@AZ0RZER0 - @Aalasteir (Q) - Index

Q: In what ways would you say the Internet has impacted you? Would you say you see the world differently because of it?

I can say for sure that I couldn't be the person I'm now without it. While dealing with the outside world is always essential, I cannot stress how much I learned with the Internet, whether it was gore, porn, memes or just current events all around the world. While I'm still not one to start a conversation or talk all the time, I'd say the Internet helped me desensitize myself to a lot of topics and being able to talk about them more openly and with less hesitation.

Q: Who is NG for? Do you feel different about the site now compared to when you first joined?

Just like the slogan says, everything here is made by everyone and so, made for everyone. It's a place for animators, gamers, developers, artists, musicians, writers, but also a place to meet new friends, to have a laugh, to have a talk, to share a bit of yourself. I love this site just as much as I loved it when I discovered it 4 years ago. At the time, I only cared about revisiting old classics and playing games. But now, I come here for everyone. I come for the threads, the pranks, the collabs, the jokes, the folks, mostly the Supporter Party as that's the one I use and love the most, and then the projects themselves. There's so much to see besides reviewing the submissions on the Judgement Portal, which was almost the only I did for most of the previous years.

Q: How do you know when you like a piece of art? What are the elements that resonate with you, and why do you think those elements have that effect on you?

I look for something I find entertaining that provokes a certain emotion, but in a technical standpoint, I don't think people should feel stuck with an incredibly strict model of what is acceptable because it's possible to tell a great story with visuals or audio without needing a proper story or character development, or even a great story with simple visuals. Art should provoke and total submission to the norm can kill that aspect.

Q: What advice would you give to people dealing with depression? What music did you listen to, and what movies did you watch? How do you come up with ideas for new projects? What is the theme of your projects, and why do you think that theme is present? How did you become interested in creating animations, and what is your process for making them?

My desire of making my own animations came in the end of 2020 shortly after Hybrid Theory’s 20th anniversary release, as after his passing, I went back to listen to their origins, and when I came across the Xero demo tape, I listened to it non-stop for 2 years straight. Being my favorite band and having bangers even in their earlier stage, I waited with excitement for the HT20. But Fuse was not there, and Stick N Move was different from the tape. Seeing no one was talking about it, and there were almost no AMVs for me to binge, I decided to try to take matters into my own hands and make an animation for it. I never finished it, and I lost my progress in the floods of Flipaclip updates, but it was a Firestarter.

My ideas come from all kinds of sources, making it impossible to point out exactly what leads me there. It justs clicks. It can be a memory, an activity, an emotion, a song, etc... In that sense, I believe the theme of my projects drift around whatever it's on my mind, with the one of the only consistent features being mood. I gave it three types of mood based on these three emotions: happiness, sadness and anger. From that point onwards, every theme can be seen in any mood, from the cutest and innocent to the gruesome and disturbing, from the stupid and nonsensical to the coolest and badass. I say this seeing as between what I'm working, there's brainrot, there's gore and there's characters just hanging out. I prefer to give a fair share of shiningness and darkness instead of focusing on one ang getting bored of it, hence why style of lack of curves gets constantly interrupted by characters with big circular heads. That way i try new things without nuking what I had.

This model I use to make my projects follows the principles of a personal theme for me that I'm now going to discuss: depression. Yeah, I suffered from it during the first 9 months of 2024 and of course, it was hard. It got in the way of my responsibilities and I focused so much on the despair and hate I had for myself instead of standing up and getting my shit together. But after feeding my mind with suicidal fantasies that couldn't be accomplished and locking myself away from everyone, I started to learn from it.

Anger, sadness and happiness all come together to make you a human. You will never learn everything you need from just being happy, as that will make you naive, something I was for a good chunk of my life. Those dark thoughts can teach you great lessons. Regret reinforced me to not get gratification on harming others; loathing to not get too full of myself and to not be dependent, but also to see that I'm still no less than everyone else. I started being more apathetic, avoiding unnecessary troubles and keeping a chill behavior. Don't let those feelings take a tool on you. Use them as reminders of who you are and what your purpose is instead of convincing yourself that they're not there. No tears, isolation, self-punishment, meds, support or therapy will have any effect until you stand for yourself and learn to live a relation of mutualism with your darkness to become a stronger person.

Q: How did you become interested in swimming? What is it like having parents with a swimming pool that you use every time you visit them? Why do you enjoy going for long walks through the city, and what music do you listen to while you walk?

