Greetings fellow statheads! A good number of people in the forums (esp. @CrimsonKero, @Cyberdevil, and @ShangXian) have asked me about where to get statistics on NG content, traffic, and rankings. Today, thanks to the Marxist Communist Data Liberation Team (no affiliation), I'm able to share a treasure trove: stats on every single "saved" (ie not blammed) movie portal submission from 2024. I received this data back in April, but I haven't been able to verify it until recently. Having manually spot checked hundreds of entries and automatically verified thousands more against the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (so as to not touch Newgrounds), I can comfortably vouch that this is the real deal!

The Data

You can download the zipped database from my dump here and you can interactively explore it via SQL here. If you're insane and want to use Excel to analyze over thirty thousand records, you can download the dataset as a CSV here.

Disclaimer:

This dataset seems to have been collected over a few weeks in early April 2025 and thus represents a spread "moment in time". It reflects the state of movie portal submissions looking back at 2024 from early 2025. Submissions from early in 2024 will have had more time to accumulate views and rating than those released later in the year. By definition, "blammed", unpublished or otherwise deleted submissions will not appear in this dataset as they were removed. This data covers the movie portal and the movie portal only. It does not cover general "hits" to the site nor any content not published in 2024.

I am not nor have I ever been a member of the Marxist Communist Data Liberation Team. I have non-deterministically verified this data, but I did not collect it. If this dataset doesn't have the data you need, it doesn't have the data you need. Soz.

What the Data Covers

For every movie published in 2024 that wasn't subsequently blammed, deleted, or unpublished:

sqlite> .schema movies
CREATE TABLE movies ( id TEXT PRIMARY KEY, date TEXT NOT NULL, title TEXT NOT NULL, rating TEXT NOT NULL,  
author TEXT NOT NULL, thumb TEXT NOT NULL, url TEXT NOT NULL , views INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
score REAL DEFAULT 0.0, frontpaged BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0, daily INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
weekly INTEGER DEFAULT 0, monthly INTEGER DEFAULT 0);

In other words, for every movie we get:

• the publication date
• the title
• the rating
• the author
• the accumulated views
• the score
• if the movie was frontpaged
• if it won a daily award and where it placed
• if it won a weekly award and where it placed
• if it won a monthly award and where it placed

With that, let's use the data to answer some questions about NG in 2024!

Where Do My Animations Rank in Terms of Total Views?

To answer this, first download the database from my dump. Unzip it anywhere on your machine and then go to the SQL.js Interpreter. Click the "Load DB" button and select the uncompressed database (ie the .db file).

The way this works is that you enter queries in a special language called SQL in the "SQL Editor" on the left (top on mobile) and get you answer on the right after hitting the "Execute" button.

To make sure you've properly loaded the data, copy and paste this into the "SQL Editor", replacing anything that's already there:

select COUNT(*) as count from movies;

Now hit "Execute".

If you get 31367, everything is working properly and you just need to find your "canonical" Newgrounds name. That's your name exactly as it appeared (including capitalization) at the end of 2024. As an example, for @KittyhawkMontrose it's

KittyhawkMontrose

Usually, it will just be your name as it appears on your profile page. If you're having trouble, you can download the CSV and find your name by searching for the title of a movie you released in 2024. 

Once you know your canonical name, just replace everything in the left hand side with this (replacing KittyhawkMontrose with your name, of course):

WITH rankings AS (SELECT author, SUM(views) as total, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY SUM(views) DESC) as rank FROM movies GROUP BY author ORDER BY total DESC) SELECT * FROM rankings WHERE author = 'KittyhawkMontrose';

Hit "Execute" and you should get an answer like this:

That's it! That's your total views across all your movies and your overall ranking (out of roughly 10k) for 2024. If enough people have trouble with this and want it, I might build a utility for doing this automatically. Just let me know in the comments.

Who Was #1?

sqlite> SELECT author, SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies GROUP BY author ORDER BY total_views DESC LIMIT 1;
Diives|5221661

The answer, hands down, is @Diives with an incredible 5,221,661 views across all of the movies he published in 2024. The second most viewed creator had literally less than half that, so yeah. Congratulations Diives!

Is Newgrounds a Porn Site?

