10/5/2020 Edit: I changed the account name from WillieCorleyArt to @TheWillieCorley.

I got locked out of my main Twitter account yesterday, then I made a blog entry on Newgrounds complaining about the situation. I was going to take a break from social media for the rest of the month, but I decided the best thing I can do is grow my alternative account on Twitter in case something like this ever happens again. The biggest lesson I learned from this experience is that I should not rely on one account for Twitter because the website locks people's accounts for the dumbest reasons imaginable.

I changed the Twitter handle of my alternative account to WillieCorleyArt. I will primarily use that Twitter handle for linking art from my Newgrounds account. One of my goals for 2020 is to get a new scanner so I can showcase art I have worked on this year. Once I have a new scanner, expect new art from me. ^_^ I hope everyone here has a super lovely day and thank you for reading this blog post.

-Willie Corley

It's insane how random it can be to lose access to an account I have used for 11 years. After using Twitter for so long, I've been uncertain about what I want to do with that platform. I hate so many things about Twitter, but I recognize it's a useful tool for promotion. I was going to delete my Twitter account on July 1st, but changed my mind largely due to drama that took place in the Smash Community. That drama is the most unbelievable shit-show I have ever seen in a video game community that I was part of. I could go into a long rant about my thoughts on what happened, but I'll save that for another time. It's ironic that Twitter's poor moderation was the primary factor into why I was going to leave because of what happened today. I lost contact with followers I liked thanks to Twitter's abysmal moderation system.

Fast fast forward to August, I put a lot of effort into my my Twitter account and gained over 90 followers so far this month. That is a huge jump for my account largely because of the hashtags #NoTulsicratUnder1K and #NoLibertarianUnder1k. I'm vocal on that platform with my support for Tulsi Gabbard as a politician and my support for Libertarian party candidates such as Vermin Supreme and Jo Jorgensen. I also followed people who liked my tweets, which gained me additional followers.

My Twitter account got additional activity today because Vermin Supreme retweeted one of my tweets. This is not the first time he retweeted me, but it got more traffic than previous instances he retweeted me. I followed everyone who liked the tweet, then got locked out of my Twitter account for "automated behavior that violates the Twitter Rules." I can't unlock my account because Twitter wants my cell phone number. Not only do I not have cell phone service, but I wouldn't want to give it to them because they have a history of shady behavior. Twitter should not be trusted with anyone's phone number, yet my account is locked because I won't give them a cell phone number I don't have. My Twitter account now looks shady to viewers because I followed people who liked what I had to say in a tweet.

This puts me in a weird position where I'm very worried about the future of social media. I want to accomplish a lot on Newgrounds in the future, but it will require me to promote my material on other platforms to get the type of traffic I need. There aren't many successful people on Newgrounds who rely entirely on this platform to promote their content. I often share content I like from Newgrounds to other platforms in hopes that it inspires more people to visit this website often.

The downsides to our reliance on very few social media websites has never been more obvious to me than today. I try my best to follow Twitter's guidelines, but Twitter is a website that can trash a person's internet career at random. A good example of this is the website OnlyFans. I personally hate that website because it lacks a good search feature. People who want to make a lot of money through OnlyFans have to rely on other websites to promote their account, which is difficult because very few modern social media websites allow porn. Someone can rely on Twitter to promote their OnlyFans account, then get banned from Twitter and not be able to pay rent during a pandemic when the job market is garbage. It absolutely amazes me a website like OnlyFans is so successful because it forces people to have a strong social media presence on other websites for promotion. It seems like a backwards model for a website, but that's modern social media. Modern social media websites are horribly designed, yet people are reliant on them for promoting their work.

I look at the situation we have with social media and wonder what the fuck are people supposed to do? I tried making an account on a forum the other day and never received an activation email. A lot of websites with an old school mindset are not well maintained and expensive to run. Like if I were to put a lot of effort into a website with good hosting, it would cost me a lot of money. So I rely too much on these social media websites and it screwed me over today. I have no clue when I will be able to access my Twitter account again. If I get cell phone service next year, I am not giving Twitter my phone number. Is my Twitter account I invested over 11 years into now over? I'm just blown away by this situation. I can't even call a phone number for customer service because Twitter doesn't offer that. I have to hope a human being responds to my email about my locked account.

