Why do people seem to have such negative opinions about Deviantart?

[BarBarKetrab]

It seems to me that if Deviantart pops up in conversation on most platforms, a majority of the time it's either in a joking manner ("have you graduated from Deviantart yet?") or people being flat out insulting towards it.

I look at things on Deviantart quite often myself, and I haven't had any problems with the site. Is it true that people have lower opinions of it compared to other sites/apps/platforms? Or am I completely wrong and spouting nonsense?

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I'd be curious to know the reasons behind this, too. I've been on that platform for 15 years.

Pointy-Eared-Fiend User Profile | DeviantArt

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Great that you don't know, keep walking.

(It's a combination of the unpleasant types of people there (being a large site it is inevitable, just like saying people who use Reddit are losers), the era associated with it (which is mostly teenager years, which means ultra cringe shit you would wince when remembering), and the sometimes traumatizing questionable fetish art it famed itself for. Also as for now I think the site is growing in the direction that doesn't please users).

[BarBarKetrab]

Alright, keep walking I shall.

[MasterValkyrie]

Shadow the Hedgehog x Shrek.

I'll leave it at that.

[MissEljebel]

DeviantART is the place where I get the most feedback on my art. I know there are... interesting people on there, but that's every site, and if they aren't hurting anyone, who cares? Let them do what they want.

I know Eclipse (the new interface) is something a lot of people hate, it took some getting used to but I don't think it's that bad. I think people like to complain, lol

But yeah you're right, people DO hate deviantART, I think for the reasons I stated above.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

As someone who's joined ~4 social media sites within a kinda small window of time, I really think people tend to have negative opinions about all of them.

DeviantArt is full of fetish-obsessed creeps, Tumblr's the home of immature fandom-crazed gremlins, Twitter's a cesspool of vicious idiots who have nothing better to do than fight with other idiots on the internet, Facebook is only still relevant to racists and other toxic old people...etc.

I belong to all these sites, and these are all things I've heard about them from outsiders. But, interestingly enough, that hasn't been my experience with any of them. =/ So yeah, I've learned to take any hearsay with a grain of salt.

Of course, I don't mean to say that those impressions are baseless...I've gotten a few glimpses of the dark side of all those sites, as one does. But just as you're likely to find trouble if you go looking for it, I think you're likely to have a nice time if that's what you're there for.

TL;DR: Yeah, people have low opinions of DA, but people have low opinions of a lot of sites. It's honestly no worse than any other platform.

[bluejamtoast]

Just personal thoughts but I think its to do with its identity/image

-It has a strong amateur hobbyist userbase; compared to sites like Art station it may appear overall unprofessional, not geared for career building
-Insta, twitter and tumblr are way bigger sites that can host the same content & plenty more, also geared for 'social' so lowkey killing DA's USP
-It's sort of disconnected from mainstream, not a lot of big brands/corps/people from various art industries on the site (unlike twitter and IG) also adding to the unprofessional image
-Relatively small crowd; Biggest artist there (cmiiw) has 600k watchers after 15 yrs on the site but 900k followers on twitter after 7 years & 1 mil Instagram followers;
-Notorious content viral and not enough acclaimed stuff going viral to balance it out leading to the overall site image being kind of cringey

Obvs most of these points aren't actually negative but kinda explains the "have you graduated from Deviantart yet?", I guess DA's image (if you spin it negatively) is small pond, little league, amateur vibes

[Mallory]

I used to be active on DA about a decade ago (as in, I posted a lot. My engagement numbers were... not great, but then neither was my art). But I liked it, and I liked to browse it because there was a lot of talented people posting there in all kinds of mediums. I'd sift through the "popular in the last 24 hours" tags and weep at my lack of skill but also enjoy all the cool art. I kinda drifted away from it when I had a depression and didn't draw for several years. When I came back I looked and it was all like... super misogynistic objectifying mediocre art and inflation and/or pregnancy fetishes plastered ALLLLLL across the "popular" pages. The ratio of that content to actual good art was... not good, so I closed the page and did not come back. I figured if the ratio was that high, that was kinda representative of the DA audience of the current era, and that wasn't something I wanted to participate in. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's kind of the impression I got.

