Asandir's interviews with Newgrounds forum users

This week's interview features the user Lepy.

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When did you find Newgrounds and why did you join? Why did you choose the username LepyThedinosuar and why did you change it to Lepy?

Lepy:

"I've known about Newgrounds for a pretty long time. I definitely remember my brother watching Neurotically Yours in 2003-2004 and I thought it looked totally neat-o! So I kinda started watching it, too. I'm not entirely sure if I signed up back then since I was young and I thought the Internet was full of ill-intentioned adults. I also remember being too afraid to go to YouTube in like, 2006 because I was afraid a hacker would hack my webcam and kill me or something.
In late 2008, I kinda got more into the Flash community through AlbinoBlackSheep and deviantArt and I found Yotam Perel and I absolutely loved everything he made. I found his Newgrounds and I thought "Oh, yeah, Newgrounds, the place for Flash stuff. I should sign up!"

I used the name LepyThedinosuar or LepyThedino between 2006 and 2009 because when I was 10, I had a leopard gecko named Lepy and my brother and I would joke about how he's all dinosaur-like. I was sitting there with my brother when I signed up for YouTube and we kinda just decided on that name. He was the one who told me that dinosaur was spelled "dinosuar", too. If only IE 6 had spell check.

On Newgrounds, I changed it to just Lepy in 2010 because that's kinda when I started to realize that having "thedinosuar" or "thedino" in my name was a dumb idea. That's such a Myspace era, scene kid on the Internet type of username. Bleh. I wish I didn't sign up for so many things under that name."

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Do you think that you changed over the time you were here, as user, or also in real life?

Lepy:

"Well, I kinda grew up on Newgrounds. Like, I didn't have hair on my dick when I first started here, I don't think. Now I do. I've changed a lot in pretty much every area, the way I talk and do things online and the way I do things in real life. I've learned to act more professionally, but in the end, I still have a lot to learn. So here's to change and the changes that're to come! *glass tink noise*
The only thing that hasn't changed much is that I still love making things and animating and all that."

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Are there any other users that you like, and how do they affect you?

Lepy:

"There are a bunch of people on here that I love. The ones that affected me the most are mainly the animators. Oney, Psychicpebbles, Egoraptor, Eddsworld. Stamper, too, though he doesn't animate much. His humor's top fuckin' notch. There are/were a lot of great, inspiring people from Newgrounds. There's a million, but I couldn't name them all.
There are also people I love from the BBS. I don't talk to people much like, directly. I never really have. DoctorStrongbad and TeslaShockwave are two people off the top of my head. Shout out to them!"

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Are there any users that you would consider enemies or that you just don't like?

Lepy:

"There are some people on the BBS who are okay with making others feel as stupid as possible and they're just generally assholes, and it's like, why? There are also some animators I don't like because they pour all their shitty, unfunny writing and into a crappily animated parody and continue to shit up Newgrounds with their video game parodies. There are also a lot of animators who kinda just rip Spazkid and Ego's style (in a nasty combination with shitty, unfunny writing being thrown into a video game parody). 
But for every one of those people, there are 5 amazing and talented animators."

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What is your opinion about the forums? Is there one forum that you prefer? And is there another forum user that you want to see getting interviewed by me?

Lepy:

"One that I prefer? Politics. No. J/k. I've literally never touched the political forum. General's where it's at.
I'm not sure who you've already interviewed. I assume at the point of intervewing me, you're already kinda far down the list. I feel like anyone I'd mention would already be interviewed."

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I guess that you have an opinion about the moderators of Newgrounds. Do you think that they do a great job or not?

Lepy:

"The mods have recently gone under a funny transition. I remember a time when I was dead afraid of the moderators. They banned and locked pretty darned freely. Nowadays, they're a LOT more laid back, but I guess that makes sense since the forum in general's a lot more laid back than it was back then.
I think they do a good job. I mean, they get the job done. They know what they're doing."

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Would you like to become a moderator on Newgrounds? If so, what kind of moderator?

Lepy:

"I pretty much only know about the forum mods and the art mods. I feel like I just wouldn't be needed in either place. There's a pretty big list of mods for everything already and they already do a good job."

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The last redesign happened 2012. Tell me what you think about it. What do you like and what is not so good?

Lepy:

"It's a decent design. I'm not sure if I like the switch from gray and orange-yellow to brown, gray, and orange-ish. I like the look of the games, movies, audio, etc. buttons, though I think they could pop a little more as they kinda visually compete with ads. The bar at the top with your username and the little square buttons is definitely pretty nice (especially since they added the little star that tells you how many notifications you have). However, I'm REALLY excited for Luis's design. I think it's going to be really pretty and sleek and hopefully he makes the brown colors go away.
I also kinda miss how big the weapons and auras were in the previous design. Now it's kinda like, who cares about auras? Before, it was like being on a team. No one cares now because they're so small."

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You are an animator. When did you first start animating? What was so far the most difficult project that you finished?