There are also a lot of risks to staying on mainstream social media websites. I have said a lot of edgy things on the internet that would kill some people's careers. The main reason why I previously did not link to my Twitter account on Newgrounds is because I tried to have my Twitter account be somewhat anonymous for awhile because I was paranoid about employers. One of my plans this year was to find a local job, but those plans were ruined by the pandemic. Now I'm at a point where I give less of a fuck about what a potential employer sees on the internet because the economy was ruined by our government. Life seems like an uphill battle right now, so I might as well be transparent about what I think about all of the bullshit going on right now.

The plus side to all of this is that I plan to blog on my Newgrounds account way more often. I was going to wait until I had cool stuff prepared for the website, but I need to buy things I can't afford right now to accomplish some of my goals for this website. So for the rest of this year, I will primarily use Newgrounds as a blog. I hope people here enjoy my future blog entries because losing my Twitter account just freed up a ton of my time for other websites.

-Willie Corley

My advice to everyone frustrated by the health pandemic is to take care of your mental health. Currently I'm avoiding a bunch of websites I'm addicted to because they're badly impacting my emotions during this health pandemic. The constant conversations about this pandemic on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Discord have been driving me nuts. Scrolling through feeds on social media are a constant reminder of this horrible virus. Many people I know are impacted by this health pandemic far worse than me, so I'm just fortunate that I have what I currently have in life.

It's okay to be more sensitive than you want to be, especially during a horrible health pandemic. I tried being an emotional brick wall when I was younger, but after two major health collapses in my adulthood before I reached my late twenties, I'm way more sensitive about the state of my life than I used to be. I find it harder to deal with certain type of criticism now compared to five years ago, which isn't good, but at least I'm self-aware it's a problem that I need to fix.

We are all negatively impacted by this horrible virus and I feel compelled to rant about how it negatively impacted my plans for 2020. I still have plans for Newgrounds this year, but much of what I intended to do in 2020 will instead be done in 2021 due to the health pandemic negatively impacting my life. My plan at the beginning of last month (March 2020) was to get a local job so I could save up a bunch of money for creative pursuits, but now I can't do that without putting my health at risk. So with less income, it's going to be a lot longer before I can afford things like a printer, scanner, audio interface, instruments, microphones, and other supplies that would benefit my music, art, and graphic design.

I'm optimistic 2020 will still be a good year for me despite how horrible it started off, but this will be a very different year than many of us expected. I'll give occasional progress reports in the future when I have positive things to report about that have nothing to do with the health pandemic. Right now I'm focused on redesigning my bedroom so it functions more like an office than a standard bedroom. I got a roll-up bed just so I can save a ton of space for my future creative pursuits. I don't have a great track record on accomplishing my goals due to how badly my perfectionism killed a lot of projects in my twenties (example: my cancelled Rayman review), but that won't happen this decade. I have learned a ton from my failures. It's better to release something imperfect than to outright cancel projects.

Biggest obstacle I have to deal with is my 24/7 migraine. I have struggled with a 24/7 migraine for over 11 years. It's a lot better this year compared to 2016-2019, but I'm still suffering in chronic pain. I still have days where I do hardly anything besides suffer laying in bed, but at least I'm nowhere near as bedridden as I was in my late twenties. It just amazes me that when my health improved to where I feel like I'm capable of fixing my life, much of the country gets so sick I'm stuck indoors all the time.

I hope I can eventually create content for Newgrounds that is worth enjoying. My primary goal for Newgrounds this decade is to upload music, art, and animation. I bought a license to use Adobe's programs for a year so I have the software to accomplish my goals. I also brought a light table into my bedroom this month to make animating a lot easier. My dad initially got it 25 years ago back when he did photography for living, so it's nice that I'm able to repurpose it for my needs. Here's a few photos of my kitty Little Betty on my light table.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read all of this. I wish you all the very best in life.

