Is DeviantArt broken?

[AffectedMind]

Hmm... I checked Nabyn... Why is there so much naked furries? ;_;

[somvi]

My core membership has expired recently. Will I renew? nope. I not active on there anymore as it's just too much work to maintain for very little return. I just use it for "storage" and focus my attention on other platforms now.

For whatever reason, they've more than doubled the price of membership :/ I won't doubt they would filter out non-core as dA has become more commercialized in past years so they're more interested in things that generate traffic. Fan art, ponies, sanic and boobs are some easy ways to get that, so naturally they're going to welcome that content more readily to make money off ad revenue. Pure speculation, but I feel that it's not really about art anymore...

Anyways, last time I checked, art theft was still a huge problem, users treat each other like garbage in the forums and the front page was just another numbers game stacked against new users. Although the site looks a bit nicer nowadays, the community is a mere shell of what it was.

[shazzbaa]

I don't think it's any more broken than it was before. Drama about paid members and the dA staff negligence and popular artists and art vs pornography has been going on as long as I can remember! But it didn't matter, because we had a community there that was good.

Now, a lot of those people have moved on and stopped really participating in DeviantArt -- heck, just look at the responses to this thread. The crowd we're comfortable in and click with has moved on, so DeviantArt feels dead and we start noticing all the things that are wrong.

I still use DeviantArt! I have an audience there and I do still get feedback, though it is definitely slower than it used to be. But I never paid much attention to the front page and all that, so that stuff hasn't really affected or bothered me. I'll stick around as long as there are people that make it a pleasant experience. :>
I feel like it's a matter of time before dA is irrelevant, though. It feels like it's trying to hold onto and reattract its old members moreso than make itself welcoming to new creators, and that can't last.

[AnnaLandin]

Re: the admins' lack of activity - I looked into renewing my Premium membership (or "Core", or whatever they call it these days, the little whippersnappers), and found that a.) they'd doubled the price, and b.) I couldn't pay. Like, at all. It refused to accept my payment, because the website insisted that I had already paid - which I hadn't.

I contacted them about this, and they just kinda shrugged and went "Yeah, check the FAQ." If this had been any other problem, I might have understood their lack of proper response - I was trying to give them money. o.O So weird.

Anyway, once I realised my portfolio would still be kicking around unchanged even without the Core-membership, I stopped bothering and just got on with things.

[AffectedMind]

It reminds me of those computer help centers:
A: HALP! My computer don't want to turn on.
B: Did you try to turn it on and off?
x'D

[VermillionWorks]

I contacted them about this, and they just kinda shrugged and went "Yeah, check the FAQ." If this had been any other problem, I might have understood their lack of proper response - I was trying to give them money. o.O So weird.

Yeah, I've heard DA's admins are kind of notorious for being unhelpful and kind of...jerks, that's probably the worst thing about DA to me. It took them YEARS to do something about their virus-ridden ads. I can't count how many times I got a bad virus or malware from there back in the day (I still don't trust them anymore, so I have my ab blockers on most of the time, especially when browsing through DA), before anyone who reported to them about getting a virus from their ads would get this - "Well, it's kind of your own fault for not having better virus protection".

So it's the person's fault for not expecting to get viruses from a professional site? Good lord that's stupid. It was only when they got endless complaints that they finally made announcements that they tried to fix them up and make them more stable.

....and don't get me started on the "see the FAQ because we're not about to explain anything to you....even if the answer isn't in there". That's very unprofessional to me. >.> Who cares how many times you get the same questions, just do what you're there for, will ya? Not everyone is going to think about the less than obvious FAQ section, and not every answer is there in detail.

[getsuart]

My Core membership just expired, I won't renewing it. Because of the prices, because nothing changed at all, because I don't know what they intend to do, they tell us nothing. Also, points were useful in the past, because they allowed you to pay a little bit less your membership. Now it's the same price if you use points or pay directly.

I was very active on DeviantArt once, then I just started to move on. I spent a lot of time on my comic (and thus on Tapastic), finding a better community, with a lot of exchange and respect.
I still post illsutrations, sometimes getting in the undiscovered I don't know why (okay it happened once and I screened it because of hapiness XD) but besides this... Still here mostly to continue following friends. And DA is also the main illustration website. And posting illustrations and commissions. I don't think anyone will follow me for commissions on Tumblr or anything else, so DA is still a good one.
But yeah, the categories aren't very balanced... The one I like the most is undiscovered, because you really have good art pieces, but not from mainstream/popular artists!

I tried Wysp, but I don't find it attractive at all.
Behance and Artstation are clearly modeled for professional with high skill level (mostly for Artstation, Behance has all level).

[joannekwan]

Yeah, I used to really like DA, and for a short time I was getting good traffic with my fanart, but since they implemented the new changes, my fanarts hardly get any activity nowadays. I refuse to pay for any sort of premium stuff.

I also detest the front page now, it used to be I could see what was either recently uploaded or currently popular and I found so many great artists that way and I enjoyed the endless scrolling.

Now the only thing I go to DA for is to check in on people I'm watching, if they've uploaded anything, and post my major works for my watchers that are still there.

[avalonmao]

apparently tumblr has a messaging system now? lol but it only works if someone messages you first...THEN you get the messaging thing

[avalonmao]

Yeah the last time I went on Deviantart I saw a lot of pony porn on the front page. Maybe it's for some people, but that sure......as hell isn't for me...
also i remember having to spend hours and hours on groups in order to garner attention for my work, and even then it has to be fanart. idk. i prefer to work on my dumb webcomic nowadays xD

[AffectedMind]

also i remember having to spend hours and hours on groups in order to garner attention for my work, and even then it has to be fanart. idk. i prefer to work on my dumb webcomic nowadays xD

Groups don't work that well anymore

[avalonmao]

Yeah I feel lmao... :/ like I had a ton of old friends on dA and now they're all deactivated lmao

[nobody]

I first joined DA in 2012 I think. I'll admit I've never been very active there, but even I've noticed that the place seems a little...dead? I haven't participated in the forum much either, but come to think about it, it's because the few times I did start reading some of the topics there, the conversations almost always took a very hostile turn. But even just the regular comment section below the artwork can be very unfriendly.

I really feel like the only people who seem to get popular on Deviant art these days are the people who do fan art and nudity, the latter of which seems to have grown uncontrollably over the past years.

Funny that you mentioned this. Whenever I talk to people about DA, the two first things they mention are fan art and nudity. The fan art debate is tricky...it does take attention away from original art, and I prefer original content, but then again I understand that people want to create fan art for the things they love (I have too, though not very often). And of course more people will relate to things they are already familiar with... And while it's often a matter of taste of course, I think one of the reasons people keep mention nudity (in negative terms) is because it's leaning more and more towards pornographic nudity instead of artistic nudity. As artists, creating whatever we want to in our spare time I think is of key importance to maintain our love for doing art, so if doing a bunch of nude stuff is someone's thing, then by all means.

But DA are trying to promote themselves as "an art community for artists and art lovers to interact in a variety of ways" and they also say about themselves: "In its purest form, DeviantArt is a means for expressing yourself in a variety of ways." That doesn't really hold up when what's mostly promoted (even if it is due to popularity) is fan art and nudity, and the forums and comment sections are hostile, and the admins don't take complaints seriously. To be fair though - the few times I've contacted the staff they've actually been very helpful. Maybe I'm special.

I've tried a few times to discover new creators in the Newest section, but people keep uploading selfies and pictures of their cats - which I wouldn't mind if it was at least an attempt at professional photography. But it's pictures taken with their phones, they just use DA to store personal photos, which makes it harder to find the kind of stuff I'm actually looking for.

[Waterdrain]

Oh man my bad, I thought it was an art site like DA XD

[avalonmao]

oh thank GOD i'm not the only one who thought that the forums and the comment sections are hostile. I read on a review website that there is a "sense of camaraderie"....camaraderie my ass.
though of course everyone's experience is different so ofc I can't speak for all xD

[CelestialNavigator]

Camaraderie?
I mean people say nice thing to each other all the time but it's kinda...not what they really think.But that's my opinion.
Though, I must say that I certainly miss my friends from DA and OCTs (original character tournaments) - this was what made DA fun.
But then most people moved to tumblr (another site I don't understand at all) and kinda bleh...
I've tried Weasyl but it didn't really work.
Personally, I think a very nice art community is Conceptart.org. They have a ton of useful and fun stuff.
Another cool place is EnterVoid - it's about comics battles. But it doesn't work for me the way I wanted to either.

[nobody]

@blacknwhiteeagle100 "Camaraderie"????? That is the last word I would've used to describe DA. There's no sense of community there. And yes, totally agree about the hostile forums and comment sections. I've seen very trivial topics end in flamewars, and I just look at it and can't wrap my head around how it could possibly turn into that.

[eschaefges]

DeviantArt: Useful for Stock Photos and Brush Sets!

[AffectedMind]

Whenever I talk to people about DA, the two first things they mention are fan art and nudity.

Wow... so the reviews about DA I've seen were true... Personally I didn't notice nudity that much, but fanart is all over DA now :<

But DA are trying to promote themselves as "an art community for artists and art lovers to interact in a variety of ways" and they also say about themselves: "In its purest form, DeviantArt is a means for expressing yourself in a variety of ways."

Yes, that made my day, DA staff have very specific sense of humor :'D

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks something went wrong on DA... And probably if I would make this topic on DA forums I would get much more hate... There's seriously something wrong with the community... I'm not saying all people on DA are like that, but it's not that difficult to meet them either, you just need to visit the forums.

[greenraptorstudios]

what is TSU? Is that another art site?