---
author:
email: mail@petermolnar.net
image: https://petermolnar.net/favicon.jpg
name: Peter Molnar
url: https://petermolnar.net
copies:
- http://web.archive.org/web/20140909113338/https://petermolnar.eu/journal/pulling-out-from-deviantart/
lang: en
published: '2014-06-23T09:02:23+00:00'
summary: I registered to DeviantArt 9,5 years ago and I've just removed all of my
submissions today.
tags:
- internet
title: Pulling out from DeviantArt
---
I registered to deviantART 9,5 years ago and I've just removed all of my
submissions today.
deviantART was - and still is - a miraculous place. You're surrounded
with art, photographs, illustrations, from amateur scratches to
masterpieces, from all around the world. It's a perfect place to go and
just get lost in the flow, click by click. You can find any kind of art
there, from portraits to linux software themes, and it's also one of the
currently active sites with the longest memory, going back 14 years.
I've joined to be able to look around and only started uploading
anything years later. I had two reasons: that time I believed I might
want to do photography for a living, so I wanted attention; and I wanted
to see if I could sell any of my pictures. I even thought to use
deviantART as my main profile site for a little while \~6 years ago.
Neither of them worked, mainly because my photographs were not good
enough to hold people's attention but also because it is way
overcrowded. There are brilliant photographers on that site, just left
in the dust.
And it's also a silo, a walled garden. They have DMCA address and even
when you're clicking a link to an artist's website you're reminded "You
are now leaving deviantART.com. Be warned! Out there be monsters.". Even
Facebook stopped doing this. The other thing is don't get is the
internet-in-the-internet effect. How often do you come across with a
pictures from deviantART in Google Image Search? Only if the subject or
the artist matches. No tags, no metadata, just like Instagram[^1].
I still love the art on deviantART, but not the site itself; those days
are passed. We'd be better off with an art aggregator, pulling
individual artist sites, without potential licence issues[^2] but with
the wandering around in art effect in place.
## UPDATE (2014-07-11 12:33)
A few hours after I published my post, I received a mail from
deviantART. ( I was so surprised I checked the mail server logs if it
was really coming from their servers; it was. )
> My name is \[...\], and I work at deviantART in Marketing. I came
> across your blog post outlining your reasons for leaving deviantART. I
> wanted to let you know that we've passed this information along to our
> Product team.
> We really appreciate your insight and we're extremely sad to see you
> leave deviantART after 9.5 years. If you have any additional thoughts
> or suggestions you'd like to pass along, please feel free to share
> anytime. Also, if you reconsider leaving, let us know!
> Thank you for your thoughts and time.
> \[...\] *( I removed the name from the letter for privacy reasons. )*
This is very rare and very surprising in a good way: deviantART is out
there, listening to all of our voices. I believe none of the other
social networks or photo/art sharing site would have done this.
[^1]:
[^2]: