The community can be toxic? How? I've seen mostly positivity, perhaps I've yet to scratch the surface of the community. Is it deviantart as a whole or the vore community?
This rant contains so much truth that it makes me cry tears of agreement, understandment, regret, reflection and several other concepts known to man. Being a kink artist is a very special kind of hell which I've been through and was really uncomfortable with. The thing about leaving hit me right in the gut because that's kinda what happened to me. It was an asshole thing to do but at that time I was at a point where it felt kind of uncomfortable staying in the community, especially since I'm also a part of a different creative community where I've made many close friends. This community became way more active so I let this thing rest for a while, then another while and after some time it felt like a point of no return. It became worse when my community found out about some weird fetishes and started making fun of them because hell, this is totally reasonable. And boy does it feel weird trying to make it seem like I'm seeing this thing for the very first time, made worse by the fact that almost all of you guys are nothing less but real celebrities for me. "Y-yeah, right, what are they thinking, these uhh.. wacky people with their grossly deformed belly things, hehe. A-and, this vore thing is really strange, too, yeah." This is made EVEN WORSE by the fact that I myself have been responsible for some crappy low-res animations other people would just laugh about. I really really dread the day my friends will find out about this weird thing of mine. Especially my gf. It feels like I'm a bizarre kind of superhero who has to hide his true embarassing nature behind a wall of the exact opposite of this nature.
Phew, let's hope it all turns out well in the end.
Phew, let's hope it all turns out well in the end.
Perhaps a bit of it is symptomatic of general trends on dA as a whole, but I was mainly referring to the vore/stuffing/whateverelsefillsabelly kink community. I've only been an active artist on here for like, 2 and a half years but I've lurked ever since I got that intial, "Hm.. Bellies!!" epiphany as a prepubescent dorkeror supreme. And I've seen lots and lots of artists just come and go, sprouting up and getting snuffed out over and over again. And what I've only recently, in the past year or so, realized is that it's because actually being a kink artist fatigues you quite quickly.
(To preface this a little more, let me first say that most people who enter into the kink community are drawing for the first time. Drawing niche porn is, funnily enough, a huge motivator to get people to start drawing. And that's fine, even expected, but it's really tough for young artists to handle the situation being a kink artist puts them into.)
I mean, first off, there's that initial, surface-level shame of "oh, I draw weird smut on the Internet". You'd think it's easy enough to brush off, I mean anybody who's generally worth knowing or talking to isn't gonna judge you for your weird fetish. But it still kinda hurts, even only slightly, when you inevitably either see a comment directed at you in the vein of "ew wtf" or you even just hear someone talking in general about how fucked up your fetish is. But hell, even disregarding that , you run into the problem of "I can't show my friends and family IRL what I'm drawing". Now that, that fucks with you. When you work so hard on a piece that happens to be fetish, spend hours on it, and can only show it off to monosyllabic reptiles on dA. The ones that go "cute" and maybe fav it, and that's it. There's no human element of seeing your friend's eyes light up and mouth go wide as they say how much they like what you drew. And maybe you're like me, and you say "Oh yeah I was drawing all night last night" to a friend who goes "Ooooh, can I see what you drew?". And you're forced to sort of back pedal and stammer your way out of the conversation shamefully, as you realize that no, you cannot actually show them what you drew.
And sure, maybe at first the meager praise you get, the "omg so sexy" and the "cute belly" responses, maybe it can sustain you. You garner a small audience, that blindly praises everything kink-related you do. Kink related being the key-word. Inevitably, literally inevitably, every artist hits that awful epiphany that all their watchers only watched them because what they're drawing is kink, and they'll just eat that shit up. You post a normal pictures you worked on over the weekend, get maybe 12 favorites. You post a fetish picture of Lucy from Fairy Tale you did in an afternoon, bam, 100 favorites. See what I'm saying? More often than not, the artist gets the feeling that the community and audience doesn't like them for their art, they like them because they're just another generator of art for their niche fetish .
This is where it gets REALLY toxic for you, as an artist. You have a couple of choices at this point. Or rather, a couple of things can happen. You can stick your head up your ass and bask in the shallow praise, be the fucking standard bearer for your fetish, and in all honestly, probably stagnate. You become okay with mining the cheap praise by drawing SOLELY (key word being solely) X-anime-protagonist-with-the-belly, and your artistic passions become utterly consumed by the fetish. And in all honestly, you have to respect that, to some degree. If that's what the artist truly WANTS to do, you cannot fault them. That's their choice, you cannot expect everyone to reach for the vast and terrible, and even unrewarding heavens. Some folks just wanna draw porn, and that's cool. But, as I state in the beginning, this happens to BEGINNERS. Folks who do not KNOW where they want their art passion to go. They just end up doing this because it feels good, and godammit, an artist NEEDS an audience. It's like a kid getting addicted to tobacco to please his cool friends, not because he just wants to smoke. So, the novice stunts his own growth by solely drawing fetish pictures.
