AdriOfTheDead

It feels like 99% of sites online now are participating in some sort of ass-backwards tiktok challenge to see which one can tank itself the fastest. Now DA seems to be showing its entire ass, between the recent Dreamup fiasco (dumb) and the talks of adopting web3 blockchain garbage (also dumb). So, uh... I think I'm gonna bounce.

I've been on this site, between two accounts, for literally 20 years. I've seen all shades of stupid drama and hairbrained features get introduced, pulled, and then never spoken of again (remember Muro? yeah, I didn't think so). I've seen people purge their entire galleries and leave over something as innocuous as DA changing all of the icons to Mudkips for April Fool's. (The 2000s were... different; you really had to be there.)

Yeah, it was all comparatively silly shit, and yeah, I got caught up in the "I'M LEAVING DA 4EVER!!!1" fervor at least once.

But, ultimately, I ended up coming back because this place felt like the last remaining relic of a bygone era: when curating your work online was as simple as uploading an image, and the people who did so were actually called "artists" and not--*gag*--"content creators". We didn't have to worry about "establishing a brand", or competing against an invisible computer algorithm to make sure our work--sorry, our CONTENT--actually got eyes on it.

Now? Now I don't even know. As an artist, the last 2-3 years have felt like being constantly kicked in the dick as every social media site folds in on itself or gets bought out and congealed into some horrific, barely-navigable mess that treats its users like products. Artists simply are not seen as people anymore, and their art is merely a product that can be either bought, sold, scrapped, or pumped into a machine in order to shit out another product. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'm tired. All I've ever wanted to do is just share my artwork with people because I love to draw, I've always loved to draw, and I know I'm not alone in this. Is it really too much of an ask to be able to do that, without having to worry about it being fucking ruined by some bitter, creatively-stunted dipshit or a cabal of faceless shareholders? Apparently, it is.

While I'm aware that DA has walked back on their policy for opting out of Dreamup, I just can't trust like that anymore. I've been burned far, far too many times, especially over the past two years, to simply let this slide. All of my deviations have been deleted, and I will not be uploading any new work to DA. I can't in good conscience keep my work up on a site that supports this. This isn't some sort of indignant flounce; I was actually legitimately rooting for this place. I defended this place, in spite of it all, and was still left saddened and disappointed. Maybe that's my own fault for being naïve enough to believe that a company with "ART" in its name gives a shit about art and the artists that make it.

So. Assuming it doesn't implode by the end of the year, you can still find me on Twitter. I resurrected my old Tumblr account and will be catching up on uploads there soon. You can also check out my website, though it's really more of a portfolio site. Maybe I'll build my own site from scratch and just curate all of my shit there, like the pilgrims did.

Well, considering it's been well over a year since I last updated my journal, I thought I'd share this:

As of a week ago, I've officially been on DA for 20 years. Two whole ass decades. I've been on this site longer than some of you have been alive! ha ha ha time is a fuck and the looming spectre of death will eventually come for us all ha ha ha

Hey, sorry I haven't been around on DA much; last year sucked and I spent most of this year recovering from it but now that deviantart is the only social media platform that hasn't been fucking algorithm'd to hell and back maybe I'll actually start posting more here

I didn't draw a whole lot last year because... *gestures at all of 2020*

got a few projects in the pipe so keep an eye out for them