Is DeviantArt broken?

[DavidDaneman]

In my opinion, yes.

DeviantArt was a place where many of us got our start, but at some point in time, the readers disappeared.

Over the years, (and I'm talking 10 years) I have written the staff a few times about my frustration, but they seem happy with the way it is working.

Therefore, I think the sad news is that it is only our problem.

dA works for dA.

[Aspie_Gamer]

dA works for dA.

That I could not have said better myself.

DA Staff: Is someone cyberbullying you and do you have proof? You do? Well here's what you do. Block them. Have a nice day.

Me: dafuq? I waited months for you to get back to me on my case and THAT is how you have decided to respond to my very serious case? No wonder people are flocking to pixiv, tumblr, conceptart, tsu, etc.

[AffectedMind]

Yea, pretty much. I know the community is huge and you can't take care of everything, but DA is a giant and they could hire more people or I don't know, if they already got to you they could ban the person. Cyberbullying is a serious issue.
And don't you even make me start about their post about "how digital art thief isn't always a thief" so annoying. Let's delete the report option and don't care about anything. That's why the community gone wild in my opinion.

[HestiaEdwards]

I've had a surprising amount of positive response on dA--even though the art in my comic could stand improving, I still have some regular readers that want to know what happens next. Now I certainly had to market myself so that people know that I exist, but I imagine this is the case for any art website. I have only been on the website for the past two years, so I don't know how things have changed. I just started putting my comics on Tapastic, and I'm curious to see how things work here.

[AmberRose]

I still keep my DA, but as for the inner workings and systems of thing I never took much notice of I just figured it was a big site and you could be lost. I still get favorites when someone see my art I upload just that second but, originally my account wasn't created for anything but collecting other peoples artworks and finding tutorials and free downloaded brushes. I was invited to this site Paigeeworld were you can upload stuff. but it don't have much profile custom features.

[donathinfrye]

DA's story is one that a lot of similarly-minded sites should take into consideration:

DA became what it is because it promoted and supported its community of independent artists wanting to find a voice and a fanbase. Those independents bolstered DA's community and created its core initial success. Then, shrewdly and over a long period of time, DA decided to maximize its revenue by playing it safe -- instead of promoting broadly, it began to promote (mostly) only those artists who already had large followings.

In short, DA grew because DA gave something to its artists. And when it was big enough, it stopped giving, and started taking. Good for their bottom line in the short-term, perhaps, but in the long-term it is marginalizing and diminishing its community. And when a community diminishes, so do site views, and so does revenue. It's a story played out by many publishing and social media sites over the past twenty years.

There is always the temptation, when a company becomes large enough, to shift its focus from open giving to its community to the best path to monetization, which often-times is not in the community's favor. Beyond Facebook, perhaps (which is a rare example), I've never seen this work out in the company's favor in the long run. Making more money in the short-term is not as valuable as creating something sustainable and focused on the needs of its community ... not unless you're very, very lucky.

It's tough to run a business successfully. Investors and money-people are always going to advise companies to look for the quick profit, because that benefits those people the most. There are very few more risky and less sure things in this world than finding a path to monetization for any individual (artist) or company -- so I don't necessarily blame DA. Hopefully their steady diminishing will be a good lesson to other sites like them in the future.

[inkythoughts]

I started dA in 2010 I think, I mean I was 14 so of course no quality art, but I was sure that I wanted to make it a career sooner or later anyway (so I really put effort into it). Back then I got some comments from kids who were even worse than I, so it was kind of cute and it was relatively easy to get into some kind of community. I don't talk to them though, mostly because they aren't there anymore or even deleted their accounts.
I can't deny that dA had a huge influence on me, I found some really helpful tutorials I still keep as a get-go because they're just great. Back then you also got more critiques, older/more advanced people took their time to actually help, or I just found a handful that did. Plus there was a group project to critique as much as you can within 1 week, it really was fun and partly even helpful for me.
I mean yes I did a lot of fanart back then, especially when I was most active in 2012/2013, but I can't say it exactly gained me more followers. I have a grand total of 139 followers, and I bet at least half of them are actually deactivated accounts (one big issue that hasn't changed - it takes forever until dead accounts vanish from the follower list)
It wasn't particularly great but I had my friends, we could share advice and admire the more popular artists from afar.

