of us in one way or another.
Oliver Mitchell
too bad entered another hiatus
Grayson Edwards
>if their cartoons aren't on the internet right now then I guess they just gave up fucking sellouts am I right
the shitty community is another good reason why you shouldn't do animation on the internet
Levi Taylor
yes, It's SFM's time to rule the internet!
Aiden Reed
horse show is flash and it still rakes in the viewers.
Probably because the basic horse designs go a good way towards disguising it. Whenever they try to animate something more complex it's really conspicuous
William Cox
newgrounds get a lot of quality content still.
newgrounds.com
newgrounds.com
newgrounds.com
and of course, there's always the rare harry partridge post.
Flash is definitely well past it's hayday but not over.
>INB4 I linked non-flash
was just proving NG isn't dead, in spite of googles attempts at murdering it.
Austin Turner
fug, didn't mean to link the same one twice
here's one from last year I liked
newgrounds.com
Jordan Powell
fucking Ego is a good example
became popular when NG and flash was in its late years in 2008 or so. that popularity translated into the then just starting lets play shit.
now he makes WAY more money doing not animation, because, if he was still doing animation he wouldn't be around because he wouldn't be making the kind of money he is now and give up animating on youtube
shit, i don't think he even calls himself ego raptor anymore, hes just arin hanson now.
though, to be fair, if i knew i could make a LOT of more money doing something dead easy and shelf my "passion" for a while, i'd do it. just come back to it on weekends or something.
Christopher Johnson
>Check his twitter
>Find this
Wew.
Leo Hernandez
man, i only use twitter to stay on top of hentai artists and shit.
who uses it for shit tier people like game grumps?