Interview No. 134

Interview By: @The-Great-One

For those who read The Interviewer you should be pleased that it will be returning for one last run. I intend to hit No. 200 as I originally promised, and then we will come to an end. I need to move onto other projects -- more for myself than anything else. I strongly apologize for the delay and ask for you forgiveness. Today's interview has been done for months, but I've been going through a rough patch so it has been long overdue. So without further or do.

Today's guest slowly lit up the forums here on Newgrounds. His posts has received him accolades from the users. He has been recognized as one of the users who brightens many a member's day. We are pleased to welcome to The Interviewer, @supergandhi64.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: i've known about newgrounds for a while. i remember visiting the site briefly in 2002-2003. i don't remember the circumstances of how i came across it. considering i'd hang around in a lot of irc chat rooms back then i'm thinking i probably got linked here to see something or other, but i've no recollection of what it might have been. i didn't really visit the site frequently or do anything more about it for a while after that, but i knew about the site. i believe i also made an account way back, but i've forgotten the details. i'm the type who makes an account for just about every site i visit if it's an option.

fast forward a few years and i rediscovered the site. this time by referral from another site, a web forum i visit occasionally. i'm a big fan of web fora, actually. i've sort of grown up with different web fora as a source of entertainment. i believe i was 9 years old when i posted on a web forum for the first time. it's part of what made me decide to make an account on newgrounds again. it's probably not going to make me any popular on this site, but i don't particularly care for the actual content being hosted here. i'm almost exclusively interested in the forum.

to add insult to injury i don't think the forum on newgrounds is particularly good. there's plenty of better web fora out there and the newgrounds forum is more of an on the side thing for me. i still have a good time here and enjoy myself, and to me that's what's most important.

Q: I normally don't ask this question, but I believe you are one of those special cases. What is the story behind your username?

A: i wish i could say i had a fun story about my username. the truth is that it doesn't really mean anything to me personally except for what i've made out of it for myself by using it on this site. this is the only site where i use this particular handle. if you've seen it on another site then it's someone else using it.

that's not to say i decided on this nickname without a second thought. it's a deliberately constructed username and i had a clear intention when i was thinking of usernames about how i wanted it to appeal to other people. before i signed up on the site i was reading the forum for a while to get a feel for what kind of people were using the site. my username is in the end made to appeal to a demographic. the demographic which was posting on the forum.

i was thinking for a while about what format i wanted my username to be in. i settled with an old internet classic, the adjectivenounnumber username. a lot of people think it's clumsy and boring, but if you ask me it's a great username format and widespread for good reason. it's memorable and you have a sea of options for customizing it. i also think you need at least three or four syllables in a username to make it sound good when spoken orally.

after that i brainstormed for possible combinations. i still remember some username candidates which didn't make the cut. among names i might have taken instead of supergandhi64 were megafucker69, driestjungle13 and darklord97 to name a few. in the end i decided for supergandhi64 because i felt it had the right impact, rolled well off the tongue, gave me interesting associations and didn't use the same characters twice.

in 2013 i discovered that someone else had actually taken an almost identical name long before i signed up again. they had taken the account "superghandi64" which i thought was amazing. it reaffirmed a lot of my intentions with the username when someone on the site had already taken it so to speak. some person who was already a part of the target audience of the site could feel associations to the username and decided to pick it before me.

Q: What is a true doom murderhead?

A: a true doom murderhead is a rude boy and a hella gamer. a true doom murderhead doesn't care about gaming trends, stoners or corporate attitude. something like that. it's actually a demonym for a certain group of dedicated fans. the kind of people who are unhealthily obsessed with the barkley saga and the tales of game's universe.

if you're not familiar with tales of game's then you should educate yourself asap. in a sea of internet white noise it's easy to pass this prodigal group of gaming bad boys by, but now that you've my recommendation there's really no excuse. get some culture, learn your tales of game's.

they've made games like barkley, shut up and jam: gaiden and the sewer goblet. they're currently developing the next installment of the much anticipated barkley saga. the magical realms of tír na nóg: escape from necron 7 - revenge of cuchulainn: the official game of the movie - chapter 2 of the hoopz barkley saga... or just tmrotnn:efn7r-oc:togm-c2othbs for short.

Q: You appear to be a very spiritual person with interests in chakras and acupuncture. What can you tell us about your spiritual side?

A: i guess appearances can be deceiving. i own a yoga mat and i burn incense occasionally. and while i say that i mostly use the mat for body weight exercises like pushups, situps, curls and stuff like that because my pure and sensitive body doesn't abide with the hard floor. and the incense is mostly frankincense on sundays. i don't really have my head in the clouds and my feet are firmly planted on the ground. maybe the way i've posted about stuff like that makes me seem deceptively spiritual. there's a story behind that, though.

in 2011 i met a guy from estonia named yuri. i didn't make any remarks about his name. it's apparently a common name for estonian boys. it doesn't have anything to do with forbidden GIRLS❤LOVE in estonia. he was coach surfing and hitchhiking on some kind of journey to find himself i guess. i was living on a tiny dorm room then just like today, but i let him sleep over. nothing strange about two young boys sharing a cramped bedroom for a night. yuri was real into this kind of hippy stuff and told me all about it in english with an estonian accent. it was funny to me because it was so different from what i was used to. i haven't really heard from him since.

anyway yuri didn't strike me as the type who would post on web fora a lot. while i was thinking about fun stuff to post about i recalled yuri. i figured why not give him and his ideas his due representation on the net. if there was any consistency to the way he was thinking and he wasn't as spaced out as he seemed to me i've probably butchered his ideas about chakras and ayurvedic tea across several different fora. maybe i should feel guilty about it, but i had a lot of fun doing it and would do it again.

Q: In the thread Is sleeping too much bad for you? you talk about it putting your spirit-totem off-balance and it linking to leukemia. Could you elaborate more?

A: i've really posted a lot of different stuff! it's a very insincere post, unfortunately. i'd go as far as to say that it's sarcastic, even. looking back at it i offhandedly mention evidence based gold standard randomized control studies against placebo. it fits well with the date i was studying about in randomized control studies in depth.

while i don't really believe in spirit totems there's definitely a lot of health topics related to sleeping habits. restitution is an important part of our lifestyle just like hygiene, exercise, diets and more. if i recall the way you sleep will impact the way your body restitutes. your body can grow new cells or repair old ones. without going into the boring biology stuff you want your cells to repair themselves as much as possible rather than grow new ones in regards to cancer. i think it's more closely linked to your diet, though. you can for instance dramatically reduce your levels of insulin-like growth factor to inhibit cell growth by fasting a day in the week.

the post is mostly satirical, though. part of the joke was that i didn't really have a good answer based in any kind of valid studies. i don't think there's any authorities on the health implications of oversleeping on newgrounds. at least not anyone who frequently post about it on the forum. if i were a better poster i would probably have referred the topic starter to a certain site dedicated to questions and answers about health related issueas. instead i decided to goof around for my own amusement.

Q: Why do you always tag your posts with your own username?

A: for fun and attention. from the start i wanted my posts to stand out from the rest. that's not an easy thing to do by the merits of your posts by itself. signing the posts is easy though. it's a pretty cheap trick that takes minimal effort. the fact that barely anyone else does it also helps immensely. in the beginning i even got flak for doing it even though i'd been assured that it was within the rules of the forum.

i keep doing it because it has been very effective and still is. i've speculated a little about the whys and hows of it. as far as i can tell having my username that one extra time in my posts has made a world of difference in my impact on the forum. my best guess is that it people think that it's unnecessary. so much so that it not only goes against common sense but to some people is even outright offensive.

it's not unnecessary to me, though. signing my own posts definitely has an effect. it does what i want it to do and then some. i get that it's a little abrasive and annoying, but i'm not going to stop doing it. people have an easier time remembering my username this way and that's exactly what i want.

Q: At what age did you become interested in Catholicism and what about it interests you most?

A: i was originally baptized, raised, educated and confirmed as a lutheran protestant. however throughout my adolescence and early teens i wasn't really that interested in questions about faith. i'd usually just answer any questions about it in a way which would satisfy any curiosity the fastest. i'd take the path of least resistance. i didn't take a sincere interest in the subject before i was 16-17 years old.

i would ask different people about their faith and think to myself about it. i was thinking about different christian denominations as well. lutheran protestantism isn't that far from catholicism, really. martin luther was a catholic his whole life. it was only after his death that reformationists split the church. i don't think it was ever luther's intention to cause a schism in the church. the catholic church had a lot of difficulties at the time of the reformation which are not present in the catholic church of today.

at 17 years old i started my education in the cathechism of the catholic church with a catholic priest. i would ask my questions and get answers about christianity once a week for two years. meanwhile i was starting to attend mass in the catholic church instead of the protestant church. it. at 19 years old i was confirmed as a member of the catholic church during the easter celebration. it was one of the most important decisions of my life and i don't regret it one bit.

while there's some important distinctions between the cathechism of the catholic church and many protestant denominations (i.e. marriage, apostolic succession, eucharist) in the end it wasn't what made me switch. it was the people in the congregation. people from all over the world, of every age, nationality and ethnicity. they were all open and warm from the first time i met them. they gave without asking for anything in return. i felt more at home in the catholic church than i did in the lutheran protestant church.

the catholic church has plenty of problems, but to me it is far closer to being an ideal church than any other. it is open and welcoming to all the people of the world. ideally i want all christians to be united in a single church rather than different denominations. i feel that the catholic church is the closest i'll get to that ideal.