Then the whole "draw my oc for free here are 10000 reference links to their entire backstory, check there for any descriptions lol" started (I actually did that two times). Apart from the whole "Cheap commission!! headshot 10 points!!" - which made me believe that my art was basically 10 friggin cents worth because that's what everyone charged, right? - the most horrible thing on this site. As soon as I got more comfortable in my skills, I seriously asked others if $5 was too much. dA was very toxic in this case, like "you cannot charge anything if you aren't from the top notch." I only realised when I left for tumblr and twitter, where people like me charged way more, and still got commissions.

Also, on especially twitter, people are so much easier to approach? Popular artists on dA rarely replied to the masses of comments they got, but on twitter it kind of just works. Plus it has some kind of "multi-cultural flair" to it - on dA it's got incredibly hard to work up the ranks and it's mostly always the same people around you, and on tumblr you just stay in your fandom nieche but actually have a chance to get seen and work your way up there. Original stuff is hard to share either way, but to me tapastic works out for that just fine at the moment.

Also I'm glad that memory didn't fail me and the CORE membership indeed is roughly twice as much as Premium used to be. I shortly thought about getting one again but then decided against since I have adblock anyway, and only throw off my best pics lately and run away again. I don't even check in the groups I'm in, barely even the people I follow because I know their "new" things from other platforms anyway. All comments I get are basically "nice" "cool" etc.
It got very superficial, but maybe that's a mutual thing with this platform/community..

[KreativeConfusion]

I gotta say, dA has just been Meh to me as of late. It's good place to post my works since their servers don't mind my large files but honestly its just good for a portfolio kinda site at this point.

Like, when the CORE went up, I was both annoyed an confused. Why did it go up in twice the price? I mean yeah, it said the membership was on sale when you bought it, but after like what? 3 years (probably more) a lot of people started to assume the price was the same. I get they need more money, but I feel like if they fixed whatever was giving their damn adds viruses they wouldn't have such an issue. I tell everyone I know to make sure ad block works on that site. Otherwise they can kiss their computer goodbye.

Don't even get me started on the point system.

As for people? I think it really depends. You can still find nice people on that website but if you wanna grow a fanbase, its gonna be hard and its gonna be harder to get noticed. I've only gotten a little attention from my fan art and even then, thats only when I do it right when the fandom is having a big even going on. The place is too big at this point.

[asheskyler]

Ehhh, I'm not too fond of how it's going right now. The legibility of the Hot Topics posts has gone seriously downhill and I don't click on them anymore because they're too badly designed for me to be able to read.

As for the people... Eek! A lot of very rude and whiny people on there. Sometimes on the "forums" I'll strike it off good and have a good conversation with some random person, but mostly I avoid posting anything at all because I don't have the time or patience for somebody to get hyper-offended from me replying. Doesn't even have to be something bad, I could say "I like cats" and some anti-furry dog-lover will go on a tirade of how I promote animal cruelty by indulging in bestiality and enslaving animals for entertainment, or something totally bizarre like that. And there are some seriously entitlement issues on there where people think you're overprices if you charge over $5 for a good quality drawing.

[msseymourcomics]

Agree. I'm still on dA but probably only because I've been on there for 10 years and it's the first art account I had. Though, I've changed accounts recently (2 years ago) and I definitely notice not as much traffic. What really bothers me about dA is the seeming randomness of popularity. Accounts that were created 5 years ago even if they have no original artwork of their own or (excuse me for saying) poorly drawn fan art with questionable taste... get very popular while I see very good artists who have no traffic or silent faves with no one commenting.
As for "you have to be active" blah blah I disagree. I have always tried to rekindle the dA I knew years ago where people comment on pieces they like whether from very good and inspiring artists or people just starting out who need some encouragement. I comment and comment and... NOTHING. Big fat nothing. It is very tiring to spend so much time critiquing and commenting and giving encouragement over the past 2 years with my new account to have only a handful of people who actually want to interact with you, ask you questions, and comment on your own work.
I was die-hard dA for many years but now have run away to Tapastic where things seem much more friendly.

