General Discussion

Hello, friends~ [emoji=familiar heart size=1] As the title says, I'm looking for honest takes--the good, the bad, and the ugly--from users who have/have had a DeviantArt account. The reason for this is that I was going to start posting art on Twitter, but he-who-shall-not-be-named decided to ban links to other competing platforms like Instagram (which I already post to, but audience engagement is abysmal), Facebook, Tumblr, etc. Plus Twitter's future is looking pretty bleak right now... So I've started eying DA again. I abandoned ship after they "rebooted" their brand and started with the Core memberships. I vividly remember Core having a really negative response from the community when it first launched, as well as the confusing, ugly new logo introduced. It was memed on so badly back then... Also the Popular tabs were really, [i]REALLY[/i] bad in terms of highlighting smaller artists and riddled with, well. . . [i]*things*[/i] that are probably not allowed to be talked about on FR... <.< (But if you were there back then, you're probably picking up what I'm throwing down) Even though I wasn't uploading anything at the time, I also felt a little miffed by the drastic changes they unleashed on us. The actual final time I was on the site was 2017. Anyway, I've had an account for like 8 years (I made an older account back in 2008 that I can't remember the password to, so I've been on the platform way, way longer), but I never posted anything because I was really shy and self-conscious of my art back then. Like, I only last year mustered up the courage to start posting art publicly. The only thing I did back then was favourite stuff lol. Now I'm seriously considering dusting off that old account and actually uploading my work. ^_^ [center][b]TL;DR To those that still use DA, have things improved since the controversial rebrand?[/b][/center] ~ PS I am avoiding things like Artstation for now, at least until they can address the issue with AI generators being fed "samples" of art stolen from very real, hard-working artists... ): ~ PSS I most likely will use DA again. If things don't work out for one reason or another, I can at least say I tried. I'd still like everyone's opinions, though.

I'm a creature of habit, so I never left. (And frankly, I despise the cultures of Instagram and Twitter, so I avoid them at all costs.)

As things stand, the internet at large is plagued by AI scrapers and "art generators". Nothing is safe from techbros.

Edit: Should've probably mentioned that I have a few userscripts installed on Firefox since Eclipse was rolled out (they can be installed on Chrome and Opera, too). You'll need Stylish and Tampermonkey for them. Here they are.

Honest opinion: Things are not good there, but it's the best option we've got right now for an art site. There were a couple alternatives that attempted to be a replacement but crashed and burned with even worse problems (cough, Buzzly), so dA is really the only option for an artsite unfortunately

Cons: They've endorsed NFTs and AI-generated art, slapped random drawings and journals with mature content filters when there was nothing there that warranted one, still riddled with some nasty stuff, refuses to listen to their userbase about anything
Pros: It's not Twitter

It was better before Eclipse and Eclipse helped kill it.

I had an account on dA ages ago, and then a few weeks ago I thought about going back (with a new account cause I don’t remember the password for the old one).

Until I heard about Eclipse.

Now, the idea died a bit, even with my sister suggesting it and “assuring” me that the whole AI art generator situation has “calmed down”. I still might go for it in the future, but I’m not too eager about it.

It's tough cause there aren't many sites that can really compete with DA as a solid artist community.

I've found Artstation to be more of a portfolio site than a social one tbh. Other social medias are more generalist. And there's been several other art community sites that all crashed and burned for various reasons.

But since DA pulled that stunt with automatically opting everyone's stuff in to train AI art junk, I am extremely reluctant to post anything new on there at all. Unfortunately I don't feel like I have a solid alternative to turn to atm.

I've used DeviantART since 2006ish and consistently used it until the Eclipse update, and that's when I left. I post my art there every other month and never managed to get back into it.

I don't want to be a hater but I've had significantly less engagement and I think it's because the 'new' page is so out of the way. Before that was the default page you were onto so you're constantly seeing new art, now when I click on for a browse it's just whatever's popular so I'm seeing the same thing every day and just click off and don't return for a week or two.

I got gifted core recently (their subscription program) and had zero use for it, so someone just wasted their money/points/whatever on me and I had no way to give it back. The features of that are entirely not worth it IMO unless you already have a following there, are using it daily, and have the need to really customise your page.

Small gripes are things like links being incredibly small while all the art is huge so it's hard to figure out how to navigate and there's not enough settings IMO (the 'core' settings don't add a lot) to make the website more usable. The presence of userscripts doesn't make me more likely to use it, either, because I shouldn't have to use them.

I only post my art to FA now, because Tumblr isn't entirely viable (but is with effort), Twitter is a no-go, Instagram is worthless, Facebook is worthless, Inkblot is too new (and messy/hard to understand IMO), and everything else that's been tried recently falls into NFTs or other shady art-selling practices. So DA or FA. I chose FA.

There are completely understandable reasons to not go with FA, of course, and without FA my next go-to would be Tumblr. I just can't be bothered with the effort Tumblr requires tho

sorry this was long

I feel like dA fell hard into the algorythm bull the last few years. before I could search a thing and easily find work from artists in every level of skill or popularity or media but recently everything in the first searches and in featureds for me is Very Much not hobbist and its always the same 5 digital art styles. its not really the place for people who want to start growing now, for that sadly twitter and ig really are the best but they will also suck the lige out of your body so uhhh is it really worth it?. BUT dA is still the best for me to keep an organized non cloud archive of your work. core never was an issue for me so cant say much about that, and I dont care for AI overreaction so cant really comment on that either

you can toggle the old dA look back if I remember it right, it's way easier in the eyes (and old devices Dx)

honestly, i tried really hard to stay after eclipse. i had found a nice little niche on da and was using it to help archive digital art i have saved externally. two things happened this year that have really put me off from da.

1) the mod team did little to nothing when i had to report someone. i dont report lightly, and although i wasnt expecting much from mods, it still sucked

2) the ai/nft thing. i dont understand why they thought that wouldnt upset a lot of users

still trying to figure out where to put my art next. im sort of still waiting for the dust to settle from da's recent shenanigans and whatever is going on with twitter. right now tumblr is an okay-ish option for me, but i wouldnt mind too much if i end up just making my own art archive website