Some people may be wondering why, after 5 years of being a regular on the art site, DeviantArt, I decided to stop uploading to them.
I had over 700 people watching my art, and almost 300 pictures uploaded. I even had a paid account, and it was one of those websites I visited daily. Well, here is your reason.

DeviantArt had a feature on their site known as a 'Daily Deviation'.
This is a piece of art, chosen by the moderators of the site, which is showcased as a supposed example of an exceptional piece of work. Though often, the merits of the piece is down to the specific tastes of the moderator who chose it, the general idea is that these are meant to be pieces that stand out from the crowd and deserve extra recognition.

Most artists on DA never get the honor of a Daily Deviation, but most would love the accolade as it brings significantly more recognition to the artist, exposing their work to those who would possibly never see it otherwise.

Daily Deviations have always been a hot button issue at DeviantArt, as people often disagree with the art that is chosen, considering it unworthy of Daily Deviation status, or else are unhappy that some of the more popular artists get multiple Daily Deviations while other less popular, but possibly more talented, artists go ignored.

In June of 2009, DeviantArt decided to award a Daily Deviation to a photograph of a snake constricting a rat.
The rat was not a pre-killed/frozen animal as the moderators chose to believe, but rather a live rat, the face of whom demonostrated every single ounce of pain and terror she was feeling.
I will not link to the photo here as I do not think it deserves any extra page views or attention, and do not want links to deliberate animal abuse anywhere on my site. However, it does not take an excessive amount of imagination to picture it in your mind.

I stumbled upon this photo one day and my decision to leave was almost instantaneous.
It did not even require consideration.
Had this been a photograph of a puppy or a kitten being suffocated to death, there is no way in hell it would ever have been allowed on the site, much less given the privilege of a Daily Deviation.
But in yet another case of the omnipresent 'one rule for rats, one rule for all other animals' trend, it seems no-one on DeviantArt's staff saw a problem with the photo since it was 'only a rat'.

DeviantArt is a huge community with thousands of uploads a day. And sadly, there are several photos floating about on there of dead rats or general rat abuse, including other photos of snake's killing them.
However, by giving this one particular photo a Daily Deviation, DeviantArt were sending the clear signal that they not only knew these pictures existed, but they considered them to be acceptable and even worthy of praise and awards.
They basically stuck a huge middle finger up at me, and every other rat lover on the site by giving such a coveted award to what was basically a photo of a domestic animal being tortured. Would they show such disrespect and disregard to the feelings of dog lovers, or cat lovers? Take a guess.

The hypocrisy of DeviantArt was obvious in this situation.
The moderators of the site have been known to remove photos uploaded of taxidermy, road-kill animals and naturally deceased animals, considering them to be inappropriate. Yet if the animal is still alive and being slowly killed infront of the camera, they not only accept it, they congratulate it.
DeviantArt has also always been highly hypocritical when it comes to other issues on the site, one example being sexual content.
A cartoon drawing of two anthro characters in a passionate embrace with no sexual organs showing was removed as being too sexual. A drawn cartoon of two rats on top of one another, again, with nothing sexual on show, was also removed for being inappropriate. And yet they site happily allows photos of gaping vaginas, girls masturbating, tits, arses and penises with no artistic value.
Many of the latter are given Daily Deviations.

By the above description, you'd be forgiven for questioning what DeviantArt is really about, and if, indeed, it even is art anymore.
Well, there are a lot of very talented artists, photographers, writers and sculpters on the site, but unfortunately, most of them get brushed aside and rarely get the recognition they deserve, while people who upload blatantly pornographic photos or photos of animal abuse as heralded as artistic gods. Indeed it is this which has caused many artists to leave the site over the years.
DeviantArt's moderating team have an extremely 'what we say goes!' approach to the site, with very little respect for their users, many of whom pump money into the site via subscriptions and advertising.

DeviantArt's response

As if the above situation wasn't bad enough, you may be interested in the response I recieved from a moderator on DeviantArt when I contacted him to express disapproval at the photo, and mentioned I may leave over it. Below are the responses, copied and pasted directly from the notes I recieved, for you to make your own mind up about:

"lol whatever. Good luck with that Cheers. Now please take the dArama somewhere else. Thanks!"

When I asked whether the image would have been allowed had it been a puppy or a kitten in place of a rat, I recieved this:

"I have DD'd Wolves killing Elk, a cat bring back a dead Rat to it's litter, and so forth. It is N A T U R E."

Clearly, he is unable to tell the difference between a scene that occurs in a natural setting without any interference from man, as in all the above examples, and a scene that occurs in someone's living room involving a domestic animal someone has just purchased to take photos of while it dies.
I once again asked whether the image would be allowed had it been a puppy or kitten involved.
I recieved this:

"Blah blah blah I am not even gonna read this, hi and welcome to my block list. Any farther attempt at contacting me will be referred to CEA. Later"

Sounds like a little beginner website with perhaps a young teen with no business skills in charge, doesn't it?
Sadly, the site is one of the biggest and most well known art sites on the internet, with over 3 million registered users.

So there you have it. DeviantArt not only glorifies and supports animal abuse, it has an incompetant moderating team who are evidently unable to do their job with maturity and professionalism.
I ask you to consider this when wondering whether to sign up, continue your account or pay for a subscription. These people do not care about their users, they do not care about animals, and god help you if you ever dare complain about anything.

From now on, my art will only be posted at this website, my FurAffinity account, and my Storm-Artists account.