Since 2016, most Scratch animations consisted of these

• Characters with circles for heads, and squares for bodies
  

• Backgrounds lacking perspective (or backgrounds from google images)
  

• Relying on relatability (not relatable humor, which relies on making fun of regular occurrences)
  

• Dead memes and MLG
  

• Using either Cool Text or Textcraft for the thumbnail
  

• Loud outro
  

• Straight ramp shading
  

A good way to find projects like these is to look at the explore page. To better show what this looks like, I've created an example.



My question is… Why have most animators decided to go towards this standard? Have we become so engrossed with these projects that we've forgot how to be original?

Because it's easier than to learn how to use animation software and animate than it is to do this in vector.

My theory is that ever since ScratchU8 left and the likes of Wazzo and Hobson got really popular, there has been an influx of animators trying to imitate their style, which is very simple to make it easier. Eventually, it just became “the norm”.

mtech22 wrote:

Because it's easier than to learn how to use animation software and animate than it is to do this in vector.

I've seen people do IMPRESSIVE stuff with vector, yet THIS is what we associate with it.

fdreerf wrote:

My theory is that ever since ScratchU8 left and the likes of Wazzo and Hobson got really popular, there has been an influx of animators trying to imitate their style, which is very simple to make it easier. Eventually, it just became “the norm”.

In my eyes, although Wazzo kind of popularized this “Cyanide and Happiness-esque” style, he ended up making legitimately funny and well-made projects.

I bet it just becomes a trend like lots of stuff do. I also would assume that some people are imitating styles for views

I feel like this isn't just an animation issue, but a games one too. Honestly, I don't watch animations much anymore (for those reasons) so I don't know how bad it is right now.

It's probably because they've found something that is both very easy to make but is also just high-quality enough to get lots of likes. New scratchers assume that's the only way to animate well, copy those styles, and the cycle continues. The worst thing is (and this is true of animations as well as games), no-one seems to care that animation quality has decreased.

That's just my opinion though

ScratchCatHELLO wrote:

I feel like this isn't just an animation issue, but a games one too. Honestly, I don't watch animations much anymore (for those reasons) so I don't know how bad it is right now.

It's probably because they've found something that is both very easy to make but is also just high-quality enough to get lots of likes. New scratchers assume that's the only way to animate well, copy those styles, and the cycle continues. The worst thing is (and this is true of animations as well as games), no-one seems to care that animation quality has decreased.

That's just my opinion though

I agree

It's simply appealing for anyone that wants quick fame.

ScratchCatHELLO wrote:

I feel like this isn't just an animation issue, but a games one too. Honestly, I don't watch animations much anymore (for those reasons) so I don't know how bad it is right now.

It's probably because they've found something that is both very easy to make but is also just high-quality enough to get lots of likes. New scratchers assume that's the only way to animate well, copy those styles, and the cycle continues. The worst thing is (and this is true of animations as well as games), no-one seems to care that animation quality has decreased.

That's just my opinion though

i think this is correct but i was to afraid to speak my mind or the people will get angry at me
no offence to ppl who do it though

but uh! i planned for my oc to actually have a backstory, and being non human nor alien-thing, instead of just being a character in my animations

most people on scratch are kids, and the simple style appeals to them easily. most kids won't care if an animation is a carbon copy of another, as long as it's funny and relatable, it's gonna get popular. alot of kids also want to get popular, so they see these animations getting popular, and they follow in their footsteps. it honestly upsets me how little variety there is with animations on this site, but that's expected when the majority of the userbase is about 11 years old.

fdreerf wrote:

My theory is that ever since ScratchU8 left and the likes of Wazzo and Hobson got really popular, there has been an influx of animators trying to imitate their style, which is very simple to make it easier. Eventually, it just became “the norm”.

That's an interesting theory. I noticed that @ScratchU8 tended to make animations similarly to models, using separate body parts as sprites and using scripts to animate them, whereas a lot of animators these days tend to animate things frame-by-frame.

I'm not sure if one method is more work than the other, but I'm surprised that I haven't seen more animators use @ScratchU8's methods of animation.

I also want to add that -BoyMcBoy- popularized outline-less styles, and the use of Cool Text in thumbnails.

(answering the title) Because they can be.
Ignore the fact that I said that because I only do stickmen

MontyDoggo wrote:

I also want to add that -BoyMcBoy- popularized outline-less styles, and the use of Cool Text in thumbnails.

ye

Its a rather controversial topic.
Personally, I don't see what's wrong with the animators, rather the community is the one who likes these kinds of animations which motivates the creator to make more of that kind.
You can go blaming the community if you'd like to.
Everything in the explore page is liked by people, so basically you can't say its not good enough or anything.
People like that kind of style because its very easy to make-If people had grabbed on to another art style you'd make this same topic but with another style lol.

FloralAnimator wrote:

Its a rather controversial topic.
Personally, I don't see what's wrong with the animators, rather the community is the one who likes these kinds of animations which motivates the creator to make more of that kind.
You can go blaming the community if you'd like to.
Everything in the explore page is liked by people, so basically you can't say its not good enough or anything.
People like that kind of style because its very easy to make-If people had grabbed on to another art style you'd make this same topic but with another style lol.

I'm not saying they're bad. I'm saying that there's so much of it, that more well-done projects are often obscured.

MontyDoggo wrote:

FloralAnimator wrote:

Its a rather controversial topic.
Personally, I don't see what's wrong with the animators, rather the community is the one who likes these kinds of animations which motivates the creator to make more of that kind.
You can go blaming the community if you'd like to.
Everything in the explore page is liked by people, so basically you can't say its not good enough or anything.
People like that kind of style because its very easy to make-If people had grabbed on to another art style you'd make this same topic but with another style lol.

I'm not saying they're bad. I'm saying that there's so much of it, that more well-done projects are often obscured.

What makes you say they are not well-done?
I'm pretty sure the well made animations are given the attention they require.

Scratch has always had a really mainstream art style from what I've seen. I know around 2015, everyone was doing fanart of Warrior Cats and it was always in the style of those early 2000s OC drawings and animations that you'd see on the likes of Newgrounds because it was quite easy to replicate and it was popular at the time.

Well, I didn't use any of those.
Anyway, this is probably because someone with that style got popular, and someone else used the same style and got popular. So, fame-hungry people used the same thing to get popular.
I would say that there are still the minorities, like me, who doesn't get any attention.
A good example is the -BoyMcBoy- style. A cone body and 2 circles as hands. After the got popular, other people uses the same style to get popular.