Leaving deviantART
After 15 years on the site, I've decided to shut down my deviantART account, and it's a decision I've not made lightly. I've posted a lot of art, made some good friends, and even been a dA Core subscriber a time or two over the years, but things have changed there, and not for the better.
Getting the minor complaints out of the way first, nobody liked the new UI, or their new logo. I also absolutely hated their April Fools Day pranks so much that I actively avoided their site on April 1st for years. Even their llama badges got real annoying real quick.
But things have only gotten worse from there. deviantART has dropped the ball on several major developments in the art world. Back when NFTs were plaguing us, they introduced art theft protection features that notified users when some finance bro stole their art and minted it as an NFT. That feature was a great step in the right direction, and it should've been available to all users by default… but putting it behind a paywall and making it exclusive to dA Core users meant that step landed squarely on a banana peel.
My breaking point came when they fully embraced imitative AI, even going so far as to implement their own model, DreamUp, which is no doubt trained on dA users' data. Even worse, their AI suppression settings barely work, considering that they were still advertising paid AI content packs at me even though the images themselves were suppressed. Their anti-scraping settings work on an opt-out basis and functionally use the honor system, which is beyond ridiculous. It's basically an unlocked gate with no fence around it. I'm wholeheartedly against AI. It is not art; it's barely even media. It's content, and I mean that in the most derogatory sense of the word.
Protecting user data should be any website's number one priority, but with deviantART, I see that it's not. By locking important security features behind a paywall and fully embracing AI, deviantART has become actively hostile to artists. My work is not safe there, and if they won't protect my intellectual property, I will. So I've scrubbed my dA gallery, looked up all the people I watch and sought them out elsewhere online, and deactivated my account. I'll miss the people whose only online presence appeared to be on dA.
I'm still active on Furaffinity, Twitter (I'm never calling it "X,") and Bluesky, and I'll do my best to become more active here on Newgrounds (in fact, I was here first before signing up for dA, so it's time I get back to my roots.) I know AI is not allowed here, but I'll still take steps to protect my work from the tech bro menace.
Other News
Ending on a brighter topic, I recently upgraded my internet connection, so now I actually have the bandwidth to start streaming art and games. I've even been teaching myself 3D modeling in Blender by building my fursona, Foxy Gekkerson, as a 3D model. Once he's ready, I'll set him up as a v-tuber avatar for streams and recordings.
Until next time, stay foxy!
Foxy Gekkerson