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tumblr kids ragging on "Newgrounds style" as if like 80% of their influences can't somehow be traced back to Newgrounds
the thing abt ugly Newgrounds shit is that it can literally almost never be commercialised successfully. you can commercialise "CalArts style" (a term i also have problems with!!) for an endless multitude of reasons, however
one of them being that """CalArts style""" tends to be used w/ representational diversity, and right now corporations realise they can make loads of money off of pretending to care abt the people they exploit, and also bc it's easier to animate and drives costs down
whereas to make smth truly comically ugly, a lot more effort needs to be put in, for one, making it more costly for larger productions requiring more complex animation. and bc it can't be marketed as cute, soothing, and basically nonthreatening
also i wanna note that - w/ obvious exceptions, ofc, not to downplay bad shit that happened in these communities - i've encountered a *lot* less outright toxicity in places where edgy, gross humour is the norm than in places where soft nonthreatening aesthetic uwu rules
see link related. Emily for instance (until she went fash) was as lovely a person as i cld've hoped to meet. i've normally stayed away from like the extreme pastel ppl but like. look at 2014-17 tumblr for what i'm talking abt, lots of insane shit https://gnostiquette.tumblr.com/post/184031322957/baroquespiral-fierceawakening-i-dont-know
and even today it's like, often the ppl who can't go 5 seconds w/o saying some kind of slur who've been most understanding and supportive in terms of my trauma bullshit lol
(also literally half the reason i was able to come to terms w/ my abuse was Newgrounds shit)
besides, the worst fucking trend in animation currently has nothing to do w/ any of these things. it's whatever the fuck style Big Mouth is, where it's unthreateningly ugly, and not even ugly in a funny way. *that's* pure commercialism, even more so than "CalArts style"