Lepy:

"I started around 2006, when I used a bunch of .gif animator trials, powerpoint, and MovieMaker/MS paint. Pretty much any way that I could find. Then I learned about Flash and ahem*aquiredit*cough in 2008. The most difficult stuff that I've done aren't finished. I'll safely be able to say that my next Flash is going to be the hardest thing I've ever made. The hardest thing I've ever finished was probably my first TOFA animation. I would animate for really long periods of time because of the really tight deadline. I had to make all that in about 3 weeks if I'm remembering right. It took me a long time to make Hola Pescado and I was pretty scared, but I ended up doing it. Somehow. I'd say it's because the animation's so simple. Everything was really simple, in fact. I wanna get back to being able to animate that simply. Nothing that I've released was ever hectic because I kinda just made it to make it."

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Back in 2010, you won a daily award with the submission Hola_Pescado! How did you feel about winning this award?

Lepy:

"I was ecstatic! I couldn't believe my piece of shit Flash cartoon got anything. There was no story or anything, either. I don't think it deserved it, but I'm glad it happened because a few months later, it gave me the confidence to enter TOFA. I'm overall really, really glad it happened. I just wonder why a lot. It's not good or funny animation. I just made some things and put them together. But hey, it's not very often that someone's very first real Flash animation gets something like that. IIRC, it was even front paged for a while. I just...I dunno. It didn't deserve any of that.
But I'll just smile and nod and accept my award."

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One of your favourite Indie bands is Neutral Hotel. What do you like the most about their music and which songs are your favourites?

Lepy:

"My favorite song would probably have to be Two Headed Boy pt. 2. What a wonderful song.
Engine, Bucket, Snow Song, and Song Against Sex are some of my favorites, too. There are a lot of great song that Jeff played live only and they never actually got released.
There's a lot I love about Neutral Milk Hotel. The songs bring me to a lot of wonderful, different places from memory. Everything's slow and Jeff Mangum pretty much wrote some of the best series of words ever. "How strange it is to be anything at all."

A lot of the magic's in the live shows. I love how ghetto they were back then! And you should see Jeff fucking jump dance around like a crazy drunk...musician! It's the most kick ass thing I've ever seen! The band were in their 20's or so when they originally toured in the 90's and they would pick people up and throw them into the equipment and AAHHH it was so fucking great! I loved watching them because they were having such a great fucking time!
I saw a Neutral Milk Hotel concert recently and I loved seeing Jeff Mangum rock the fuck out even in his 40's. It was still pretty cool, even no one threw anybody. Jeff was jumping up and down, though! Haha, not bad for being 40.
I'm a little sad that NMH's gotten the wrap it has in the past few years, but oh well."

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I think that you have a Leopard gecko as pet. When did you get the gecko? What do you like about having a gecko as pet?

Lepy:

"The one you're talking about, Lepy, died about a year ago. Twas pretty sad. I got him in 4th or 5th grade. He was really cool. I don't have much to say about owning a Leopard Gecko anymore because responsibilities are too difficult for me to handle anymore. I do recommend one to someone who wants a cute little pet. They're really easy to take care of and they're just gosh darn cute.
At the moment, I have a Leopard Gecko named Jeeves. He's an asshole and bites people."

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Every person has secrets. Can you tell one of yours or something else that we didn't know about you yet?

Lepy:

"I like British vlogs and I watch Past Bing Future Bing because it's hella entertaining and I have 2 Flashes I've since deleted from Newgrounds and and and I'm lazy and I like Tumblr and I think it's interesting if you follow the right people and I still think chickens are hilarious and I don't care for Dr. Who or the new Pokemon games like X and Y and now everyone likes me less probably SORRY :("

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What can we expect from you in the future, Lepy?

Lepy:

"A WHOLE BUNCH! There's a lot to come and I'm always working on things and Newgrounds is always going to be a place where I tell people about the things I make if it's not the place where I upload something to. I have such a fiery burning passion to create things still. I'm working on two music videos at the moment (ones that I HAVE to have completed) and one of them I have to release first and it's a real bitch to animate because it's not in my style and there's a lot of full body animation but it'll all work out. The other thing is a music video for Nuclear Bubble Wrap and it'll be a lot easier to animate because I get to animate and plan everything out and it'll be in my own style and I can use as many motion tweens as I want (j/k I generally tend to do a lot of frame by frame stuff, but motion tweens are a LOT faster). I have to finish the other thing first, though.

I also have Speshil Sheepy 3, an animation I'm going to be making with my bud Ryan Queen AKA Utentagen, and it'll be the best thing (I hope). I can't wait for that because I actually get to write it instead of animating to music like I have for the past year. Ryan and I are two goofnuts, so I'm hoping this animation'll be nothing but goofs, pranks, gags, and maybe even jokes.

And of course, I love film and I'll hopefully have more live action stuff out.
I've also recently struck something good with my MarioMan64 series on YouTube. A lot of people loved it and I ended up going from 100 subscribers to 1k! I'm really happy to finally have an audience. For once, I can release something and a good amount of people are going to watch. Not sure yet whether that's an exciting thing or a really scary thing. I'm interested to found out whether people like the stuff I wanna make, though."

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Now you are filled with more knowledge about Lepy, dear reader.Feel free to leave a comment here, saying what you think about the interview, requesting users to get interviews is also appreciated. Tune in next week :3

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