Oh boy. Here we go. Well there are two ways to approach that question. From the point of view (pun intended) of individual movies and from the point of view of creators. Let's look at the content angle first:

sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-e';
5126856
sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-t';
5576894
sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-m';
4738918
sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a';
101829696

And let's also take a look at the top five adult creators:

sqlite> SELECT author, SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE author IN ( SELECT DISTINCT author FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a' ) GROUP BY author ORDER BY total_views DESC LIMIT 5;                                            
Diives|5221661
Amplected|2207617
Hentaivr|1762423
bewyx|1617333
Redmoa|1534696

And their non-adult counterparts:

sqlite> SELECT author, SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE author NOT IN ( SELECT DISTINCT author FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a' ) GROUP BY author ORDER BY total_views DESC LIMIT 5;
SrPelo|302996
Speedo|264632
NoMoreChie|167830
Magibauble|134172
PhantomArcade|126917

Comparing the two groups:

The lower estimate still shows 87% of the views in 2024 went to adult movies. That's 1.45 times the ratio of water in the human body. The state of Ohio is only 80% white. Newgrounds is a porn site. Like Playboy, that doesn't mean that a porn site is all Newgrounds is, Playboy had Gore Vidal and we have Luis. Still, anyone who tells you NG is not first and foremost a porn site is probably trying to raise another round of funding for an indie game. 

How Big Is Animation on NG?

Remember, this dataset only covers movies and only covers content released in 2024, it does not cover "legacy" content. Still, if you're a new animator, hits to a gen-x legacy you missed out on are basically irrelevant.

Let's separate adult and non-adult NG:

sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE rating != 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a';
15442668
sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views FROM movies WHERE rating = 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a';
101829696

That's about 15.5 million views for non-adult movie content in 2024 and little over 100 million views for adult content (speaking of NG being a porn site).

According to Social Blade, all of adult NG's movie views are roughly on par with gaming personality OneyPlays, while collective non-adult NG would be doing a little worse than dad-tuber Techmoan.

A quote attributed to everyone from Sir Isaac Newton to Henry Kissinger comes to mind:

The reason that university politics is so vicious is because the stakes are so small.

How Real Is the "Front Page" Effect?

Well. Funny thing that:

sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views_top_5 FROM ( SELECT views FROM movies WHERE rating != 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a' AND frontpaged = 1 ORDER BY views DESC LIMIT 5);
858392
sqlite> SELECT SUM(views) as total_views_top_5 FROM ( SELECT views FROM movies WHERE rating != 'nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a' AND frontpaged = 0 ORDER BY views DESC LIMIT 5);                                                               1023558

That's certainly confusing. Even if we screen out adult content, frontpaged content has about 4% less of a chance of being seen than movies that were never featured. Logically, being frontpaged shouldn't hurt you. What gives? I've done even more complicated analysis and this effect weirdly persists. My intuition is that this negative correlation results from the causality running opposite the way you think it would. That is: if the taste of the people choosing the movies to feature is negatively correlated with the taste of the site as a whole strongly enough, they will only pick movies so disliked that it appears there's no advantage to being frontpaged. That doesn't mean that on a case by case basis it isn't better to be frontpaged than not. It just means that the people creating the front page are out of touch enough that on aggregate it hides the real advantage to the front page. The other possibility is that there is some kink to the interface where if you're only frontpaged for a short time that it really is harder to find you. The famous "five second frontpaging". This sort of counter-intuitive rabbit hole is why I love this stuff.

Who Is King S#1t?

I owe @BrandyBuizel a personal apology on this one. I told him it was ZabuJard, but I was misremembering:

sqlite> SELECT author, COUNT(*) as movie_count FROM movies GROUP BY author ORDER BY movie_count DESC LIMIT 5;
davi-snuky62|376

Insanely, davi-snuky62 has managed to produce more than a movie a day and that's ignoring his unknown blam rate. It's very possible he submitted over 400 movies last year.

Should NG Get Rid of Kids?

Earlier this year, the minimum sign up age for NG was raised to 14. I was apposed to this idea (and of the minimum age creeping up over time) on principal. However, I've become more open minded to the need to do so based on this dataset. Take a look at this:

sqlite> SELECT rating, COUNT(*) as movie_count FROM movies GROUP BY rating ORDER BY movie_count DESC;

nohue-ngicon-small-rated-e|13323

nohue-ngicon-small-rated-t|7980

nohue-ngicon-small-rated-a|7710

nohue-ngicon-small-rated-m|2354

This is the graph for movie submissions. It looks a lot more diverse than the graph for views doesn't it? That's a problem. This chart suggests that almost all of the site resources: moderator attention, storage, liability exposure, etc, it's all being "wasted" on content no one is going to view. 