My dad, being a PE teacher, was always supportive of sports and hobbies. Despite not having an interest in sports, I still attended lots of activities out of school, one of the earliest ones being swimming. While everything had strict rules that required constant teamwork and complicated schedules, this one did not have places to go and every time summer came, we always stopped everything we were doing at some point in the day just to enjoy the pool. When playing football or basket felt like chores, swimming was always natural for me, as a moment when I'm not being judged, a moment when I can forget everything for a bit and relax, even more than going to the gym.

As for long walks through the city, it helps me to think and come up with ideas. I like to stay in my room, but too much at once leads to burnout and lack of willingness to do anything. I also think about it as to do with the fact that I lived in the city until I was 6 years old and then moved to the countryside. When I traveled to the capital for college, I felt relieved with the ability to go anywhere I want on foot or public transport while having a much more interesting view to look at. I prefer a city that never sleeps than a small town haunted by a morbid silence. Maybe my preferences will change in the future, who knows? Until then, this is where I feel I belong. To combine with that vibe, I tend to listen to Canadian pop-punk like Avril Lavigne, Green Day, or Sum 41.

Q: Why do you think you prefer watching instead of reading?

Laziness. I like the fact that art can express itself through more aspects than just words, but the main reason is that I'm too lazy to read. I already have so much to read for college, I just can't do it in my free time.

Q: What is the Newgrounds community like?

Awesome. Very charming and supportive without sacrificing the jokes and criticism. Just that nice balance.

Q: How would you describe your experiences with 4chan and Reddit? What are the differences between them, and have you noticed any changes in their cultures over time?

I always despised social media in general for how fake they are, just resorted to show lame dresses, ugly makeup and places of people I don't give a fuck. For these two, they stood out in their pros and cons. Reddit is great for finding specific information on a topic but its upvote system gives the stage to the popular opinion and overshadows the rest. In 4chan, the stage’s open for everyone, all being anon treated equally in terms of access, making it very open for discussion and my favorite of the two. Some people love to brag about acceptance when they’re no different when it comes to other views on Reddit and on 4chan, thinking that just because one board offends them, then everything is this and that, when really you can just disable the NSFW “offensive” stuff and just have a normal talk or even make friends. 

Q: Where do you think your interests stem from, and how would you define your personality? How is personality constructed, and how do interests play a role in shaping it?

Personally, I describe myself as an honest person, quiet, even though much more vocal than just a few years ago, curious and patient. I try to see people for what they really are and help in what I can, but all with its moderation. I’m no one’s slave nor a host for leeches and I’m surely not afraid to put anyone in their place if they get too cocky.

I like to learn about all kinds of stuff. There’s much more beyond the what’s “important” as people want new ideas to the table and that can only come when you extend your knowledge and culture to other horizons besides your familiar ground. But I also don’t want to fill my head with the most basic NPC shit if that means forgetting everything else to become a normie, so I’m always searching for something new, even if it sounds completely random like “Who invented the spoon?”.

Q: How did you come to consider yourself an atheist, and from your perspective, what is religion? Why do people have beliefs? Why did you want to visit all of the sacred capitals last summer?

I had that standard catholic background of going to church on Sundays, having a catechism class and praying when sleeping at my grandparents’ house. It was so outdated, so lifeless, so preppy, so unnecessarily rigorous, and most of all, it was useless for me. What benefits did I get from prayers? Most of the people that tried to reinforce me into with were just a bunch of jealous and gossiped losers. But then I started to find a pattern: all those euphemisms and metaphors were thrown around without any specification or organization on what was honest and what was figurative, making the whole thing easily corruptible and hypocritical. Big balls for a guy to kill millions with the excuse they were all sinners while sparing liars and monsters he knows about has the perfection he makes himself to be. Oh, but you believe or don’t believe and that’s it. But what do I believe if you’re just gonna be vague about it and shape it for your own gain? There’s no point in calling it a religion at that point. So yeah, I felt my resentment and skepticism did not fit with the indifference of agnosticism and I became a full-on atheist.

Different opinions come from different beliefs, some making more use of it than others as it can serve as a source of hope and strength. If they feel it helps them get going, good for them, no one’s going to take that away from you. Having an interest in history and philosophy, religion tends to be a major subject, to which I find it fascinating to a personal but not emotional level. So, I had the idea of visiting the Holy Land, Mecca and Medina, if possible, as visiting the place itself would be much more exciting than just simply studying it from a far. At the time, things looked peaceful, but that’s not the case right now. I’ll have to wait a bit longer, but I really wanted to go there at least once in my life, again, not for religious motives but out of sheer curiosity.

