There are so many different ways I can think of to begin this post, and if I waited until I'd come up with "the perfect intro" I guarantee this post would never end up being made in the first place. But it's worth making, even if just for the main purpose of there being a record for people to come across should they find this profile someday.
Newgrounds holds a special place in my heart - and always will - because even though I have yet to really get involved in animation (a personal goal that still sits with me to this day, and one of the major defining features of this place), it was this very website that served as the origin of my pursuit into the world of voiceover. At 17, the rush of a brand new discovery - of something that I knew so little about yet meant more to me than anything else I'd "had interest" in before - had me essentially spazzing out and talking about it anywhere I felt there was someone willing to listen. I was a raging creative fire with no real sense of direction, just trying to let itself burn because for the first time in my life something DROVE me to be as excited as I was.
It'd be impossible to effectively summarize in a single blog post everything that transpired since that day to lead me to where I am now, but I can at least be cliche and say it involved a LOT of work. 11 years of practice, of networking, of performing and listening to others perform. Uprooting myself, starting life again in a brand new state, taking workshops for clients I used to only hear about through television advertisements, sending auditions FOR those same television advertisements. Succeeding, failing, praising myself on my good choices, and hating myself for the missteps I made along the way. It's honestly unbelievable for me to realize that over a decade has passed - that I've been DOING this for over a decade in some fashion - since that first moment of inspiration truly hit me.
But the fact is that the inspiration has now become a milestone. I got into voiceover dreaming of one day earning the right to voice a lead role in the same type of show that inspired me, and now I'm living that dream this very waking moment.
The reason this post exists, then, is to perhaps one day be that source of inspiration for someone else who may be trying to find their own calling in life (or may have found it, but are struggling to really commit to it). For me it was a 3-minute "behind the scenes video" on Adult Swim's web page, but for someone else it could be as simple as finding a recent blog post on an otherwise ancient account, showing them that Yes, You Can Do This Too. It probably won't be easy, and you'll probably have plenty of moments where you question yourself (trust me, I still do), but if the love and desire is there then you CAN and WILL make something of it as long as you refuse to give up.
I don't want to assume a post like this means I won't find myself on Newgrounds again - life is too unpredictable to ever say "never". But I know for a fact that Newgrounds played an immense, integral role in how I ended up where I am today; the BBS is where I spilled my guts about my love for this new career choice discovery, where I powered through my first round of "naysayers" (and lifted myself on the shoulders of those faceless supporters), where my mentor found me and plucked me up to take me under his wing. It all began here - and it was up to me to run with it and bring it everywhere else.
To whoever may be reading this, I hope you're living the dream you too once had. And if you aren't (or you simply haven't found it yet), I want you to trust yourself enough to know that once you find one, you have the potential to make it a reality... even if it takes 11 years (or more) to do it.
Stay demonically inspired.
