Everything, By Everyone is a film about the Internet. In large part, it’s the story of a website called Newgrounds and the online cultural trends it helped create and drive over the last decade or so. It's also the story of how the web became fun as well as functional.

Newgrounds is the web’s largest collection of Flash animation and largest collective of Flash animators and its story is very much analogous to the story of the internet. A computer-savvy kid in a basement doing stuff for fun leads to a popular site with millions of visitors, which eventually leads to a successful business and an internet institution. Newgrounds predates YouTube, MySpace, and Google. It has existed long enough to have been part of some historically critical years in evolution of a now ubiquitous internet and it’s still going strong. It is the rare example of a website that neither went “bust” in the dot-com implosion nor was swallowed up by a large corporate interest. Perhaps most importantly, Newgrounds was an early driving force behind the idea that regular people could use the Internet purely for the purposes of entertainment. This idea is now universal. A look at the history and evolution of Newgrounds is an opportunity for a discussion of:

• The evolution of online entertainment from basic html to streaming HD video

• The evolution of Flash animation as an artistic medium

• The evolution of online gaming and downloadable content

• The rise of “user-generated content” sites which do not provide any content save for a forum in which people sign up and provide each other with things to watch and read and listen to

• The increasing impact of online content on traditional media

• The importance of all forms of independent media

The film will be comprised of interviews and footage of NG staff and users as well as other authors, animators, gamers and persons of interest. All this will be interspersed with pieces of original animation as well as “classic” selections from the NG archive. The intent is to create a fun and informative film that is equal parts History Channel and Cartoon Network.

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