Q: What is the purpose of politics? Why do you personally dislike extreme ideologies? Where do extreme ideologies come from? What defines an ideology? What constitutes good satire? What does a more civilized discussion about politics and the Internet look like?

Personally, I don’t like extreme points from both sides as I feel like they represent two perspectives that are too exaggerated to be put into practice in a good and functional way. These, just like every ideology, come from people and the society they live in, depending on their necessities and interests, with some having completely different focuses despite their closeness to the political spectrum. In this sense they also come to fight any kind of oppression presented, with the extreme being exact opposites. But I’m not someone who pursues one for what they believe as that would be unfair and biased. To fight this favoritism, I look for satire to make fun to criticize both sides of the same coin and promote a clever and balanced discussion of the topics, while also staying away from most political arguments on the Internet as they tend to choose sides based on what the media tells them to, rarely being civilized.

Q: What makes a good video about Internet drama as opposed to a bad one? What elements are necessary for it to be considered edutainment? What do you think about MrBeast and Chris Chan? What have you learned from watching drama videos?

It all comes down to only two factors: accuracy and neutrality regarding the subject at hand. In an online world where misinformation spreads like wildfire, these are essential to understand what's going on. In the case of Internet drama, this goal tends to be much harder to reach, requiring a long and detailed chronology of the events, always following the rule of “innocent till proven guilty”. While there are archive channels capable of reaching this goal without giving their opinions, just like Bowblax’s videos were during the Pokimane drama that brought him into fame, drama creators can give useful points, if it doesn’t corrupt the main information. Regarding how those points come across, it’s up to the creator to decide whether it be through jokes, gaming streams or whatever, including production quality as you don’t need to be high tech to be plausible and slop (commonly used term for spam content). This last one tends to be thrown around a lot as it add nothing to the conversation, to which I disagree because news are always being updated and can change trajectories from day to night, requiring more updates in lesser time and for people whose purpose is gather information, some moments there’s a lot to talk about, others not so much, but we should not ignore details. That way, they can be seen as edutainment as it informing the audience of the situation while functioning as a form of entertainment in the way it's presented.

Being now more specific about MrBeast and Chris Chan, I will say the following. MrBeast did achieved good ends in a lot of his videos, giving a big contribution that a lot of jealous Twitter users disregarded since day one. And it's not his fault that Kris turned out be such a scumbag. There was no way of him knowing it before hand without having to violate Tyson's privacy, which is a right that should be respected. In that part, he acted correctly. Does this justifies how he treated his workers and let pedos involve themselves in the business? No. While he couldn't have full control of everything, there's still so much stuff wrong here for him to be innocent.

Chris Chan is also a perfect example of how things are not black and white. He reached popularity on the Internet at a time where moderation was next to none, allowing for much harsher trolling than what we have now, he was indeed mistreated at a time that, just like nowadays, had lots of misconceptions and much up into interpretation about Asperger Syndrome (it literally stopped being recognized less than 2 decades after it was accepted), and was surrounded by flawed people. But at the same time, he wasn't (and definitely not now) an innocent angel. He could have left at any moment and he wouldn't have received all of this if he just shut the hell up and not said a word about personal information like his house, parents, teachers and so on. He was a victim, sure, but he also victimised and made a fool of himself when it was clear he knew what he had to do.

To be honest, seeing the amount of looney tune-like arguments at the center of online drama, it just reinforces to me the importance of knowing how to argument and understand how the legal world works to scare the ignorance away. MAybe it could have been one of the reasons why I decided to study law.

Q: What is the LGBT community from your perspective? Where do you think your views come from, and why do you think other individuals think differently than you do?

It comes from a bit of tradition of education, as it promotes the most accepted view by even the more conservative ones, and the others from people I met in high school and college, as I was in a private school until 9th grade where there was not much diversity in that sense, at least from the ones I interacted with. After getting out of that bubble, it made a little shock with my reality as one thing is seeing it on tv, interacting in real life is another story. While I appreciate the support given by that community to people with a closer reality, I can see how our elder contemporaries still have outdated views as it all changed from one day to the other in terms of acceptance.

Q: How do you think people are influenced by racial identity? From your perspective, what does it mean to discriminate against someone based on their race?

