Cassette Girl
Cassette Girl was a potential character for Friday Night Funkin', originally announced alongside Pico, Tankman and Hank J. Wimbleton in the game's teaser. She was planned to also be selectable as a playable character in Freeplay.[4]
In August 2023, it was confirmed that she had been scrapped and was no longer planned to appear in the game.[5] This confirmation came after her creator was accused of misconduct. Cassette Girl being scrapped was also affirmed in April 2025.[6]
Appearance
Cassette Girl is a young woman with light skin and long reels of magnetic tape all over her head that resemble black hair. She wears a loose-fitted, dark purple hoodie with light gray drawstrings, black shorts, a squarish, slightly-torn dark purple hat with a cassette player built into the front and matching purple sneakers with white soles, toe caps and untied laces. She smokes a cigarette and holds a bluish-gray microphone in her left hand.
Origin
Cassette Girl is a character created by SoftDon in 2018 and first seen in concept art posted on Twitter.[7] Don later posted more artwork of her on Newgrounds. She was originally meant to be a mascot or alias for SoftDon's own music label, intended to be used when Don made music.[8] However, Don never created the label or music. Nevertheless, Cassette Girl became a popular character on Newgrounds, with art of her often being frontpaged.
Personality
Cassette Girl seems to be an easygoing and cheerful person who likes smoking cigarettes, singing and wearing crop tops.[9] She can also be sassy or serious at times.
Abilities
Cassette Girl is a robot with audio-playing abilities, described by SoftDon as "a humanoid/android cassette player."[1] As shown in a concept artwork and a later illustration showing her internals, Cassette Girl can open the front of her hat to reveal a cassette player. She also has various audio connectors and knobs on the back of her neck, as shown in another concept sketch with cables plugged into the connectors. Additionally, she works with analog audio and modules, showing that she has expertise in audio engineering. Cassette Girl's status as founder of Anchor Audio shows her to be an entrepreneur.[10]
Trivia
General
- On the 27th of July, 2023, artist and model Lex Updog came forward with accusations against SoftDon and SuperMega, alleging that Don sexually assaulted and mistreated her when the two were dating, and that SuperMega mishandled the situation and mistreated her and independent rapper Rav, ultimately leading to Lex and Rav becoming homeless and losing their belongings.[11] Lex also stated that Cassette Girl was based on her and designed in a way that looked close to how Don drew Lex and that "half his OCs look like me." She further claimed that Cassette Girl's smoking habit was based on her and Don smoking marijuana together.[12] Due to this, it was speculated that Cassette Girl would not be added to Friday Night Funkin', something ninjamuffin99 and EliteMasterEric would confirm a month later on the 24th of August after the former was asked about it during a 4chan AMA.[5]
- Rav, who also inspired Cassette Girl's creation, corroborated the accusations and provided further examples of SuperMega's inaction.[13]
- Don later responded and admitted to the sexual assault in a series of Tweets. He first posted a statement the same day describing what he said to be "how things transpired from my point of view."[14] A follow-up post serving as an apology was posted on the 29th of July. In this statement, Don denied that Cassette Girl was based on Lex, saying that the character was based on a SoundCloud that he was listening to in 2017 (possibly referring to that of Rav[10]) before he and Lex started seriously dating. However, Lex has disputed the claim that Cassette Girl is unrelated to her and provided evidence that Don based Cassette Girl's body type on Lex.[15] Don's post was given the caption "this will be my final post here" and included a note about refunding commissions.[16] His Newgrounds account was deleted a few days later; however, he is still active on social media, and he continues to draw Cassette Girl and take commissions.
- Previously, on the 25th of August, 2020, artist Clancy, also known as necr0clancy, accused Don of grooming and manipulatively ghosting them.[17] Clancy shared their experience again on the 27th of July, 2023, in light of Lex and Rav's accusations, while also elaborating on Don's pattern of asking for nudes from an ex and ghosting them if none were sent that Clancy alleged in 2020.[18] The ex in question was stated to be Lex, who had warned Clancy about Don and wanted to make sure Clancy was safe; while Don had claimed that Lex was jealous and wanted to date him again[17] and send him nudes, Lex talked privately with Clancy and revealed to them that Don was the one who pressured Lex for nudes, with Don trying to create a problem between Lex and Clancy.[18]
- Rav, who also inspired Cassette Girl's creation, corroborated the accusations and provided further examples of SuperMega's inaction.[13]
- ninjamuffin99 stated that Cassette Girl's version of the Game Over screen could have had something to do with the cassette tape in her hat or head.[19]
- While Cassette Girl was initially only planned to be a playable character in Freeplay,[4] she was later planned to be the opponent of Week 8 as well, and it would have been a "small quick week" that the team would have worked on during the Kickstarter campaign to release before it ended in order "to get more hype / money." However, as the developers were very overworked, they chose to go in a different direction,[20] with Darnell becoming the opponent of WeekEnd 1. This fact was revealed in December 2022; at that time, Cassette Girl had not yet been disconfirmed as a player character or an opponent in general, and by June 2023, there were still plans for her to appear in the game.[21]
- A reason Cassette Girl was planned to appear in Friday Night Funkin' was because she was deemed to fit the game's aesthetic nicely.[22]
- The only art ever finished for Cassette Girl is the artwork in the teaser for the playable characters.[23]
Lore
- In some artworks featuring Cassette Girl, she is seen with a cigarette, suggesting that she likes to smoke.
- A post by SoftDon on ArtStation revealed that Cassette Girl is the host of a creative showcase show.
- Cassette Girl wears a crop top whenever she has the chance[9] in order to show off her belly.[24]
- Cassette Girl is a founder of an analog audio company called Anchor Audio.[10] In SoftDon's first artwork of Cassette Girl, the company is called Anchor Electronics, with its name and logo shown alongside concept sketches of the character. The logo appears on the side of her hat in some other artworks.
- She also only works with analog audio and aspects of analog audio engineering such as modules.
- In an early concept sketch, Cassette Girl was shown to be able to open the lower half of her face to reveal a cassette player. This was retconned later on, as artwork showing her internals does not depict this mechanism.
Inspirations
- Cassette Girl was based on multiple different things, including the cassette. SoftDon intended for her to be a mascot of sorts for his music because he was into Gorillaz and Rav when he made her.[8]
- Don has stated that Rav was the initial inspiration for Cassette Girl and the reason he wanted to learn how to make music, with Don wanting Cassette Girl to be his persona or stand-in for making music so that it would be like she was the one who made the music. Don used to listen to Rav a lot on SoundCloud, and Rav used to show him a lot of songs of his that were quite inspirational for Don. One song in particular, "YOU FUCKERS WERE ASKING FOR THIS ONE," inspired Cassette Girl's creation (the track that Don played when stating this was the Boin Edit from Rav's 2019 album VESTIGES; the 2015 original was presumably the initial inspiration).[10]
- Her hat was originally supposed to be a normal baseball cap, but because Don didn't know how to draw one, he made it box-shaped with a cassette player.[25]
- While Cassette Girl bears a resemblance to artist Nyrator's character GameCube-tan, Don confirmed that the similarities are purely coincidental,[26] stating, "[I] think our thought process of how we came up with them are vastly different."[27]
Gallery
Cassette Girl as she appears in the Friday Night Funkin' teaser.
Cassette Girl along with many Newgrounds characters and creators in an artwork by PKettles for Pico Day 2021.