-Willie Corley

http://williecorley.com/

Newgrounds will be my primary social media platform for 2020, so a website url I bought this year of my name will redirect to http://williecorley.newgrounds.com/. Looking forward to improving as an artist and showcasing my improvement on this website.

This site means a lot to me, so I'm glad I finally can help it as a subscriber. I want to make Newgrounds my primary social media outlet in 2020 because I am disgusted with the current state of mainstream social media. I'm confident this website will have a major revival in popularity next decade, though I hope they eventually loosen up policies to allow videos that aren't animation. A lot of people are looking for a website to upload their original content and Newgrounds would be a great place for all original video content by independent creators. If someone makes a terrible vlog, the community could just blam it when it's under judgement. Love you, Newgrounds.

I've never uploaded content to this website and that really bothers me. I want to change that in 2020. Also not sure if I want to stick with W-A-C as my username here. I might change it next year, though I do like maintaining my recognizability.

I should've tried creating flash animations, make considerably more reviews, and play a larger part in the Newgrounds community. But I didn't out of laziness. Oh well...

On a different note, the massive amount of flashes that are unavailable to watch right now because of new strict policies regarding copyrighted music is super depressing. So much content I loved as a teenager are now unavailable for viewing. Also not too fond of the reduced customization for profiles. I liked organizing my favorites and I hate that I can't do that anymore. ;_; I also wish the NG staff never removed the option of viewing flashes in pop-up windows, especially since that used to be the only way to view flash movies on the site.

I just found out a flash game called Redhead Titfuck XXX Adult is the second highest rated flash on Newgrounds and is the only flash from '07 that's in the top 100. FYI, it released within two months after the release of Waterlollies and yet that Adam Philips flash is .09 smaller in score to that shitty redhead hentai game which has an excessive amount of tweens. To make matters even worse, number five in the portal is a hentai flash game involving Krystal the Fox from the Star Fox games. Newgrounds is fucking hopeless when it comes to their idiotic voters. ._.

I created a thread about Bush's approval rating on the politics board and got banned for it. Here's a replica of the topic:

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[LINK]

His approval rating was 34% last month with it continuously going up but I guess the economy problems caught up with him

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Was the topic really worth banning me over? How did the topic break any forums rules and how the heck was it a spam topic? No wonder everyone here complains about the quality of moderation. Some of the moderators here really suck.

Scores:
10 - About as good as it gets.
9 - Excellent.
8 - Great.
7 - Good.
6 - About average but not exactly "good".
5 - Average/mediocre/decent.
4 - Below average.
3 - Really really bad.
2 - Absolutely horrible.
1 - About as bad as it gets.
0 - Bottom of the barrel. I usually hand these out when something excels in barely any effort.

Graphics: Animation, art, and effects come into play when I review a flash's graphics.

Style: Just because something looks good doesn't mean it doesn't look generic. Style can really boost up a flash's overall score when a flash doesn't look that great.

Sound: My score for sound varies. I have a very picky taste in music so I can be rather harsh when I'm scoring sound. If the music in a flash is custom made for the specific flash I'm reviewing, I'm usually a lot more generous when I score sound. When the voice acting in a flash is very good, that usually boosts up the score I give in the sound department. When the voice acting in a flash is really bad or when a flash lacks necessary voice acting, it tends to hurt the score. When the sound effects are solid, it often helps the score. It should be noted that my score for sound sometimes doesn't effect a flash movie's overall score by much.

Writing: The score I give towards writing can be very important to a flash's overall score. If a flash is well scripted (or well structured) or has a solid story, the score I give for writing can often help a flash's overall score by a lot. I sometimes hand "N/A"s out when I can't really score the writing aspect of a flash very well. If I hand out an N/A, the review will explain the reason why. FYI, "N/A"s don't effect a flash's overall score.

Entertainment Value: This is a very important rating. If your flash does a lot of things right but is an absolute bore, the score I give for entertainment value can be devastating to a flash's overall score.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. Also, please ignore my one audio review. I had no taste in music when I wrote that review. I'd also like to mention that in the past, I lost a few reviews thanks to flash deletions.