Macromedia Flash Animation

Why you annoy me:

• Many years ago, when the internet was young, only a select few skilled artists knew how to use Flash.  They created some humorous cartoons, and posted them on sites like Newgrounds.  Then, like all things on the internet, that site was ruined by a flood of untalented 13 year olds.  Now, the average level of quality of Flash animation online is right below a Joel Schumacher directed Batman movie.
• Not a day goes by when one of my friends (can I even call such people so any longer?) fail to send me a link to some horrible Flash based cartoon.  These movies are invariably so bad that I have to reassess why this person is still my friend.  Since I can’t afford to lose anymore friends, I have had to institute a new life rule: no clicking links to Flash movies.
• When one slightly funny Flash cartoon gets made it spreads around the internet like projectile vomit.  It becomes over-played and over-quoted like all decent things on the internet.  Whatever humor it originally had evaporates quickly as the site is co-opted by the average (read: moronic) internet denizen.  Case in point, Homestar Runner.  This site, which was only mildly funny to start with, got co-opted by every lame person on every email mailing list and ground into oblivion.
• Flash animation also ruined Flash on normal websites.  Flash was intended to be a tool to create interactivity on websites, but as I said, got turned into a bizarre cartoon art form for adults with childlike brains.  So now even the original intent of Flash has become an object of scorn.
• Flash intros to websites are possibly the most annoying thing on the internet, not counting the people on the internet.  If I go to a website with a Flash intro I immediately close the window, because obviously someone with that little class in making a website has nothing he can tell me or show me which will be at all good.

 Possible mitigating factors:

• Flash, when done tastefully, can make a website seriously ultra-professional.  Animated interactive menus are quite nice, assuming they are fast and work properly.
• Macromedia is now owned by Adobe or something like that.  Now I can focus all my dissatisfaction with internet graphics on a single source.
• There was a day, ever so long ago, when Flash animation was the domain of talented artists and good writers.  The memory of that briefest of golden age can be pretty mitigating.