Paragon is probably not this cute! Jermaine got his girlfriend to pose as him in a joke that started off as a publicity stunt
The Gender of Users on Newgrounds, from visitors to Authors and admin is a matter of some talk and curiosity on the site, since without meeting people etc, it is not generally possible to be quite certain of what gender somebody is and it is known that some people have hidden or misled others as to their gender.
It is hard to be certain of very much on the subject and this page only attempts to show some interesting thoughts, links and ideas on the subject.
The General Assumption
Is this what you get when a male-dominated collab is made about cupcakes?
The assumption around the forums is that most visitors, registered Users and contributors to the site are male. The bulk of the Flash animation, for example is described as being stereotypically male orientated, with violence etc. being a popular theme. Jokes abound in the forums such as No user "with a girlfriend" exists on our system, which implies that a typical user is a male without a social life (or an unlucky lesbian!).
A Forum joke about typical Newgrounders
Known Gender Swaps
However, there is no way to be certain of these figures. Newgrounds users can state their gender, but there are known cases where users have given the wrong gender. ParagonX9, a well-known Newgrounds musician from the Netherlands eventually admitted that he was male and said that he had made out he was female as a publicity stunt. Presumably he thought that since females were relatively rare on NG, it would attract him more attention. HotDiggedyDemon also claims to be female, although it is done in a very tongue in cheek manner.
Despite this pic, her declared gender and the name, the well-known Flash author Little-Rena is often claimed to be male.
The Facts?
All the staff have always been male. Most of the Moderators have always been male- as far as the pix from Mod Meets show! Nearly all the folk that show up for Meets in pictures are male and most of the declared genders of registered users are male.
However, it is possible that in a male-dominated site, a significant number of the female users would be uncomfortable declaring their gender meaning that the number of undeclared users that are female might be higher than otherwise expected.
Melbourne Meet 2009 Not a lot of women there.
Quantcast, a commercial Internet statistics site, consistently estimates Newgrounds general traffic at around 50/50 male/female, which, if it is anywhere near true, would suggest that a higher proportion of males actually join, rather than just visiting, or that if the registered user base is more like 50/50 than people tend to assume, this might be because the males tend to be more prominent in some way.
Quantcast NG visitor estimate, May 2011
List of Some Notable Female Users
- Carmilla - A Forum Moderator
- CosmicDeath - A talented artist and NG regular.
- hania - Musician and Tank Award winner
- InsertFunnyUserName - A regular poster on the BBS
- Gagsy - A Top regular poster on the BBS
- Gate-keeper-girl - Multi-award winning animator
- mamatequila - Forum Moderator
- Maus - An ex-mod regular poster on the BBS
- ReNaeNae - Moderator, author, and Tank Award winner
- Rina-chan - Voice Actress
- Sapphire - Voice Actress
- Skaijo - multi-award-winning animator
- tigerkitty - Review Moderator
Comparison with other internet sites
The internet is generally presumed to be dominated by males. Again, this may not be an accurate assumption, perhaps the men are more prominent or more inclined to state their gender.
deviantArt
deviantArt, which is primarily an art uploading site, is apparently female-dominated.
Wikigrounds
According to Quantcast, Wikigrounds is visited by approximately 60/40 Male/female visitors. Of the hundreds of registered users only a handful are apparently female.
Parallels in the Mainstream Media
Some members of the major game developer Treyarch. Note the plethora of Y chromosomes.
The dominance of males on Newgrounds's Flash game community seems to have parallels to the game industry. Although 40% of gamers are female, and even proportionately larger numbers buy games and play them online, the number of women who develop games for a living is far smaller. For example, a 2010 study found that just 6.6% of the British game industry is female, despite the large number of female gamers. [1][2]
Likewise, it has been observed that the animation industry is dominated by men at the expense of women.[3] For example, the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, which has been presented by the International Animated Film Association-Hollywood since 1992, has only had one winner with a female director, 2001's Shrek.[4]
Since Newgrounds, as a website, is dominated by games and animation, this information suggests that gender inequalities may be the result of the state of the two mediums' industries, rather than of Newgrounds.