Of course, the flipside is that new users have to start somewhere. I'm not saying that the opening song to the musical "Gigi" isn't creepy, but academics have made very convincing arguments that time is linear and hasn't stopped despite the wishes of boomers. It has been observed that kids grow up. This is a matter of striking a balance between short term pain versus long term gain. The thing is, the short term pain is very real and resources are tight.

What Else Can We Find Out?

That's where you can come in. I'm sharing forward the dataset to see what other fun analysis can be run. If you find a really interesting SQL query or a fun chart, please share it in the comments. Since NG is a porn site, we need to make sure that dataporn is well represented.

Update 01:

To those inclined to believe this post was driven by some sort of grudge regarding recent contraversy, I point you to my post on the 4th of April to the "Near Zero Effort (I Promise!) Share Thread". There I share some code that is obviously used to verify this data against the Wayback Machine.

I would also point you to the date the db was uploaded to my dump: the 25th of April.

If I was a-going time travelin' I wouldn't be here, I'd be assassinating H**ler and meeting a young Bette Midler.

Update 02:

Music mod @ADR3-N has proposed:

A new forum for adult art/animation/etc content, ofc locked to anyone under 18 (pre-existing forum rules ofc apply)

In light of the data I think this is more than reasonable. It being basically verboten to post/discuss 90% of the content on the site in the forums is, to paraphrase one of my favourite commentators, "ka-ah-raze-eeeeeee".

I know that the majority of volunteers and staff here not only have their hearts in the right place but do an amazing job at what they do. I also know that the site is not a monolith. The movie portal is not the programming forum and so on. In most forums, no mod would ever do anything as cringe as participating in controversy threads that they are also going to moderate or even lock. Most mods would never dream of deleting post that don't violate rules on ideological grounds, much less because of personal grudges. Yet, as they say, here they are. These things happen and they happen too regularly to ignore.

I'm going to share a story with you because I think is indicative of a moderation culture that's actively pushing users away from the site. Again, I'm not going to claim that this is how the majority of moderation on the site works or anything of the kind. But I am going to hold firm that this is indicative of casual abuse of moderation powers that occurs all too often. As a matter of fact, I'm only sharing this story because an almost identical story to mine played out with @KittyhawkMontrose today.

Some throat clearing before I get started: I am certainly not a figure known for shying away from confrontation or heated debate on this site. My fights with CrimsonKero and others are fairly legendary. One of them even won "Worst Thread of the Year" in 2023. The thing is, that I don't bear grudges. Even disrespectful debate is very very different than abusing opaque systems and powers that you have been granted in trust. The former is something I salute and love engaging in. The latter is among the lowest you can stoop and still try and call yourself a human being.

Also in the spirit of disclosure, this is not my first run in with bullying and harassment from moderators. I was recently unjustly banned from the BBS. I use the word "unjustly" so confidently because, once the details of my ban were made public, it was mysteriously and without comment reversed.

To summarise my ban: my wife and others were harassed by a user whose name both refers to the Knights Templar and Heiling H****r (ironically in a thread about dealing with harassment). When she told others to ignore this "sad, confused person", she was banned for "resorting to name calling". When I complained about the obvious farce, I was also banned.

I would tell you that if you don't believe me to check the thread, but that touches on one of the largest problems that Newgrounds needs to address: there are no permanent public records of comment or thread deletions or of post that lead to bans. Even the famously over zealously moderated Reddit displays this information. Unfortunately, this makes Newgrounds an unreliable source and makes it all too easy (intentionally or not) for moderators to lie to and gaslight users. This tweet and this one both have screenshots.

My actual story sadly begins with a thread about AI. Specifically, the thread was/is about which sites do and do not allow or encourage training and what you can do in general to protect your art. Since I work in a related field, I realised I had something relevant to contribute. I had just seen that several art style models (or LoRas) based on Newgrounds art had been making the rounds at various AI model sharing sites. Several of them were NSFW, showing they had been trained via a data requiring being logged into Newgrounds. One of these adult models, amusingly enough, was of the Tankmen.

I don't have my original comment. I had no reason to believe it might contain anything that would be taken as untoward and I didn't back it up. My biased summary: heads up, NG is getting scraped, the scrapes are using logged in accounts, here's a screenshot showing some of the LoRas and a joke about Tankmen dick and a link to Tom Fulp's original animation:

The post stayed up for a day or so. Then, out of the blue, the entire sub-thread (my post and several people who had responded to me or to those replies) went missing.

