DeviantArt

Over the years, I have enjoyed looking at fan art drawings of various cartoon characters. But in recent years, my enjoyment has been tarnished. Sites like this one have members who have screws loose, and show off their dependencies of their personal crutches, making me feel guilty about my own art, giving me fear that I would be too dependent on my own personal crutches. I occasionally can also get upset about how some cartoon characters are used in some of these pictures, hurting my interest in these characters. That is why I have fun creating new characters of my own these days, to get my mind off other people's art and characters. Also, as a result, I can now see why it is a bad idea for someone to continue someone else's creations.

Deviantart used to be a great place for artists of all types and mediums to post art. Only complaints about the old days were the art thieves, which are of course still present on any platform.

Now the site, ever since the switch that no one wanted, runs like garbage and has turned more into a fetish art site. Despite the ToS restricting certain types of content it still runs rampant on the site as a whole. As the website is thirteen and up one would thing that isn't a problem, right? Wrong as anyone can make an account claiming they are over eighteen to see the eighteen and up content. Artistic type medium for adults has always been accepted and I even appreciate it, but some of this "art" being made now is not that.

Basically, the site now lacks proper moderation, and lacks proper maintenance for it's functions and appearance. I miss the old days so much!

Everywhere you go, nudity and violence and overall disturbing themes appear, with or without an account you're getting spammed with these images, which are getting promoted instead of the people that actually work hard on their work. And even though there's a button to sensor this kind of content, there's still very much disturbing stuff. If you're a serious artist looking to make a living out of this, please pick another website. I will say though, that the HUD and the way you can join groups in kinda nice. Hope this gave some insight.
(The image below shows just the tip of the iceberg of what you will see on this website, and this is taken from scrolling down the website main page for 20 seconds)

Occasionally I participate in their forums. They seem to use different standards depending on your political stance and easily give in to request from more liberal members to close a thread if the content is not to their liking. Liberal members however do not seem to suffer so much from these interventions. Though it is to be expected that art community usually tends to be on the more liberal/leftist side I still find it disappointing that the staff sometimes have it hard to hide their personal political preferences.

It used to be much better at one time than it is now. While some good art can still be found there, it takes more and more effort to find it. The main problems now are that they do little to nothing about SPAM messages, chain-letter type messages and other garbage like that which merely misuse the comment-feature. But the overall atmosphere of the site has declined as well. Only positive and/or popular comments and opinion are allowed; any form of constructive criticism or, for that matter, any dissenting opinion of any kind, is not tolerated and even censored in some cases. It is highly ironic that a website ostensibly for creators to display their work should have evolved into an environment that is so averse to the expression of different opinions. PC Groupthink is increasingly the mindset there.

DeviantART was a great website now in decline. DeviantART on the surface looks like a normal website like YouTube for artists. But actually it's a horrible porn site filled with fetishes and child groomers. The site does little to nothing to stop it's lurved users and their strange obsessions. This would never be a problem but DA is a 13+ website. Where people think mature filters are somehow censorship. Not kid friendly. So if you think seeing furry $#*!s of Sonic the hedgehog is ok be my guest.

DeviantART is home to toxic trolls, crybullies, and was full of far right/neo-fascists until DA realized it's a private website and hate speech is against the rules. But with that being said you will never get reported for having shown a picture of a swastika or Hitler. Edgy 16 year old girls run the site like they are principle.

DA has gotten worse. Modern DA has the worst interface ever. UI designers. If you are reading this. We don't want OUR websites to app friendly. DA has axed soo many features. Why oh why can't I search my favorites? They completely deaded the website. Made it very spam filled. I cannot reply to a comment because it takes forever to find it under the mounds of coomer spam of favebot accounts. If you like instagram this interface is perfect for you.

The paywall is so dense on DeviantART since Wix.com bought it. I have to pay to change my name. Sounds reasonable. But now? I have to pay just to see stats? HMMM?! Nowadays you can make a fave folder and it privates it from people seeing it. You must pay for it. It tried pitching this. We tried pitching this so many times and yet DA would never cave in for some reason.

Beyond that, if one can't get money you can always do points commissions. A fairly useless crypto-currency that no one wants. Users can perform art trades or requests. But watch out for scammers.

Lately, DA has been filled with AI art by people with no talent. Has even implemented an AI art generator when people PROTESTED profusely! We said no and they didn't listen.

Thinking about talking to the mods for help? Thinking again. They just have an FAQ list. No one is there to help you. This site isn't run by humans. No tickets or nothing.

Is it better than Pixiv? No. Is it better than Furaffinity? Absolutely. Now go post your fugly Prisma colored pencil drawing of Goku X Spiderman you dork!

