Okay now that I am no longer involved in the fits of rage I can speak a bit clearer.

DeviantART. I am disappointed in how it has become these days. I remember back when it was a low interface with a small community. It was like anyone over 100k views, everyone knew and you could approach them and talk to them and they would be your friend back. I don't remember there being much fan art at all, and if there was you had to look through someone's gallery to find it. It wasn't as segregated as it is now. It was a lot smaller too.
Now it is like to get to any original art you have to wade and swim through the seas of regurgitated rainbows and animu.

Deviantart is just a huge popularity contest now-a-days. You can't go past the entrance to the page with out the pressure of popularity being shoved down your throat. They are constantly pushing "Be popular, draw what people want to see, get on the front page, get your stuff seen" they have a list of the most popular journals. They have a list of the most popular artists. They put your front page hits right on the top of your page for all to see and judge you. How does this tie in with what people are drawing and why it makes me so mad?

Because there is a significant amount of selfish, ignorant, and naive kids on here that are drawing the things that are the fad now so they can get more popularity. They know that DA loves wolves, so they draw wolves. They know that there are billions of zombie fantards that want to favorite anything Naruto or KH even if it isnt funny or well drawn or original, so they draw that. They might do it because they played the game once or watched Balto twice, so it kind of has a purpose but for the most part they know the payoff will be so good.
Now I know people are saying "Uh Airu, you have no idea what you are talking about. They just like it, so let them draw it. Besides look at your gallery you have the same stuff in yours."
First of all, I know what I am talking about because I have used the same exact tactics to get pageviews. When DA was turning into the whole "No pageviews, no respect" deal I could anticipate what was popular and drew it for the hits. Look at my stats. The things with the most hits are wolves, fanart, and animu cute shit. Granted most of it I didn't expect people to like it so much nor did I necessarily want them to, but it happened. That was back when I first joined and was trying to climb up to recognition and I don't do that anymore. The few things that are more recent in my gallery that happen to be fan art were drawn simply as a tribute to the things I enjoy (most of which are not the fads right now), but they are dispersed pretty far between original stuff. But it makes me so mad because I KNOW how it works. I could write a recipe on how to be popular on DA, that is how pathetic it is.
As a result, it makes me even angrier when I try to draw something original and it gets significantly less attention than if I drew a meaningless wolf. Try to understand why it makes me upset.

I know some people draw it just because they like those things and they dont expect any pageviews in return but humans are greedy attention-loving creatures and it takes a pretty honest person to act that way, especially on DA where the pressure to be a popular person is so high. But it can be hard to tell who is doing what for what reason, so I don't judge individuals but the entire concept as a whole.

That and I have these little hopes that people would venture out of their popular niches and draw something original. Snapesnogger has started drawing more original stuff and people are starting to complain to her because they want to see her lame regurgitations of HP or some other fandom. What is wrong wi... ]]> *SilverPoot http://SilverPoot.deviantart.com/journal/15391136/ http://SilverPoot.deviantart.com/journal/15391136/ Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:12:47 PST

Hoooi boy. I will just cut that short right there. I watched the news this morning and all they were showing was the sides of the nasty hills burning, I never heard anything about houses getting burned down or lives being lost. I tend to roll my eyes at anything SoCAL gets frantic about because there are so many people and so many things that set them off. 3 inches of rain, a mudslide, fire, high wind, stuff that is pretty common for where we live and when it happens everyone things the world is going to end. But if lives are being lost and houses are being burned down then I shouldn't make light of the situation at all.
To those of you evacuating, hope things are still there when you get back But at least everyone is physically alright.
Bad call on my part, I am sorry I made light of the whole thing. I have a dark sense of humor and I get really excited over natural disasters, so I don't expect other people to relate. The comic was just a spur of the moment idea that amused me for the simpler elements of it, not the overall fact that terrible things are happening to people.

Anyway, I am in Laguna Beach/Aliso Viejo so if the fires decide to jump several miles of cement I could possibly maybe have to evacuate, but I doubt it. The winds are supposed to die down soon and there might even be rain this weekend so I don't think it will get too much worse.

WeH8SilverPoot

I am bored. Ask me anything... I mean ANYTHING. The rules are, I can't be offended, I have to answer as truthfully as I can, and you can't think you aren't allowed to ask a certain something, don't be embarrassed. >8| Do eet!

WeH8SilverPoot