I didn't have any modmail or notification and I didn't want to bother anyone, so I wracked my brain for what might be rule breaking. The thread was rated E and my post did have the words "veiny dick" and an adult link (albeit censored if you have A disabled). So I reposted (from here on I will provide post archives):

Reposting some info sans jokes, since I think my old comment may have gotten deleted to preserve the thread rating. The warning/info is well worth sharing dryly though, which is that NG is scraped pretty regularly and that there are a number of LoRa's floating around:

I'm pretty sure some of these were trained off the movie and not just art portal, for reasons I won't get into because of spice.

Kitty responded then both posts disappeared.

Now I was even more at a loss. I thought: maybe talking about reposting could be considered "complaining about a ban" or "backseat modding"? Maybe directly uploading the screenshot might be the issue? I posted:

In no way do I think NG can put much more effort into preventing it than they already do, but people should be aware that even NG does get regularly scraped as training data. I'm not going to link to Civit et al for copywrite reasons, but here's a link to a screenshot I took which shows quite a few LoRas based on scrapes.

Kitty responds. Both posts are deleted.

I read the forum rules four times. Nothing seemed relevant.

I'm at a loss. My tone is defensive/supportive of NG. I'm carrying the heterodox anti-AI sentiment. Ahha! I say. It's an implicit/shadow rule: NG mods are probably rightfully nervous of any explicit link or specific mention of any of the AI model sharing sites at all. No problem. I post:

If you go to a popular AI site, that I won't name, and search for NG you'll find at least half a dozen LoRas. Some have obviously been trained on material only available with a login. I'm not really sure what more NG can do, and I'm pretty sure that we're at the point of diminishing returns, but it's something to be aware of. I personally file it under the "sucks but it is what it is" category.

There are replies. Everything is deleted and has stayed deleted as of this writing.

I look forward with great interest to see what intellectual backflips the usual toadies and glazers will go through to try to claim my last attempt at a post was the most rule-breaking string of words you could ever string together, but I think to everyone else the line between honest mistakes and harassment, bullying, and abuse of power was crossed long ago. This is untenable. As an ***hole, I am willing to defend myself but 90% of people would have long since left NG.

I sent this entire story to a mod I respected weeks ago. I received no reply and now that the same exact thing is happening again I can only assume they are complicit. I'm sure that at least in the short term I'm aggravating a conflict that I did not start, but I'd rather be kicked off NG than bullied off.

Update 01:

@TurkeyOnAStick has apparently taken responsibility and also commented on my wife's post saying:

The AI stuff was because I said earlier in the thread we don’t need to keep making anti-AI soapbox posts.

The topic was about protecting art from AI scraping, and all other posts were about signatures, anti-scraping filters, etc.

Your post was about AI-generated NG characters, which is a topic shift into the done-to-death AI conversation topics.

I challenge anyone to read through my story and come to the conclusion that my post was not a warning that scraping was already happening, even here on NG. Notice what a delightful counterfactual Turkey spins here. My post might cause others to derail the thread, so it needs to be deleted. This same kind of "your crime is that you might inspire others to commit crimes" kind of batshit reasoning is present in this comment where he says:

 If anything, if your argument gets so heated to the point that a mod has to get involved, that’s a problem with the participants collectively.

Good to know Turkey thinks that everyone involved in a home invasion should go to jail for assault. The kid in a crib is--afterall--a collective participant just like the guy in a balaclava. Amazing ethicist we've got looking out for our interest.

Update 02:

@DioShiba Has started a thread Why is there so much drama around the NSFW art community? I don't wish to be cynical, but in light of the lack of transparency, what possible consensus building can such a thread accomplish? How would you ever know how much I or any others tried to participate only for our voices to be deleted multiple times? If I were allowed to participate, do you really feel I or others could give full throated arguments with the spectre of anything we say that goes against the orthodoxy being disappeared? The conversation about mod overreach has to happen first and has to come to a concrete change. All other conversations are mere Potemkin villages until that happens. Respectfully, why participate in a sham?

Update 02b:

My assertion that there is no actual conversation on this website, just the illusion of consensus, is completely validated. I posted the following comment to @DioShiba's thread (the link is to this post):

I have made my thoughts on this thread known elsewhere (Update02). Best to everyone here.

It was immediately deleted. This time I did receive a modmail:

Those users are talking about your post, so there's no need for you to start cultivating dumb drama.

So there you have it: "the thread is about you, so no need to have your say".