I joined in 2005, long before the mess, and the site was there as intended... an art website. I really learned a lot as an artist and befriended other artists back in the day who used different media. It really did have artists from different backgrounds get to know one another.

It has changed over the years and people usually complain about change and that's normal. I never complained because it didn't affect me that profoundly.

Everything started going downhill a couple of year ago. The changes that were made had a negative impact on the website. Firing staff, changing the premiums to this ridiculous "core membership" and a CEO who's arrogant, selfish, and incredibly reckless. Less staff means less disciplinary actions.

I remember being a forum regular and back in the day you had decent threads with discussions. Now you have whiney teenage tryhards trying to troll as intensely as possible.

The website lost its appeal. It's a shame. The people who are complaining about the bullying and trolling aren't exaggerating. Seriously, we keep having trolls spam child porn and racist threads on the forums and it's taken mods way too long to shut them down.

Only way to save the website is either have a massive shift in management or sell it. I hate to see it go but it is what it is.

Thecsite is full of tryhard annoying trolls, spammers and pedophiles.
There are also too mich stalkers and bullies and it's impossible to report sonce the "help desk" update.

I found the site through friends 4-5 years ago and it was great. Until last year when they started to dramatically change things. The staff has gotten either lazier, stupider or maybe they do the same thing on their hidden accounts (who knows really) But harassment, trolls, theft and all the other bull crap on there has escalated and you can report all you want but they just tell you to block when about 2 years ago they would take action on these things. I have been harassed for over a YEAR, on and off and even on another site. They never done anything but two years ago they did something about a user going around my blocks and bans just to try and harass me.

I've been on and browsing dA since around 2006. It's not the same site.
Unless you do fanart or fetish art you'll get buried. There's not quality control, so you can open MS Paint, draw a smiley and potentially get more exposure than someone who actually worked on their art.
There's still some great artists, but it's too easy to get lost in utter $#*!e.

Suffers from a lot immature drama, people who don't want any artistic critism, and tons of lolcows and white knighting.

I wouldn't recommend this site for some viewers or to those who love to write, do photography, or any art hobby. My parents have a concern for those who are on that site like there could be sexual predators or pedophiles that could be posing as a girl, or guy. It depends. You have to be careful on this site I had trouble with cyber bullies. And it can be difficult referring to some safety concerns.

The Artist and Artist Community are great the company is terrible I have had nothing but issue and problems trying to buy anything from them and now the store is closing? I sure understand why! But I have a outstanding order over seven weeks old every time I ask about it they say well just wait another week and then they close my service request and won't respond back or reopen it that has now happened three weeks in a row.

This is a photo sharing site that used to be good, but is getting a bit out of hand. At first, it was a good site for photographers to have their photos critiqued. But for the past few years it's become a low class porn site which has lots of members uploading any jpeg file they wish, and downloading any poorly done porn they like. Comments are imbecilic. They are no longer critiques, just observations on the models it has been overloaded with lots of semi-porno type images, which seem to be the most popular. It is free to join, but don't, under any circumstances take the site administrators money for any supposed premium service.

Not a website I'd recommend. Yes. Sure. In the past it has been a lovely website. Recently, however, they have shown little to no regard for its users or even paying members of its site.

Such as with this latest fiasco they truly refuse to listen to their feedback about (they changed a submit page and forced thousands of its users to test it with no way to reveserse it or use a working submit page. They did not inform the users of this test, does not give them an opt out, does not provide a working alternative submit page, and has not informed any paritcipant of how long this test will last for. As well as refusing to listen to the users who've said the page was blinding, that it does not work for many, that a new submit page was not needed, that the previous submit page worked perfectly fine with no problems.).

Was this latest 'update' simply thrown at the community? Check. (Even though it is this time just a test group)
Negative opinions obviously getting ignored? Check. (If they wouldn't be ignored the new submission page would (most probably) at least be already deviantgreen, as that is the most demanded and asked thing even from the people who like the new submission page.)
Thus simply forcing it on (not just throwing at) the community? Check. (Everything until now was forced upon the community (excluding Beta-testers and Alpha-testers as they generally give their allowance). We didn't even get the simple option to choose/vote or even get informed somewhere about anything. (Even in the most recent "weekly site update" journal the new submission page is still listed being in "Beta-testing". No word about the normal member group and no word about it being mad because of the new submission page.)

http://comments.deviantart.com/61/*******/*******530
So, I guess I get the idea. DeviantART isn't a community(-driven) site, it's obviously your private site that you share with a community. You determine what it looks like and we're sitting here with the decision to stay and ask you to remove bugs from it or to simply leave. (We don't get to vote, nothing)
And if everything is right I've stated until now then the sentence "We will be really sad to see you go!" on the Deactivation page must be a blatant lie. (If the decision is really "Deal with it or get out of here")