Welcome back to Glitch Asks, the series where I hand-pick interesting Newgrounds users to throw a bunch of questions at! In today's episode, we're speaking to @BlueMonday1984, a judging, reviewing, forum-posting behemoth who has managed to claw his way into the top 200 Newgrounds judges of all time! In a platform as unique as Newgrounds, where (some) submissions are deleted if the community gives them a low score, what is life on the site like for someone who does this kind of judging on the regular? Let's find out!
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Q: Explain the origin of your username. And while we're at it, how about your profile picture too?
A: My username was less a deliberate decision and more a stroke of inspiration. I was trying to work out a username for another site (out of God-knows-how-many), and was listening to a YTPMV of Blue Monday by MarioInATopHat when I got the idea. My username was initially BlueMonday1983, but I got locked out of one of my old accounts (Imgur, I believe?), was forced to make another with the name BlueMonday1984, and decided "yeah, that works better" and the rest is history.
As for my profile picture, its a random picture of D33RFAC3 from the G0ATFAC3 Corner. Being overly specific, I got it off the thumbnail for a bonus video from its spinoff/sequel, The G0ATFAC3 Corner GT:
(A rather fitting place to get my PFP, considering I got into the series as a whole after seeing that MV.)
Q: How did you first find out about Newgrounds?
A: The first time in my life was when I first got Internet access at a very young age (back when I was still in primary school). I mainly came here for the Flash games back then, and went on other such sites like Kongregate, ArmorGames and Miniclip. Ended up drifting away from them after Chrome stopped supporting Flash, and NG naturally fell off my radar afterwards.
The site would come back onto my radar in 2018, after the Tumblr porn ban caused NG to blow up in popularity, but it'd take another five years after that for me to join the site. I didn't have any particular reason for joining Newgrounds, I just felt like it. I even said as such in my first forum post here.
In retrospect, that was the best decision of my life, which I'll get into later.
Q: Unlike most users, who get their following by uploading art, games, animations, etc. you have built yourself up almost purely through ratings, reviews and forum posts. What made you want to start rating so many Newgrounds submissions?
A: I'll admit, I initially started rating submissions in an attempt to put myself onto Cyberdevil's Hexalist (likely retired by now, since the last update was nearly a year ago).
With time, though, I started getting into doing reviews for their own sake - whatever dopamine I get from making a number go up is easily dwarfed by the sheer joy I get in giving artists and friends alike some much-needed feedback on their work, and seeing their day brightened by whatever fun little responses I cook up.
Q: What's your personal process for rating under judgement submissions? How do you decide how many stars to give each one?
A: In terms of personal process...I don't have particularly much of a personal process. How many starts I give depends partially on how much I liked watching/seeing/listening to it, and how much technical skill it shows off. Roughly speaking, anything that's straight crap gets zero stars, anything that's good enough to pass judgment gets 2-3 stars, and anything that's pretty solid gets four stars, and anything that blows me away gets the full five stars.
Q: Do you ever face any challenges in deciding what rating to give a submission?
A: Usually, I face challenges in rating if I'm trying to determine if a particular submission's okay, but something I personally dislike, or something that's too poorly made to pass judgment. Other than that, I generally don't face any real challenges.
Q: Since you are a member of the Elite Guard Barracks, a lot of the submissions you report for violating the rules are made public. Have you ever received blowback from the creators of these submissions, and if so, how do you usually respond?
A: The only major case of blowback I've gotten was some guy sending me a godawful diss track after I reported him for posting cub porn and getting him banned.
I am not kidding. I have the SoundCloud link he sent me: https://soundcloud.com/theleadergamer-105/darkovillain35-bluemonday1984-diss-track-newgrounds
I never responded to him after that - closest I ever got was showing it to a couple other people through DMs.
Q: What is using Newgrounds like for you? Do you treat it more as a casual hobby, or as a regular part of your day? And finally, do you enjoy it?
A: I treat it as a regular part of my day - first thing I do after getting up is checking Under Judgment, second thing is usually giving my personal highlight on the daily lineup.
This arguably goes without saying, but I absolutely enjoy being on Newgrounds - the userbase is absolutely goddamn overflowing with talented artists, animators, musicians and creatives of every stripe, meaning a constant flow of excellent art and animation for me to check out. Add to that the complete lack of any algorithms or AI slop, and you have one of the few websites I know of where artists truly matter.
Q: Do you have a favourite animated series?
I've already mentioned The G0ATFAC3 Corner when mentioning where my PFP came from, and I'll happily recommend it to anyone reading this.
With some intensely charming characters, an impressively well-crafted plotline, well-crafted retro visuals and one hell of an original soundtrack to tie it all together, this excellently-made send-up to review shows of old had me gripped from start to finish. I called TGFC "one of the best webseries I've ever seen" after finishing it, and I will stand by that until the day I die.
You can check it out over on YouTube, or right here on Newgrounds:
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I would like to give a big thank-you to @BlueMonday1984 for participating in the interview. You gave some absolutely incredible answers!
Who will I interview next? Nobody knows but me! If you've made it this far down, thank you very much for reading, and I'll be seeing you in the next episode of Glitch Asks!
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Disclaimer: All answers are copied and pasted directly from the creator's response, without any adjustments. The views expressed in this interview are purely those of the creator and do not reflect those of GlitchBuddy. All information is correct at time of interviewee's response (21 May 2025).