[jcmraz]

Deviantart takes the work it's content creators make and sell it without permission. Well, they did. I don't know if they still do.

[FafasMcMelt]

sounds great when you put it like that

[thecrystalrook]

DeviantArt is a meme in itself and has been since at least 2007. A lot of the 4chaners from that era don't take it seriously because all they ever saw was the "lol kawaii desu desu ne so randum RAWR" side of the site.

[Macarenaoftime]

Solar sands

(joke)

[Aleksei]

I suppose that liking dART it's an acquired taste?
I been there the past 16 years, and I mostly find nice pieces of art when I search for it... but yeah, there is a lot of rule 34, and others. I don't undertand all the fixation with inflation, and bondage, but defining the site by their worst face would be undeserving of it. I could say the same from Tapas, but we know better. Every site has their ups and downs.

[azzy-m]

Speaking as a former dA user, I dunno. I think it's a lot of things. Its reputation prolly comes from the saga of "cringe" art from 2014-16, but I think it's a lot of people don't really approve of how the website is being run? It's hard to grow there if you're starting out? General toxicity from people who use it (which is why i eventually stopped using it)? I don't know. I haven't thought about dA in years, my account pretty much exists just to be an archive of my old stuff, lmfao.

[sc101]

Sonic rule 34 and other intriguing things: the novel.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I guess a logical question to ask is... where else ought someone post their art as a primarily art-hosting site? I mean, I've got Tumblr and Instagram, but while both of those places have an art community of a sort, they're not specifically art sites.

(I suppose there's always Artstation, but dear god, I am so intimidated by the caliber of art on that site... XD I need something in between 'beginner' and 'godlike professional'.)

[Rhonder]

The opposite of this line of thought is actually why I haven't been back to DA since highschool I find it kind of tedious to post art to social media in general, so I prefer to manage only a few sites and actually prefer those that have more of a non-creator/consumer facing aspect to them, like the typical Facbeook/Twtitter/Instagram/Etc.

Maybe it wouldn't be as important if I did more art-art and less comics, but as is I try to reach out to and find readers, and I know from experience that a lot of folks who are busy making their own stuff don't always have a lot of time to invest in yours. Just viewing and liking standalone illustrations is one thing, but investing in a comic series is a whole other beast.

This preconceived notion may be incorrect (I haven't posted to DA since like... 2012? 2013?) but from my years there I got the sense that mostly just other artists hang out there- I'm not sure if a lot of pure consumers have accounts? That's my food for thought anyways

[N1ghtm4r3]

some of that hate may stem from some people who kind of complain and argue cause a lot don't seem to have any better things to do, two forums on there are most infamous philosophy and religion and the politics threads see alot who just spout random without actually discussing, and there are more then a few that post link to some kind of scam ,but i dont mind DA i generally post my clean work on there ,my NSFW i save for FA and inkbunny

[NickRowler]

I think people have one of three issues with it.

• There is a lot of weird fetish art which tends to get a lot of traction. The site doesn't really have a way to hide this kind of art unless it is NSFW. So sometimes you will go in the frontpage and the really weird ones will just randomly be there.

• I don't know if they have fixed this but there has been an issue with high political people from both extremes of the spectrum using the site as a blog site to just be extremely hateful. I remember coming across extremely racist and sexist who would use the site to post memes. The forums I know at one point were treated like a 4Chan lite. I remember there was one where a bunch of racists were saying the n-word that stayed up for several days.

• The site is also known for having a lot of teens and other people who are new to art. A lot of their art is usually not the best and I think people unfairly attack these types of people as being "cringe". I think people should be free to express themselves if it is doing nothing to hurt others.