Mastodon, is a federated Twitter alternative built on community. Due to it not really being ''Twitter'' and it being complex and confusing at the time, many people expected it to fail like other fad social networks. However, with Tumblr banning NSFW art, Twitter banning loli, and Google Plus dying, Mastodon has attracted lots of people and now has millions of users.

From what I can tell, a lot of artists are using Mastodon to connect with their clients and interact with them, similar to how they did for Tumblr. What attracts people to Mastodon is that people from all instances CAN follow you and see your posts. Not only that, but since it's federated, that makes it less likely to censorship than any other platforms in history.

From following accounts and interacting with users, it seems to be like a hybrid of Tumblr/Twitter in many regards, with the federated part being the only steep learning curve. This may appeal to lots of people since people don't really want to relearn a whole new network like Pillowfort, especially if it's still in beta and doesn't allow loli for instance.

Recently, I've seen lots of artists and NSFW niche communities start their home on Mastodon, but not many fandom artists. What I want to know is, how many Newgrounds artists use Mastodon to connect with people? Does anyone think Mastodon could be the next Tumblr and fill the whole Tumblr lost? I personally, think it very well could. The communication and the use feels very similar to how I use Tumblr to find NSFW artists and communicate with people. But, that's just me. What do you think?

One final criticism I have for the site and how it can improve, is the profile! The images on your profile are fairly small and hard to see. Enlarging them can really help!

Thank you so much Newgrounds! I and many people have been complaining about how the art desperately needs to be fixed as well as the tags. My prayers have been answered as everything I wanted in the design came true and it's finally as good as I would hope for!

Now, all I want is for NG to release a mobile app, which I hope they do soon! In the meantime, I will enjoy it on my browser!

Thank you so much to the NG team for making creativity enjoyable and bringing more to come!

Ok, so ths post is more of a rambly post in why I feel people who rely on Youtube to make their animations should very much reconsider and try NG instead.

In my last post, I kinda outlined while NG isn't the best place for NSFW art..But that, it can be. However, this post is going to be why NG is perfect for animation.

1. NG isn't going anywhere- Most platforms tend to have a maximum life span of ten years, with Tumblr dying, Deviantart beng dead, and Youtube being dead as an animation platform and making horrific changes. However, in it's 20 year run, NG hasn't and will not go away.

3. They actually care about your input- Usually, when a site makes changes, it can really damage the site and in tern make it negative. However, NG listens to it's community, the layout is clean and polished, and besides the portals being confusing and poorly designed, and the art section needing lots of reworking, it feels quite fresh and modern.

4. Demonitization and edgy content aren't an issue- While ''weird memes'' are still a thing, the popular edgy short animation of the past are due for extinction, due to how much YT wants to maintain it's sqeaky clean image. NG, is founded on sex and edge, and is not ashamed of it at all.

5. Animations are the spotlight- Because animations are on NG, they're far more likely to be found.

Annd, those are all my reasons.

So, I just read the news from PF staff, and apparently after they finish their check list, which should be finished by late Febuary/ Early March, registrations for new users are opening again.

I still think it sucks that you have to pay to get in, but bare in mind that this is a Beta, and this site needs as much money as it can get, so I'll happily ablige. Site appears to have a monitized account, similiar to DA, Pixiv, and NG which is REALLY REALLY REALLY good, since unlike ''free'' sites like Tumblr,Facebook, and Twitter, they don't rely on advertizers for everything, making it less likely for a purge to occur.

I cannot wait to check it out!

To start off, I've been a NG user for quite a while, since I was a child, but I used it more for onlime games if anything, rather than animation. For anmation, I stuck with Youtube, but I feel NG could spark a new renissance for content creators.

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, people used NG because it was the best at the time. However, with Youtube and Tumblr feeling more modern, and having far more users, people moved there. We all know what happened to Tumblr, and what happened to Youtube is more tragic. Because Youtube's algorithium makes it impossible to be an animator unless you do nothing but fan animatics or story time animations, NG is essentially the best solution.

However, NG clearly isn't fully ready yet.