On a quick tangent, why does it stunt growth? Because there's a formula, god damn it, to drawing fetish art and it's really obvious and really lucrative and really really bad for you as an artist. 3/4ths standing bellied anime character will please 99% of your audience. You can recycle poses and faces and nobody will even really notice or care. So if the audience doesn't give a shit, why should the artist? I've seen tons of folks grow over the years, only in their rendering capabilities. The coloring gets nicer, maybe the linework too, but fuck, hands? Psh, who the fuck needs to draw HANDS? They still lack the same fundamentals they did when they first started. Fetish artwork is not conducive, nine-times-out-of-ten to actually IMPROVING at art. And I am not saying this as some separate-entity, some god-king that's overlooking all of you poor bastards. No, I am effected by this as well. I should be better, but I fucked myself and am not where I should be because I sat on my hands drawing fetish porn of anime characters, so now I'm laughably playing catch-up .
Regardless, back to my original train of thought, the artist either sticks his head in a hole or.. Well.. Just fuckin' leaves! It's really an obvious solution. "Oh, hey, this fetish art is getting me down. I'm just gonna.. Stop." is a perfectly reasonable and logical thought process. So, you know, the artist leaves and usually it's just a "well that's all she wrote" kinda thing. Most of the audience sighs because no more fat Hinata pictures, some of them lament because they actually liked the artist, but we all just sort of shrug and move on. Rarely is there that human element of actually missing them. Most folks make few friends in this community, like actual genuine friends, that would notice if they were gone. It's kinda fucked up, in a way. You do some art-trades with folks, answer some requests, maybe even joke around in the comments sometimes, but when you pack up your bags, are you gonna get any notes from people like, "Hey can we keep in touch?". No, probably not.
I'll be entirely honest, I got fucking lucky. I must thank the fetish community for giving me the initial motivation to start drawing but I'd be a million miles away from this community if it wasn't for people I met like BossBUG, YourBestClownFriend, and plenty of others who I'm sorry I'm not mentioning but you know who you are. People who were actually HUMAN and liked my stuff because they liked it, not because it was fetishy. They had senses of humor and treated me like a normal person. They gave me that natural, actually productive sort of audience of peers that gave a healthy external drive to draw until I had my own internal desire to continue drawing and pursue it.
TL;DR THE KINK COMMUNITY GIVES YOU CONDITIONAL LOVE THAT MANY BEGINNER ARTISTS GROW TO UNHEALTHILY DEPEND UPON, WHEREAS THEY ACTUALLY NEED UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR THEIR ART AND ACTUAL FRIENDSHIPS THAT AREN'T BASED SOLELY ON DRAWING SHITTY PORN FOR EACH OTHER, SO THAT THEY CAN GROW AS ARTISTS TO THE POINT WHERE THEY ARE TRULY DRAWING FOR THEMSELVES
But I mean, I'm sitting here complaining like the old man I am but are there any solutions to this? Is it something that CAN be fixed? Does it even NEED fixing? I'm just going to be a shit head and shrug. I dunno! Let me be clear, it is selfish and unreasonable to try and MAKE people care about people's art for more than just fetishy reasons. I am not trying to shame the folks who just want a boner or lady-boner. Those people have just as much right to be around and consume art as the rest of us. (Minor tangent: Personally, I think we should try and shy AWAY from gross comments like "mm sexy" as a community. If you wanna go around and make RedTube level comments, go ahead, but I just think it'd be nice if we, as a whole, weren't so BLATANTLY sex-driven. Yeah, it's a fetish so it is inherently sex-driven, but you can have some tact about things, in my opinion.) Regardless, I think if we wanted to foster a more productive community, I think it'd be nice to just, well, be human to one another. Remember that the faceless web-page that spews forth pictures for you to get your rocks off has a PERSON behind it, an actual honest-to-god person. I can make a laundry list of whiny things like "oh comment on normal art guys come oooon" but that wouldn't change anything.
