Yeah, I know that we all made fun of deviantArt at some point for being the "fetish art headquarters" - but let me actually tell you why this, in the end, was good.
For the very few of you who never were on dA, or were too young to participate in it; deviantArt is a website dedicated to sharing your artwork, first opened in 2000.
It has been here for almost a quarter of a century, which might seem like a lot given it wasn't owned by a giant megacorp until a certain point in 2017 when it was sold to Wix. Which, by the way, fuck you Wix, you stupid cunts.
Throughout all this time, it managed to quite literally raise generations of artists regardless of their medium; it hosted digital and traditional artists alike, 3D artists, the crafters, cosplayers, photographers, writers; it even had a category for Flash games, when that thing still worked.
But when you look at it now, it's nothing but a shell of its former self, plastered with generative AI garbage everywhere, a "modernized" UI that only barely functions, one that sucked off all life force from what it used to be.
And it's a very hollow shell.
You see, I first joined dA somewhere in 2010-11. Which, given the site's age, is fairly fresh, right?
But let me tell you, even as a wee lad that barely spoke English at the time, I had a blast on this website.
As I said, dA used to host a diverse variety of creators of mediums, and was more of a worldwide phenomenon (unlike Newgrounds for which I still hold respect, but it was pretty much an American thing) - and it had amazing (for the time) socializing features.
Most notable being Groups - usually revolved around a certain fandom, medium, artstyle or a common interest. Users could post their work into the groups, and the works could be put in various folders for easier search.
Users could see what groups others belonged to; which was a pretty easy signifier of the person's interests.
Another feature I really loved were the dA chats; which unlike groups, have perished completely with the introduction of dA Eclipse.
Those looked a little bit like IRC chats, with obviously way more features. I vividly remember there being an official dA chat that had a command for showing your latest uploaded work.
I personally liked to chat with others there and show off my stuff, because there always was someone leaving even just a fave.
And the stamps. It's not a talk about dA if we don't mention stamps. Small, pixel images resembling... stamps.
People used them to express their more or less valid opinions, their favorite things, identities or just were used as decorations.
They were everywhere. They still are, but mostly as a memory of the past. I don't think anyone makes new ones.
While people kept joining and leaving dA, it always felt like a thriving place... even if at some point it had the infamous "fetish art place" reputation.
But it was great. Not perfect, as all things are. But it was great.
The culture surrounding the website, the badges (of which the llama badge was the most known one and most iconic, because it was shared to others all the time), the stamp culture, deviantArt Muro (which was sort of an implementation of oekaki), the social parts of this art-sharing site.. and the sole diversity of human work that was there...
It all was ruined by Wix and dA Eclipse, which attempted to bring the site to the "modern time" but it drove away its userbase.
Plastering AI generation only deepened the problem.
It hurts to see deviantArt, almost 25 years later, be so hollow that you're surprised it didn't go bankrupt yet.
But I'm still thankful for it.
Thanks for the memories, even if they weren't so great.