It’s one of those things you are immediately put into without choice and the only thing you can do is live with it as a part of you, to which society unfortunately doesn’t treat everyone as it should. The past showed us all how using race as a way of judgement is flawed and justified some of the worst acts in the history of mankind and useless conflicts that could have been easily avoided. It's stupid and unreasonable, making enemies when we could have been friends or just normal citizens that share the same world. Everyone counts, not just you.

Q: Where would you say your interest in more sensitive topics stems from, and why are you interested in sharing your thoughts on the topics?

I feel like it’s something that comes when having an open and mature conversation, being a much better way to deal with taboos than simply ignoring them and let people keep their beliefs for themselves, thus allowing for much more ignorant ideologies, despite knowing that not everyone feels comfortable taking about it and can be seen as triggering when you talk about it all the time.

Q: Why do you think you contemplate death in this specific way? Where do your thoughts come from? How do you think other people perceive death, and why do you think they view it that way? What is your experience with how others see the Murdoch school shooting as a suicide? Would you say you see it differently?

Death is a delicate theme as it’s natural and will come to as all, the emotions find it hard to accept that one day even our most beloved ones will turn into a thing to be buried or cremated. Seeing how everyone will be subjected to this fate, it’s also public, having the possibility of being covered by the media. When I say media, I refer myself not only to news and shockumentaries, but also to movies and storylines than center themselves on the exploration of twisted and evil mindsets. Because of personal experience from loss or fear, some find it offensive, believing they don’t have the right to talk about it, to which I disagree. Life is made of good and bad moments, and society mirrors it. So, when it comes to differing fiction from reality, that’s up to the legal guardians and schools to doctrine the morals that should be followed. It’s their responsibility to teach the youth about the fakeness of the image instead of staying silent.

Q: What is it like to be in your second year of studying law? How did you decide to study law?

It’s been alright. It’s hard, not gonna lie. People don’t call it the Medicine in human sciences for nothing. I just decided right at the last hour as I’ve never been someone that had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t gonna hesitate either. My mom’s a doctor so I thought of studying medicine, but when I saw my grades, it was clear that I would get a better shot at humanities.

We will end up interacting with jurists and lawyers in some way in our lifetimes, but somehow, it still feels a little alien like for most people. When you study it, you start to see notice law's omnipresence and diversity while it teaches you how to develop arguments and build a more confident and trustworthy way with words. To be honest, seeing the amount of looney tune-like arguments at the center of online drama, it just reinforces to me the importance of all these teachings.

Q: Why do you think you love dark and transgressive comedy, like Sam Hyde jokes? What is a Sam Hyde joke, and why do you say you enjoy it in moderation? You mention there's always a 'too soon' moment; why would you say that comedy is subjective?

I find it funny in the sense that jokes can be seen as a form of satire and mockery in all kinds of themes, including taboos that would never be mentioned in a conversation, without being taken too seriously. This definition also includes the type of humor used by comedians such as Sam Hyde who constantly makes sketches that use sensitive terms in order to get a reaction from the audience, like that one time in order to make fun of TED talks, he came up dressed up in a shitty costume and a PowerPoint full of offensive slurs and anime references, to which some found it to be too much they even left the room.

Now in terms of context and situation, that’s another story. Comedy is subjective and not everyone will find you funny and that’s ok. It can feel tiresome joking about the same kind of stuff all the time, so a change of pace is always good for me, hence why I say I enjoy it in moderation. There are moments when we can joke about 9/11, other times it’s better to take things seriously as I imagine people wouldn’t take that type of comedy in the aftermath of the tragedy nor those who had clear contact with the victims, moments which you can say are just “too soon” to joke around. Technically, no one should be private of free speech and it’s funny to piss people off occasionally, it’s mandatory to understand the context and situation where you’re landing yourself in, both for the comedian and for the audience as words can have a whole different meaning without it.

Q: Why do you say you can't get enough of Brain Rot? What is Brain Rot, and what makes it so stupid and over-the-top that you see it as the next step in meme culture, leading previous memes not to extinction but to evolution?

It all started with “21st century humor” in 2021, which was already random, and now, it’s the same thing but on steroids.

For anyone that has even the smallest contact with the Internet, memes are no strange thing. They’ve always been here, and they are here to stay. It starts as an inside joke about an already existing subject, stops when everyone moves on to another thing when it’s popular enough, only to come back when it finds a new way to become popular again. So, when people say memes are dead, I disagree. Just like in nature, “nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”, and so as skibidi. It picked things from the past like Minecraft or Gmod and adapted it to this new type of comedy.