I'm leaving this to your discretion, whoever reads this. Kink artists are humans, so try and treat them as such and not 2-D fetish automaton. Why? Because it's worth it, dammit.
ALSO I AM SORRY FOR RAMBLING ON SO LONG, YOU PROBABLY WANTED A NORMAL RESPONSE BUT I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ON THIS SUBJECT
(To preface this a little more, let me first say that most people who enter into the kink community are drawing for the first time. Drawing niche porn is, funnily enough, a huge motivator to get people to start drawing. And that's fine, even expected, but it's really tough for young artists to handle the situation being a kink artist puts them into.)
I mean, first off, there's that initial, surface-level shame of "oh, I draw weird smut on the Internet". You'd think it's easy enough to brush off, I mean anybody who's generally worth knowing or talking to isn't gonna judge you for your weird fetish. But it still kinda hurts, even only slightly, when you inevitably either see a comment directed at you in the vein of "ew wtf" or you even just hear someone talking in general about how fucked up your fetish is. But hell, even disregarding that , you run into the problem of "I can't show my friends and family IRL what I'm drawing". Now that, that fucks with you. When you work so hard on a piece that happens to be fetish, spend hours on it, and can only show it off to monosyllabic reptiles on dA. The ones that go "cute" and maybe fav it, and that's it. There's no human element of seeing your friend's eyes light up and mouth go wide as they say how much they like what you drew. And maybe you're like me, and you say "Oh yeah I was drawing all night last night" to a friend who goes "Ooooh, can I see what you drew?". And you're forced to sort of back pedal and stammer your way out of the conversation shamefully, as you realize that no, you cannot actually show them what you drew.
And sure, maybe at first the meager praise you get, the "omg so sexy" and the "cute belly" responses, maybe it can sustain you. You garner a small audience, that blindly praises everything kink-related you do. Kink related being the key-word. Inevitably, literally inevitably, every artist hits that awful epiphany that all their watchers only watched them because what they're drawing is kink, and they'll just eat that shit up. You post a normal pictures you worked on over the weekend, get maybe 12 favorites. You post a fetish picture of Lucy from Fairy Tale you did in an afternoon, bam, 100 favorites. See what I'm saying? More often than not, the artist gets the feeling that the community and audience doesn't like them for their art, they like them because they're just another generator of art for their niche fetish .
This is where it gets REALLY toxic for you, as an artist. You have a couple of choices at this point. Or rather, a couple of things can happen. You can stick your head up your ass and bask in the shallow praise, be the fucking standard bearer for your fetish, and in all honestly, probably stagnate. You become okay with mining the cheap praise by drawing SOLELY (key word being solely) X-anime-protagonist-with-the-belly, and your artistic passions become utterly consumed by the fetish. And in all honestly, you have to respect that, to some degree. If that's what the artist truly WANTS to do, you cannot fault them. That's their choice, you cannot expect everyone to reach for the vast and terrible, and even unrewarding heavens. Some folks just wanna draw porn, and that's cool. But, as I state in the beginning, this happens to BEGINNERS. Folks who do not KNOW where they want their art passion to go. They just end up doing this because it feels good, and godammit, an artist NEEDS an audience. It's like a kid getting addicted to tobacco to please his cool friends, not because he just wants to smoke. So, the novice stunts his own growth by solely drawing fetish pictures.
On a quick tangent, why does it stunt growth? Because there's a formula, god damn it, to drawing fetish art and it's really obvious and really lucrative and really really bad for you as an artist. 3/4ths standing bellied anime character will please 99% of your audience. You can recycle poses and faces and nobody will even really notice or care. So if the audience doesn't give a shit, why should the artist? I've seen tons of folks grow over the years, only in their rendering capabilities. The coloring gets nicer, maybe the linework too, but fuck, hands? Psh, who the fuck needs to draw HANDS? They still lack the same fundamentals they did when they first started. Fetish artwork is not conducive, nine-times-out-of-ten to actually IMPROVING at art. And I am not saying this as some separate-entity, some god-king that's overlooking all of you poor bastards. No, I am effected by this as well. I should be better, but I fucked myself and am not where I should be because I sat on my hands drawing fetish porn of anime characters, so now I'm laughably playing catch-up .