[NickRowler]

My main issue with current DA is how poorly it is managed, when I first joined (I think in 2008), if you put something in the wrong folder, they would have moved it. Also there was a stronger push to avoid unoriginal stuff like memes and screencaps, sometimes even moving them straight into scraps.

Now the site sort of seems like there is no management. People just repost screencaps they took off of Youtube and memes. Add that the site seem to have a lot of trolls yet there is no one even really moderating this. Why does a forum filled with racism and the N-word stay up for several day? Why isn't there an easier way to report trolls? Why when someone does troll, they refuse to delete said post (if the user is banned) because they made some pack in blood that they would never delete comments? Why do they let people run "fav bots"?

I do like the format of DA, more so than Tumblr. It's easy to search and I will get favs on older works. While on Tumblr, for popular fandoms, if you don't get a large number of notes within the first few days, your work will "disappear" and good luck if anyone finds it again.

[tayo_rafferty]

I have had the same account on DA for 5 years and none of my work has ever gotten a comment. I think in that time I have received 2 favourites, however in my case it is mostly my fault because my work was never consistently uploaded and always rushed. XD

I recently deleted everything and will be starting fresh with new images that will not be rushed.

[haleymewsome]

I stopped using dA because they were selling user's work without their permission to Hot Topic. :c And the Terms of Service on dA states that they basically own what you post there. Be careful guys!

[tayo_rafferty]

@haleymewsome That's messed up. I had no idea they were so shady.

[Maxiachan]

Sorry but that has been debunked: http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/deviantart-hot-topic-shirt-art-stolen/
DeviantArt isn't selling your art to stores like Hot Topic.

[lunaartemisasama]

I have an account there from 10 years ago. I actually used it to keep track of my bad drawings lol. I mean I have stuff there that I don't have the original file anymore. So that's it.

I have never been active to begin with, but yeah sometimes I feel like there's much drama and less comments. And beware of their dark site and all their fetishes art.

[ogawaburukku]

DeviantART is a fickle beast, but I way way WAY prefer it to something like Tumblr or even Pixiv.

I don't recommend making a new account, even if you are being stalked, if you are trying to build a following. I've been stalked (am currently) and I just put the block button to good use. Your followers may not have been dead, they just may have been too lazy to switch to your new account. I know back before dA let users change their names, I had people I was following change their names every other year. After about the third time I would usually not follow them because I'd have to go in, re-favorite all their artwork I liked, etc. Such a pain, and I think it says something about the artist when they are constantly trying to restart their visibility on dA or whatever.

I had almost no followers until dA started their groups system. It's still slow going, but groups really helped in getting visibility. I don't even check the front page or anything, and most people I know don't bother. It's usually the same people and half of it is porn anyway, haha.

I would say choose an account and stick with it, submit to a lot of different groups, add new art regularly, and see what happens. Not everyone is guaranteed to be a star on DeviantArt, though-- talent level does often play a part of it. But you can be friendly and courteous, follow people, make friends, and slowly build a following over time. You can draw fan art of whatever's popular if you just want followers, but it really is a community and I think artists should be true to themselves and their own passions.

[bsienk90]

I've been on DA for 11 years now.
I use to have a lot of luck with DA about 4 years ago and then when I went back this time (and even better with my art) nothing. I get almost NO traffic. No idea why. And a lot of my pervious fanbase seems to have either moved on or deleted their account. I think it's over populated bc they decided they didn't want to regulate their community. I think it's a few things:

• They never purge their community
• The don't have quality or content control
• They don't cycle new or unheard of artist enough

[sainity]

It hasn't gone downhill at all. You are just wearing nostalgia glasses.

[Tanisha]

Dude...even the creator the site would agree that things are not the same over there as it use to be way back when. There was such a community back then, everyone was talking each other, they listen to their users. Now? They do whatever works and let no one on on what they're doing until last minute. Like YouTube...