Notice the unprofessional coward has blocked me (and @KittyhawkMontrose too BTW), despite the fact that I've never sent him a direct message in my life. If @TurkeyOnAStick were a normal user, I would take solace in the fact that he could no longer see my posts and that this would decrease the chances of harassment. Sadly, once again this site's complete lack of transparency means I don't know if he will continue to see my post as a mod. I would need at least screenshot evidence at this point to believe it of course, given the amount of lies and misrepresentation I have born.

Alot of people in @DioShiba's thread are dancing around the issue. "Adult artist" this, "well you see" that. I would love for one of you to take to the open comment box below and defend the above comment being deleted.

So as part of my Sisyphean attempt to inject a bit of life into the programming forum I'm hosting a general advice thread: "Open Office Hours (Need Help? Post Here)". The idea is that it'll be a place to ask for more general advice (though non-homework specific questions are welcome). I'm committing at least a few minutes of each day to it, and hopefully more will do the same.

Anyway, both newbs and graybeards are welcome, so please jump in.

Even though @KittyhawkMontrose and I have been keeping up an insane pace lately (check out the awesome new Velvet & Minky motion comic), we just couldn't let the spooky season pass us by without producing at least something for Halloween itself.

So here it is, our new toy to use while trick or treating: "The Device".

"The Device" is a clone of a particular ghost hunting tool which has garnered some attention lately. It operates on the same principles and even features a genuine (emulated) Texas Instruments TMS5220 voice. It's guaranteed to be just as confusing and baffling as the real thing!

Since "The Device" depends on tracking environmental changes, we hope it'll be a great excuse to get outside and wander around like an idiot looking for ghost! Just be careful of traffic and respectful of private property. May you receive no zero bars and get out there early enough to get quarters from that nice old lady who always does that.

Happy Hunting!

Holy cow! User of the day!

To tell you about me: I code for an art collective called montrose lead by the amazing @KittyhawkMontrose

In a crazy coincidence, her birthday art giveaway streamed today! Check it out:

Please check out our games! If you're an artist, consider applying to the Newgrounds Pokemon Gijinka Collab.

Also, if you're posting a comic or collection that's too big for the standard art portal, give Bando's Comic Wizard a try:

If I might abuse this basically random spotlight as a soapbox: Artist are complete people who can create different works for different reasons. I want nothing more than for the adult and experimental art portions of this site to get along and for the will of people who vote on pieces to be respected. I really love this site. Please consider becoming a supporter.

So you'd like to participate in the NG Sweet Sixteen Comic Contest and--further--be able to chat live with other participants, get important notifications on your phone, and otherwise plugin to the coolest people on the Internet? You're in the right place! First, if you just want to jump in and out of the chat, we have a web chat option:

https://montrose.is/chatting/#sweetsixteencomic

If you want something a little more permanent and fully featured, this guide will walk you through setting up a free IRCCloud account and connecting to the contest server. For those who already know about IRC, here's the relevant details:

server: irc.montrose.is

ports: 6667 (standard), 6697 (TLS)

channel: #sweetsixteencomic

services supported: nickserv, chanserv, klyton (read on for more about klyton)

Okay! Now that all the poopsack wearing Linux nerds have left to fire up Emacs, here's how non-virgins can get connected:

1) Go to https://www.irccloud.com/ and sign up for a free account

2) Verify your email address (it's very important you do this before step 3

3) Fill out the "Join a new Network" form:

Hostname: irc.montrose.is

Port: 6667

Nickname: your handle or username (needs to be one word and short if possible)

Full name: Your name or the longer version of your handle

Channels to join: #sweetsixteencomic

4) Once again, remember to verify your email address (IRCCloud should have sent you a verification link by now).

5) Click "Join network"

6) Ignore a bunch of scary cyber-nonsense and concentrate on the right side of the screen.

7) Click "#sweetsixteencomic" on that right-hand sidebar.

8) You're good to go. IRCCloud will now act much like Discord, keeping track of chat history for you.

If you'd like to put an IRC client on your phone (with the bonus that up to two hours after you last spoke, IRCCloud will send you notifications of chat activity), you can download a client for:

iOS or Android

Bonus: How to Use klyton

klyton is montrose's humble freebot. He handles the posting of media and just as important can be used to pass messages to users that aren't online. All you have to do is type:

klyton: tell username: You stink!

Now the next time username signs on (or speaks if they're idle) klyton will relay your message. Remember that both the command and the response appear in the public chat.

Bonus: The IRC Rabbit Hole

If you'd like to learn more about using IRC properly, here are a few resources to get you started:

* About services

* Palaver IRC client

* ZNC IRC bouncer

* The Lounge web IRC client and bouncer