This is going to be a rambling wordy post so feel free to skip it.
I have an account on Deviant-Art (DA) that I have had for over 11 years. And after a lot of umming and erring I made the decision to leave it be.
When I started the internet wasn’t as “full” as it is now and it was quite inspirational to see my artwork there. However as the community grew there, white knights appeared telling you that your artwork (fanart) was a rip off and you had to take it off. There was also the fact that you could spend ages on the site and get no views or anything in return despite working hard on it.
To give you an idea of how much work there was, here’s my stats. Notice how many comments I have given compared to the ones I have received.
Please ignore the journals and deviations I had many more but I set almost everything to storage.
As you can see, there has been a LOT of effort put into it. However I stayed round DA because I was part of two groups and was helping out in both of them.
Then last year, after having helped out hugely for 3 years, I had a glitch where I couldn’t see my notes during the weekend, and without telling me or even letting me explain what had happened they kicked me out. No explanation, no nothing. It wasn’t until after I asked another member to upload my information that I had missed during the weekend that someone told me it was due to my not replying to notes for a weekend.
Worst part was that I contacted them back and explained the situation, but they never got back to me and completely ignored me afterwards, as if I wasn’t good enough and I had never contributed to it at all. It hurt me and made me want to give up there and then with the site.
I still had the other group and I kept with it until around Christmas when life got a little busy and I wasn’t keeping up with it, so I politely told them I couldn’t keep doing it (despite wanting to).
Without those groups connecting me to DA, I realised there was too much negative in it for me. It wasn’t bringing views or commissions. It wasn’t giving me a platform to socialize with artists (most of them were more critical and harmful than helpful) and it was making me sad.
I have stored over 200 deviations and deleted most of my journals there (11 years worth of artwork and writing). I do not know if I will go back to it or not but for now I am keeping away from it.
And it has been very freeing, as I don’t have all that negativity over my artwork and writing.
It does mean you guys will be getting some of my writing posted here every now and then like yesterday’s poem. Hope you don’t mind!
