A rant on why I have grown to hate deviantART
I started using deviantART in February of 2005 in the thought that with the many users, and with the posession of a new camera, I would be able to recieve critique on my work to such an extent that it would help me to become a better photographer.
In the past 2 years, I’ve taken many of thousands of photographs, published to deviantart more than 250, and even more to sites like flickr. But only recently did I realise that the community that sparked my first interests has turned sour.
I joined deviantART on 13th February 2005 and since then I have recieved slightly over 7000 pageviews. Not too shabby, huh? It’s not that, it seems that since the time I joined the community, it has become sparse and uncommentive, and too much hype is produced around digital artwork (defitely around anime) and not enough is paid to others who have devoted themselves to their art.
I see too many works in which a lot of time and thought have been spent on, but very little critique or notice have been given to them. People seem to feel surpised when I offer a critique or opinion about a piece, and that’s what I believed deviantART was intended for. I feel the lack of commenting to be a downside to the entire process. Although it can be slightly uplifiting to get favourites and comments such as ‘nice pic’ once in a while, it dosen’t offer a good response as a critique.
I try when I have the time (and I seem to be the only one) that offers constructive criticism. I commented this once to a particular work I enjoyed:
“The cross processed look of this photo brings a lot more than a photo of correct colour balance ever could. The decision to use this tint, to me, brings a lot of mood to the piece by counter balancing the simplicity of the composition.
In English, that means that I like it.”
I often also comment on how a piece could have been improved, or done differently to offer a different effect. This isn’t used to tarnish a particular piece, but to bring new ideas to the artist for future reference.
This is what drives me mad about deviantART. That’s what they publicise, but at the end of it all people give no constructive criticim to your own work. It’s rather inconsiderate, if I say so myself. I think of it this way: when you see a ‘deviation’ - you have to understand that they generally want more than just a thumbs up, they want to know how they can improve and become better as the continue through life. That’s human nature - and you have to remember that there’s a human at the end of that piece wanting to know how you *really* think about something they created.
I’ll show you by example. One thing I have noticed in my time of deviantART is that if you want a favourite for photography, shoot a spiral. What is it with people on this website and spirals, I don’t know, I just know that almost every spiral I’ve seen has been favourited at least 5 times. My only spiral photo, “Spiral Stair”, has recieved more favourites and more comments than any other deviation in my gallery - topping off at 13 favourites and 13 comments (feeling unlucky, punk?). And guess what most of them are? Yep, you guessed it - “Good work”, “lovely shot”, and “that’s blossom” (I still don’t completely understand the last one)
I think these communities are similar to our own. In a place you may have gone recently, to life outside the internet, you might have realised that you have no idea who your neighbours are. Do you know what they’re interested in? Do you spend the little extra time getting to know them, and giving them help in little bits and bobs? I thought not.
It’s become relatively human nature to care, in some form or way, about the people around you. It just seems that somehow in these internet communities we seem to have lost the connections we once had with each other, and the short and blunt comments of days past no longer satisfy the critique we crave.
Sorry, I wanted to rant about this - as I’m trying to decide wether or not I’ll stay there completely. I’m not sure..
