I figured this out for the first time a few days ago while I was looking around in the settings. I was never given any kind of notification, but it turns out I've been de-scouted, which means that none of my artworks appear in the Art Portal anymore. The only place people can actually browse artworks on Newgrounds since this website has no algorithm to speak of... This explains why, for the past several months, the ONLY people who have faved my artworks at all have been my followers. You're probably also the only people who've even SEEN them!

I don't know WHY this happened, I was never given any kind of notification (I also don't know WHEN it happened). I only found this out by looking somewhere very specific and hidden away in the settings, and when I tested posting an artwork to the portal to see if it showed up there, sure enough, it did not!

It's possible that one of the art mods thought that my artworks were not high enough quality for the art portal, and removed me without telling. If so, that's kinda lame, since I've seen other artworks of a similar standard of quality to mine in the portal (or worse even, would you believe?), and it would only be because they personally disliked my style/content. It's also possible that the user who scouted me was de-scouted (as silly as it sounds, when a user is de-scouted, all the artists they scouted are also unscouted). One other possiblily is that I didn't choose the correct age ratings or thumbnails, even though I try to follow the guidelines, and nothing I draw is explicit anyway? The only other possibilty I can think of is that is it is just some weird glitch, but I don't know who to get in touch with to resolve it...?

It's really frustrating that I've spent to much of my free time cross-posting my works to this website without even knowing that literally nobody new was even seeing them, and not having a clue why, or what I can do to resolve this problem. It seems that unscouted artists don't have the option to scout like newcomers either, so I might NEVER be scouted again?!

Certainly no point in me paying to support Newgrounds now, like I was planning to later down the line, if they aren't going to be willing to support me.

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In other news, I got into a fight with a troll on the Art forum last week. I mean that inadvertently of course, since I was criticising Newgrounds for being a very poor platform for artists looking to find an audience, in part due to its complete lack of an algorithm or any discoverability options. For some reason, this elitist user took my post as an excuse to blame ME for not getting noticed, telling me that my artworks look like crap, that nobody on the forum is interested in me, and that I don't deserve any attention for my efforts. This is just their subjective opinion of course (as if I don't have 1.4K DeviantArt followers or anything), as I was quick to tell them before blocking them indefinitely. I did have a quick look at their gallery before I did so however, and my god... some of the most repulsive "art" I've ever seen IMO! Yet this person thinks that I am the one with no drawing talent? Just goes to show how what artworks are considered "good" and what ones are considered "bad" should never be down to an individual or small group of people, because everyone's taste in art is completely different.

Anyway... we now know that this troll was wrong, and that the REAL reason for me struggling to acquire any new followers here is because my artworks don't even appear on the portal anymore. Really don't know what I'm going to do now, if there is even a point to this at all anymore...

Love this website!