Fishing for Compliments

Fishing for Compliments (2006)

Here's one hot off the monitor...

Ever hung around an online art community for any length of time? If so, you know how this kind of fishing requires virtues other than patience. Yes, that -- and soaking up all the bonding -- and finally finding serenity through suffering many clique fortresses and much self-inflicted, constant competition.

Let's listen in on some actual comments from deviantart courtesy of Urban Dictionary:

deviantart is awesome apart from all the people submitting shit just to get attention.

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Guy: I was on DeviantART the other day, my picture got six views! I even got one favorite!

Me: I was on SheezyART the other day too. After customizing my user-page, I submitted some art. It stayed on the front page for more than 8 minutes. Then I found pirate gold in my basement.

Guy: Sheezy art is for gay fags who are gay and like to be fags that are gay.

Me: Ok.

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Good news. Absolutely every shitty sketch and dumb wallpaper anyone has ever made is now considered art.

Most of the people wouldn't know real art if it smacked them upside the face.

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Writer is to LiveJournal as artist is to DeviantArt.

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You go do DA just because you like vampires? YOU THINK YOU ARE ONE?!!!???.....dude....get a fuckin life.

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Deviantart Person 1: ^^ omg yay.
Deviantart Person 2: What?!??!
Deviantart Person 1: I heart Jrock good.
Deviantart Person 2: What does that have to do with art? You are so part of that cult...

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deviantart seems like a good idea, but read before you submit and think if you really need this.

Meanwhile, there's more good cheer spreading over at Renderosity...

I contacted this person, who goes by XXXXXXXXXX at Renderosity, and asked him to elaborate on his comment, which was only "interesting", and was responded to in a manner I found quite disturbing. Incoherent ramblings, disjointed thought patterns, and this moron THEN wanted me to jump through hoops to explain everything about my piece, while he basically called it a worthless piece of crap. I didn't want him to raise his score, just consider withdrawing it, since it just is basically "hiding" my piece from potential clients who might consider giving me some work. Who am I kidding? Does ANYBODY get graphic work from their Renderosity gallery? I'd like to keep hoping.

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I can empathize with the frustration. But let's look at renderosity for a moment and truely take in it's "value".

It is basically a T and A flash pot of Poser "wanna be" graphics people. Followed by Photoscrape maniacs who think filters are high art.

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Every time I post something, I make a judgement call about the rankings. Usually, these days, I turn them off. But that also means that the image has zero chance of ever getting into the Best Rankings. I don't care about that for myself (sure, it's gratifying, but it doesn't make me a better or worse artist), but the Best Rankings section is something that a lot of potential users go to in order to evaluate a software.

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ah, good ole 'rosity, and it's numbers. I have a long history there, and I made a decission long long ago to not allow numbers to be placed on my work by the masses. None of us need that sort of validation. Really. There are many factors behind what "score" a viewer places on a piece of art, and not all of them have anything to do with the actual painting. Possibly few of the reasons have to do with your art. Your score can be raised or lowered based on wether you used a product sold there or not. Your score can be raised or lowered based on wether there is a busty nude woman in the picture. Or a faerie. Your score can be raised or lowered based on wether you are part of a clique.

It is sad, it sucks, it will never change.

Use Renderosity (and the whole net for that matter) as a place to play, learn, post your art, and enjoy, but don't let the numbers have power, they are meaningless.

I remember having a conversation with Tim over at Fractal Beanstalk who noted that artists probably outgrow the need for these places. Artists hit a kind of critical mass aesthetic puberty and come to understand such cyber lounges are more about hanging around a chatty community than exhibiting work in an art gallery.