Flash, and by extension Newgrounds, let young people create their own art and publish it en masse.

I don’t know about you, but from my experience a lot of young adults find a lot of humor/intrigue in adding adult themes to media primarily for children. You see this in all the “cursed video game” creepypastas, too. Similarly, I know we all know the song about fucking shooting that bastard Barney dead where he stands.

Children’s media is intentionally sanitized, and teenagers are intentionally rebellious. They’re going to think it’s hilarious if Dora the Explorer says, “Fuck.”

My main problem I have is with the people who never let that trend die. I saw people making edgy content like that well into the 2010s. The only one I really cared for from that era was Sonic for Hire.