Today is the tenth birthday of when my biggest animated web series, 'YellowHead", began. It was also the same Saturday that the Nepal Earthquake happened. Thought that would be some interesting trivia for anyone who doesn't remember that. There is honestly a lot to unpack here. 2015 had a very rough start for me. My third cat died, named Leo. I still had my other cat (who was older shockingly) by my side, and even though they both didn't get along well, it was disheartening to see him miss his sibling. He would cry out at night when he got lonely, lay on Leo's bed (something he refused to do before he died), etc. The difference is, this was also 2015 still. I was in 8th grade. I was a cynical teenager, but I was nowhere near the apathetic, jaded person I am today. I still had a friend group, I had friends outside of school, and I still had ambition. This was both channeled into Roblox, and me being introduced to Scratch in a coding class at around this time during... fuck I don't even remember what it was called. But you went to your main advisors class for like, 30 minutes. For Roblox, it was a Des Moines map, that would later on get me into Ultimate Driving (the game would become 'Saylorville later'). One day, I think it was after church, I went home, and after making a few prior animations before, I decided to make my first "episode"/"pilot" for a series that didn't even have a name until around "The Court" was released. I did this as a weird experiment of wondering why certain shows felt different, and evolved the way they did than when they began. The funny thing is, that it only took a half year for me to find out why. It is still unfortunate that 3.0 practically killed most of my animations at the time. Not only that, but my other cat, Buffy, died literally on new years day in 2019. I gave up the show, and I wanted to give up animating. Which is something I almost regret, considering now I am stuck at a job I don't remotely like. I did graduate with an animation degree, won an award and nominations for "Not Just Deliveries", but the industry itself is in shambles. Partly due to A.I., but mostly because of greedy CEO's who don't care about art and culture in general. I am glad that I made the show regardless when I did, because I feel like it may have stayed a pipe dream otherwise if I had not, like most other indie cartoons that never came through (most notably Growing Around [this isn't meant entirely to throw shade at Mr. Enter either, it's just an example]). Thankfully, web animations now are becoming more watched than probably ever, now coming out with more Hollywood levels of polish. Things like Catching Up, Cliffside, Ollie and Scoops, etc have a more refined, TV show pilot feel to them. But I will always appreciate series that started off like mine, as something born from curiosity and experimentation. Raw in it's vision, and unpolished from using dated technology. I thank everyone who has stuck around for over ten years, if there is many of you left. Some of you may have been around after, but before the turn of the decade. Which is valid too, as even that era is long gone. Episode 2 of OSFV is halfway done, so there is also that good news. Dunno how to end this, so I'll just call it here.
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