A fun new website is bringing our nostalgia for Flash videos to the forefront by shuffling through classic Newgrounds animations.
What is Newgrounds?
Although it originated in the 1990s, Newgrounds hit its stride in the 2000s primarily as a host for Adobe Flash-based animations—videos, games, memes, and more. At the time, Adobe Flash had become the easiest way for people to get their weird ideas out to the world, and centralized platforms like Newgrounds and Ebaum's World were popping up to help them find an audience.
Those who were alive and active on the internet at the time may remember such iconic hits as "Charlie the Unicorn," "The Ultimate Showdown," and "Badger Badger Badger," all of which can still be found on Newgrounds today.
What is Newgrounds Roulette?
Newgrounds still exists, but the internet has changed immensely since its heyday. Most notably, Adobe Flash Player is largely unsupported by modern browsers. Even years before that, it had fallen out of popularity for creating videos as software and tech became more easily accessible to the average person.
So although some of us may remember the most viral Flash animations that first populated Newgrounds 20 years ago, there are plenty that have been forgotten, and plenty of people that have never had the joy of experiencing them in the first place.
This travesty is what led Mike Wing to create Newgrounds Roulette, a simple site that does exactly what the name suggests: shuffles through the Flash animations hosted on Newgrounds.
Hitting the left or right arrow key on your computer will allow you to browse and play whatever pops up on your screen. There's no searching, no sorting; you can do that on the regular site. This one is purely for shuffling, allowing users to discover (or rediscover) bizarre works that arguably helped shape the internet and the concept of viral videos.
To up the nostalgia factor, the animations are framed by an image of an old school Philips computer monitor, complete with a Dell tower and beige keyboard. Depending on your screen size, you may notice the '90s/'00s-style dingy basement room used as a background, complete with floral couch and period-appropriate posters.
A trip down memory lane
So far, people have been loving the site—both the way that it puts the spotlight back on these early Flash animations and the randomization factor that allows for so much more exploration and surprise than the forcefully curated algorithms of today.
Simpler times!
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