Q: You are a forum regular here on Newgrounds, which forums are your favorites and why?

A: definitely the general forum. the other fora are too inactive. i also like the low commitment when posting on fora such as the general forum. you see misc. fora like the general forum all over the net and i've become very familiar with similar fora from other sites. i like posting one liners more than anything. when i start writing more than a single line i usually stop myself and scrap the post entirely. that's just something i'd rather avoid. when forum posting i prefer to say everything i need with as few words as possible.

it might have something to do with bad twitter habits. twitter is another great site which i spend a lot of time on. there's a lot of amazing people all over the internet and i'm always looking for new ways to have fun and enjoy myself on the net. i've always liked social media like these where you can be an active participant rather than a part of the audience. i don't really care for in depth discussion. i can see why a lot of people would use web fora for discussion, but i honestly think it's a medium which is more suitable for technical support questions and answers and cheap laughs.

web fora are a great entertainment platform as well as a social media. my grandmother always used to say that you won't have any more fun than you make for yourself. i agree with that. i think we should all have fun and enjoy ourselves on the net.

Q: What all do you like about Newgrounds?

A: definitely the community. original artistic content is really good and all, but it's the people that i'm really interested in. there's plenty of sites which host excellent content. dedicated sites like soundcloud, imgur, min.us and youtube host lots of different media. they don't really have a cohesive community with any sense of belonging to the sites respectively. i think that's one of newgrounds greatest strengths.

internet communities don't really come to be by themselves. they're often connected to a common interest or site. even with a content hosting site like newgrounds you rarely get a dedicated and loyal community. i think a lot of other sites envy newgrounds' userbase. i'm thinking that the community doesn't fully realized its own value and has become an underappreciated part of the site.

i might be biased since i value social media over artistic media, though. while i think pretty pictures and song and dance are all really good i'd say it's the relations and connections between people which is the most important. a good friendship is more valuable than any fine art. even the mona lisa... even anime. maybe not anime.

Q: If you could change one thing about Newgrounds what would it be and why?

A: just one thing? the one thing which comes to mind first and foremost is emoji support. a picture says more than a thousand words. i think the lack of emoji support is one of those instances where newgrounds is just really showing its age, and not in a good way. twitter is a great example of a site with good emoji support. newgrounds could take some pointers from twitter. yes, i mean it. no, i'm not being facetious.

is it a feature the site can live without? sure, but for how long. the site feels like it's missing a lot of very common features like these. you'd think a site like newgrounds with a long history on the web would be faster to implement such a simple feature. as is i think the site feels pretty barebones. sure it's still a step above just plaintext, but compared to modern sites it's not many degrees ahead to be frank.

i highly doubt seniority alone would be enough to keep a site for content creators relevant. newgrounds is going to have to implement basic tools and features sooner or later. a content hosting site targeted at a creative community shouldn't aim to just survive, but to flourish.

Q: You are also quite the artist as well. Two of my favorites by you are vlad eats a chicken fry and the red knoon. You have stated that they are fun doodles, what made you want to share them with Newgrounds and will we be seeing more?

A: i had some doodles lying around on my min.us account. i did them for a certain forum game years ago. they weren't good enough to win the forum game, but i figured i'd try to upload them to newgrounds to see what other people thought of them taken out of context. i also wanted to have something to showcase on my account since it's pretty much empty otherwise. in earnest i don't think i have an artistic bone in my body, but i had a lot of fun drawing them.

of the doodles i've uploaded "vlad eats a chicken fry" is the one i had the most fun with making. i don't think the stuff i've uploaded is that good myself. i've considered taking them down since i'm not sure if they even belong in the art portal. i've been scouted and unscouted several times over the course of the time the pictures have been in the art portal. a lot of the pople who've been viewing the pictures have rated it very poorly as well.

i've considered sitting down and drawing something better. i don't really have the tools, time or training to make anything spectacular in a drawn medium though. it's just not my forte. a written medium is more suited for my way of self expression. and my genre is probably forum posts.

Q: What can we expect from supergandhi64 in the future?

A: more fantastic forum posts. i've been working on some great new memes which i'm planning to let loose on the forum. i'm not going to spoil the surprise, but it's going to be epic. brace yourselves!

supergandhi64's posts are always a delight to read on the General Forum and it has also been a delight to interview him. He is surely welcomed in our community and has great potential to do amazing things on this site if he really pushes himself. In the meantime we eagerly await for his next post.