Regardless, back to my original train of thought, the artist either sticks his head in a hole or.. Well.. Just fuckin' leaves! It's really an obvious solution. "Oh, hey, this fetish art is getting me down. I'm just gonna.. Stop." is a perfectly reasonable and logical thought process. So, you know, the artist leaves and usually it's just a "well that's all she wrote" kinda thing. Most of the audience sighs because no more fat Hinata pictures, some of them lament because they actually liked the artist, but we all just sort of shrug and move on. Rarely is there that human element of actually missing them. Most folks make few friends in this community, like actual genuine friends, that would notice if they were gone. It's kinda fucked up, in a way. You do some art-trades with folks, answer some requests, maybe even joke around in the comments sometimes, but when you pack up your bags, are you gonna get any notes from people like, "Hey can we keep in touch?". No, probably not.
I'll be entirely honest, I got fucking lucky. I must thank the fetish community for giving me the initial motivation to start drawing but I'd be a million miles away from this community if it wasn't for people I met like BossBUG, YourBestClownFriend, and plenty of others who I'm sorry I'm not mentioning but you know who you are. People who were actually HUMAN and liked my stuff because they liked it, not because it was fetishy. They had senses of humor and treated me like a normal person. They gave me that natural, actually productive sort of audience of peers that gave a healthy external drive to draw until I had my own internal desire to continue drawing and pursue it.
TL;DR THE KINK COMMUNITY GIVES YOU CONDITIONAL LOVE THAT MANY BEGINNER ARTISTS GROW TO UNHEALTHILY DEPEND UPON, WHEREAS THEY ACTUALLY NEED UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR THEIR ART AND ACTUAL FRIENDSHIPS THAT AREN'T BASED SOLELY ON DRAWING SHITTY PORN FOR EACH OTHER, SO THAT THEY CAN GROW AS ARTISTS TO THE POINT WHERE THEY ARE TRULY DRAWING FOR THEMSELVES
But I mean, I'm sitting here complaining like the old man I am but are there any solutions to this? Is it something that CAN be fixed? Does it even NEED fixing? I'm just going to be a shit head and shrug. I dunno! Let me be clear, it is selfish and unreasonable to try and MAKE people care about people's art for more than just fetishy reasons. I am not trying to shame the folks who just want a boner or lady-boner. Those people have just as much right to be around and consume art as the rest of us. (Minor tangent: Personally, I think we should try and shy AWAY from gross comments like "mm sexy" as a community. If you wanna go around and make RedTube level comments, go ahead, but I just think it'd be nice if we, as a whole, weren't so BLATANTLY sex-driven. Yeah, it's a fetish so it is inherently sex-driven, but you can have some tact about things, in my opinion.) Regardless, I think if we wanted to foster a more productive community, I think it'd be nice to just, well, be human to one another. Remember that the faceless web-page that spews forth pictures for you to get your rocks off has a PERSON behind it, an actual honest-to-god person. I can make a laundry list of whiny things like "oh comment on normal art guys come oooon" but that wouldn't change anything.
I'm leaving this to your discretion, whoever reads this. Kink artists are humans, so try and treat them as such and not 2-D fetish automaton. Why? Because it's worth it, dammit.
ALSO I AM SORRY FOR RAMBLING ON SO LONG, YOU PROBABLY WANTED A NORMAL RESPONSE BUT I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ON THIS SUBJECT
Well spoken, Worm. Well spoken indeed. :>
And you're absolutely right, conditional love is extremely unhealthy and doesn't help an artist's growth in the least!
And you're absolutely right, conditional love is extremely unhealthy and doesn't help an artist's growth in the least!
You, sir, are a fucking hero. You should be the voice of the Internet, or at least, some of us artists here on dA.
hehe, cheers man
I've haven't really posted any fetish art on my page but if you look in my favorites you see tons of it. I guess i may be scared of rejection from the community so I've never posted any, if I can kick my ass into gear maybe I can draw SOMETHING but for now I'm stuck. If I post things it mostly be normal stuff with some fetish things, I'm a shy Maiusophile with Aspergers. I also I feel I got lucky because I got some human responses for my pictures I have posted I do have few watchers and am a little worried they'll leave if I post fetish art.
Nicely said.
The community can be toxic to people who are in it for one reason only. The sad thing is that as the community has grown, those beginngin artist, many become so attached to the IV of the favs and comments that it links to their very identity.
About 4 years after I started posting publicly in the community I had my own crisis. Was I defined by my art or was I simply feeding on the praise. I wasn't getting any better. I was just churning out story after story.
I decided at that point to become better. I chose to become someone who wrote highly sensual kinky stuff, but that wasn't my only genre. I started branching out, taking classes to improve and practicing. I have so many books on writing now its not funny. Have I improved? I would like to think so.
