I will disappear from DeviantArt by Rubilight, journal
I will disappear from DeviantArt
The only reason I haven't made a definitive "officially leaving DA" announcment post is because I've been on this site 16 years, that's more then half my life. Visiting DeviantArt has pretty much been a daily habit every day for all those years, it's a habit that has strong roots in me. But I'm going to start the uprooting process. Getting reminded every day that DeviantArt supports exploitation of artists is too much for my mental to deal with, and staying here would just be self-harm at this point. I spent a couple of days last week to save every piece I have in storage to my computer, so I'm not leaving anything important behind (except for the few of you that are lovely to hear from and talk to =( ). I had to save 1200 pictures, which I felt like I had to do sooner or later considering how things are going for this dumpster fire of a site. (Having to reintroduce ads and wanting a cut from artist's adoptable sales is not giving vibes of a thriving site lol, check team's recent
I'm just so fucking disappointed that so many people can't see what AI image generators actually are - A tool invented for exploitation. Which is a point that gets lost over and over again in these AI discussions, which is exactly why AI will win. I can't tell if people that are pro-AI are aware why these AI image generators work in the first place, I suspect most don't. It's because they have scraped art that artist's have shared online, without their consent. (And the fact that it was posted in a public space does not fucking justify theft. If you went outside and had your wallet stolen, I bet your attitude wouldn't be "well lol darn, that's okay though becuase I was in a public space".) And these fucking nihilist fuck boys that never grew out of their 15 year old edge phase that argue that "AI learns or get inspiration just like humans do, so it's fine" are so damn anti-human. They show more humanity and empathy for this damn image algorithm then the actual real people being