I feel like what's happening is kind of an awkward puberty for NG at the moment. NG mostly stayed the same, because design trends have been old school, and for a while, people hated new layouts. However, now that new, more modern layouts have become succsessful, NG has done some effort to catch up with the times, and I think it's doing a fantatsic job. To give credit where credit is due, it already feels more modern than DeviantArt.

However, there is still much improvement, and I think the NG team is lisenting to advice for improvement, which is good, since I truly want NG to sucseed, in a world dominated by big corporations, with true ''social networks'' being dead.

Most of these suggestions will be for the art section since honestly, the animation and gaming section is fine. I've found what I want pretty easy, and there's not much to improve in my opinion.

1. Redesign and get rid of the entire art layout, just get rid of it. Now, usually when it comes to old layouts, I'm not one to get rid of the old art layout entirely, but it really needs to be canned. Search terms are often very difficult in NG, compared to DeviantArt or Instagram where it is much easier to actually find your stuff. Not only that, but because every art is in a tiny thumbnail size, it makes it really difficult to tell what is actually good. Bare in mind, I have 20/15 vision, and a good 1080p screen, and even I find it irritating. So I can only imagine the pain of someone with poor eyesight or a crappy display will feel.

My solution? Take a look at Piczel.tv, since in my opinion, it's essentailly what a modern art portal and art search should look like, and is the cloest thing I could imagine to it. The images are large, and they're organized, and finding things are pretty easy. I have heard that NG wants to incoporate ''Tumblr'' like features, but unless it's for mass customization of your user account, or to make your NG account into a real blog, I wouldn't reccomend it, in a visual aspect. Their too fundamentally different of a site, and I feel Piczel.TV is by far the best way to go for a modern NG.

This may seem small, but to me, it is a major issue that must not be glossed over, and is the only thing which makes using this awesome sight a pain. The current search functionality in art is so bad, that I end up abusing portals and going on DDG to find ex Tumblr users, which is not a good sign. Just have a normal, DA like layout or better yet, copy Piczel.TV in this area as well for the search section, that will already fix 90 percent of your problems.

As far as the feed, it's perfect, just make the thumbnails bigger, as small thumbnails in a feed, defeats the entire purpose of a feed. There's even a plugin on Firefox that does exactly that, and it makes the site look awesome. Just download the plugin, test it out, bring the same functionality to the site and boom, you've pretty much fixed the site.

That's all I have for now, If I have any more constructive criticism or ways to make NG sucseed on a design level, I'll make more posts. Thank you all so much for reading, and have a great day.

Ok, this isn't a post to make people feel bad for using Twitter. After all, I like it and it can be a great platform for NSFW art.

BUT.

And a big BUT.

I highly reccomend updating your art frequently to Newgrounds and Sharesome and not putting all of your eggs in one twitter basket.

With the horrifc FOSTA/SEFTA act coming in, it's going to be a dark day for NSFW content creators. I think artists will still have a chance, since there aren't that many cases of kids being groomed with art porn compared to actual porn, but the law is going to fuck lots of content creators in the ass.

With this law, adult creators will find Pornhub and Sharesome as there only platforms, and artists may be screwed as I fear Twitter may enter a Tumblr like situation where they ban porn. And, it may actually work. Let's all be honest, not many actually use Twitter for porn, compared to the high amounts of people who used Tumblr for porn.

Do I think the FOSTA act will kill NSFW content? No. If people still made porn in the 90s under 8 gigabyte internet, and if content creators still survived over the copyright purge that happened on YT a few years back, I'm sure NSFW content creators will survive.

My reccomendation is to post both on NG and Twitter frequently. And if Twitter ever dies, move to Pillowfort.

Newgrounds has always been my favorite site ever as a kid, and still is to this day. The only other site I love this much is Youtube, 2nd being Reddit and those are the only sites I truly care about. I've been a bit worried about the site dying since it's userbase has decreased, but the purge of Tumblr and Newgrounds new redesign has caused me to come back here again. It already feels so much more welcoming, as the first thing I see in the art section are actually interesting, funny art pieces and not random fandom shit. As well as animations I truly care about.

It feels good to be back.