Q: How did you come to have a playlist with more than 3,600 songs? Why do you like to listen to a variety of music, and what different genres do you enjoy?

My parents had tons of records, and we would hear from Bob Marley to Massive Attack, Metallica to Guns N’ Roses, Dire Straits to Santana, Sade to The Police and Pink Floyd to Supertramp. With all this diversity, it was a lot to take in. At the time, I told people I was into alternative rock, which meant bands like Linkin Park, Coldplay and Evanescence. Yeah, it wasn’t specific at all. But after watching Mission Impossible II with that Limp Bizkit cover along with Bullet in the Head by RATM, I had dived into all kinds of metal.

Last year, I watched the movie Pi, which soundtrack caught me off guard with all the fast drumming and chaotic mixing. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard up until then. When I searched, I got exposed to the iceberg of drum n’ bass. After encountering this, YouTube recommended me videos with anime characters and tracks categorized as “breakcore” along with a song called “generic incelcore song” that introduced me to epunk. With this, I ended up where I’m today, having a playlist of songs ranging from rock, metal, punk, pop and dnb.

Q: Why do you think sports don't resonate with you, yet you still watch them when your country, Portugal, plays in the Euro or the World Cup?

While I don’t care much about the sports part, I feel like it’s worth watching something that represents the nation in a tournament with much vaster competition. It’s like if I don’t care for it, no one will. It’s one of those moments when you feel like you’re a part of a big union, even if it’s made up of mostly people you don’t even know. What do you call it? Patriotism? Love for the homeland? Idk, but it feels special.

Q: How did you become interested in experimenting with sonoplasty, making your own sound effects and ambiance? You often distort everything and use whatever you have in your room at the moment, whether it be Monster cans, M&Ms, scissors, clothing, or even trying some death metal growls, squeals, and screams to create hellish sounds.

After playing Half-Life, I became fascinated with how distinct their sound effects were. While they confirmed they had just gone to the sound library and chose already existing sounds to put in the game, it gave me the will to record my own audio files instead of just picking the same sound you heard a million times before. And seeing how copyright has changed over the years, now being unable to put the songs I want in a project without fear of legal action, it sounds like an even better option.

As for the sounds themselves, I try producing them with common tools as some of the biggest sound libraries in history were produced at a time when there was no way to transport the recording material outside the studio, thus having to produce it all by themselves alone with their creativity. That way, you can also use it to create an ambience, describe certain characters and so on. With distortion, who can produce even more unique and alien-like noises, being able to use in all kinds of genres, not just horror.

Q: You studied at a conservatory where you played the pipe organ. You stopped 8 years ago. Why? How did you come to play in your college's tuna (a group of students that play traditional music and serenades). How would you describe your experience with playing music? How did you become interested in traditional music, and what is it like being part of a group?

While it was fun to play, it was an instrument I couldn’t replicate at home, so I had to stay there longer to practice. I stayed there from 1st to 5th grade playing pipe organ, having choir and musical education classes, spending at least 6 hours there every day of the week, some having to wait a total of 3 hours to have the next class. As I was too young to have a phone at the time, I would get easily tired, thus having lower grades in some of these classes, only to head home at 9 pm at having to study for school tests. It reached a point when it was unbearable, so I decided to make a “gap year”. After that, I decided to give up entirely.

Now years later, I wanted to have some extracurricular activity in college instead of just studying, so I went to the tuna. I really liked it. Everyone is just chilling in that room playing, joking, smoking, drinking, you name it. As of now, I don’t play anything, I just sing. Learning an instrument takes time, and I still haven’t had time to do it.

I always liked traditional music as I felt like it was something sacred that people didn’t give the proper care it deserved. In Portugal, there was a time where the regulations had to change to add more national music because no one would play it, which is a shame. It has a simple organization, but it feels genuine. “Fado” is that equivalent of people playing a guitar and singing in the streets, giving life to the city, thus never sleeping.

Q: Your favourite food and beverages

I’m the kind of guy to eat whatever comes to the table, and I like both junk food and gourmet food. For beef, my favorite cut is rump steak, chicken legs, pork is belly (bacon), fishes are codfish and salmon and vegetables are mushrooms and broccoli. As for beverages, I’m a sucker for sodas and energy drinks, the best ones being Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Monster.