In the beginning...

There was Newsgrounds, and it was good.

Eleven years ago, user-generated content on the Internet was limited primarily to animation using Micromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash). Due to the relatively low file size of flash animations, they were more fluid and of better quality than most of the early Internet-posted videos.

A few years later, as video quality improved and bandwidth speed increased, watching videos on the Internet soon became the new thing. YouTube came along, and with it, a wild frontier for posting videos on the Internet.With little concern for copyright infringement, people posted whatever they wanted, whatever they thought was entertaining. Cat videos and videos of people doing stupid things roamed the untamed YouTube channels. Eventually, as editing software also improved, people discovered they could do more than make monotonous music videos collages, but actually make well-thought, well-shot, scripted videos. These early artists latched on to popular culture and nerd culture, carving well-entrenched niches and not letting go.

The first of these major successes launched in 2006 with the advent of the Angry Nintendo Nerd (now the Angry Video Game Nerd), a show written and directed by James Rolfe. His video parodies about an angry nerd reviewing video games would inspire a new generation of aspiring film makers with no budget and none of the other advantages.

Two years later, another great success popped up on YouTube with a more universal appeal to nostalgia for those of my generation - Doug Walker's Nostalgia Critic. Walker would inspire others to follow him as well, and soon sophisticated websites appeared, hosting the videos for these artists, living off of the advertising revenue generated by video views. Today, YouTube is filled with original content created by users, and other video-hosting websites like Blip and justin.tv have flourished around user-generated content.

Join the Texzilla as we examine these artists, review their work, and maybe have a few laughs of our own. This week's artist is:

Doug Walker and the return of his breakthrough show, The Nostalgia Critic. Check out some of his work in the video bar and look forward to another post tonight.