Speaking from many years of experience (more than I really want to admit) I have to say you painted a pretty good picture of the community, both here and elsewhere and provided some advice on how to treat people.
Well said, thank you for the time and effort to reply to this.
The community can be toxic to people who are in it for one reason only. The sad thing is that as the community has grown, those beginngin artist, many become so attached to the IV of the favs and comments that it links to their very identity.
About 4 years after I started posting publicly in the community I had my own crisis. Was I defined by my art or was I simply feeding on the praise. I wasn't getting any better. I was just churning out story after story.
I decided at that point to become better. I chose to become someone who wrote highly sensual kinky stuff, but that wasn't my only genre. I started branching out, taking classes to improve and practicing. I have so many books on writing now its not funny. Have I improved? I would like to think so.
Speaking from many years of experience (more than I really want to admit) I have to say you painted a pretty good picture of the community, both here and elsewhere and provided some advice on how to treat people.
Well said, thank you for the time and effort to reply to this.
That's exactly the response I was hoping for, and I appreciate the reply. I agree on a lot of what you said. It's clear that most fetish artists are just fetish printing machines and nothing more to the common community. I don't fully understand the struggles quite yet, as I have yet to draw anything (Because I'm horrible at drawing) but when I do, I'll most certainly remember this. If I decide to draw any fetish art, it would be best on a separate account instead of an all in one. But some fetish artists really dig themselves their own grave by drawing that and that alone. That's why I like animatedjames. (Can't link names on mobile) he draws regular stuff on one account and fetish art on another, which is good. Not everyone wants to see some random anime girl bloated like a balloon because why not. I'm not against it at all, but it's to appeal to the general public because, let's face it, some stupid kid will just leave "ew wtf is that?" Kind of responses when they're looking for, let's say regular pictures of Hatsune Miku and they get all sorts of bizarre results and decide to comment for no reason.
On another note, typing on mobile is annoying, so I'll end my reply here.
On another note, typing on mobile is annoying, so I'll end my reply here.
I was shwn this by another Deviant. and now I'm spreading it to FurAffinity if thats ok.
Sweet Jesus...
May I have your permission to link this comment in a journal?
Because this spoke to my freaking soul.
I wish I had something to add to this, but I feel like you've covered all the bases in a way I feel I couldn't do justice.
Thanks for this, I've been on dA for years now, made a lot of friends, and like to think i'm coming into my own. But this still felt like something I needed to hear, and feels like something damn near everyone in the community should hear as well.
May I have your permission to link this comment in a journal?
Because this spoke to my freaking soul.
I wish I had something to add to this, but I feel like you've covered all the bases in a way I feel I couldn't do justice.
Thanks for this, I've been on dA for years now, made a lot of friends, and like to think i'm coming into my own. But this still felt like something I needed to hear, and feels like something damn near everyone in the community should hear as well.
hah, sure man go ahead, i'm just glad i could help
My thanks, good sir.
Honestly this is something I want to copy and paste everywhere because I completely agree, but was unable to formulate the words. I always wanted to think too that I can do better, and I try for what its worth, but then no one notices or points things out so whats the point?
To be honest, before this I never shown or had signs of depression. I never really feel it until the concept of art comes back. And even worse it goes out to other people so I want to apologise for it myself.
So I have to justify it to myself in some ways or just say screw it, it's for me and anyone else can just take a hike.
I think the worst part is, because of all the bland thanks as well, we really also devolved into the hugbox mentality even if it's not what we want and outwardly say. It's almost been conditioned.
If it was to happen though, where would we 'start' to make things right?
To be honest, before this I never shown or had signs of depression. I never really feel it until the concept of art comes back. And even worse it goes out to other people so I want to apologise for it myself.
So I have to justify it to myself in some ways or just say screw it, it's for me and anyone else can just take a hike.
I think the worst part is, because of all the bland thanks as well, we really also devolved into the hugbox mentality even if it's not what we want and outwardly say. It's almost been conditioned.
If it was to happen though, where would we 'start' to make things right?
Nowhere! It's laughable to try and earnestly mobilize our loosely connected community into what we deem is "right". That just sounds circle-jerky and exhausting. A much more organic and vague solution is in order, which is: Be cool and human to people you wanna be cool and human to, and remain aware and remind others that at the end of the day, you gotta draw for yourself. That's all, really.
circle-jerky is going to happen regardless.
thats why we need friends, we need to be honest and hard with each other.
thats why we need friends, we need to be honest and hard with each other.
