I'm beating a dead horse with this, I know...

But I'm so tired of logging on to this website and seeing all of the "recently submitted" deviations.

I wish this website was about real art. Every time I log on, there's a few things I always see. Some 4 second piece made in MS Paint of a cat with tits and thigh high boots, a picture someone took for their MySpace and decided it should also be posted here and finally the camera phone picture of someones cat just hanging out with a god damned Christmas bow on it's head or something equally as retarded that nobody cares about.

Okay, I realize that everyone has different tastes when it comes to art and the never ending debate over what is and isn't art. This could go on for years like the Israeli/Gaza conflict. I'm not judging art by it's content so don't get me wrong...well, I might judge some things, but at least I'm grown up enough to know that people have different opinions and interests. I fully respect that even if I completely don't get it. So respect my opinion and don't take it personal if you unfortunately fit the Deviantart mold...

Can we start with the idea of quality over quantity? If you spent less than half an hour on something, maybe you should just post it straight into scraps or not even post it at all. This stuff I see that is so poorly made just enrages me. It's nothing more than little doodles that people just scanned into their computers with a shitty scanner or quickly put together in MS Paint over their lunch break. People sketch and doodle...if you have an idea for something you wanna draw, sketch it out. Doodle it all over the back of your math homework. But don't confuse it with something that belongs here. It's an idea. Take your idea and expand on it and see if you can't make it the best you can. THEN, and only then, should you post it. Which brings me to another point...if your deviation is on lined paper, please rethink posting it. Of course there are exceptions, but mostly, no. Just no.

Next...If you hold your camera at arms length, snap a picture of yourself, throw it into your photo editing software of choice, up the contrast and set it to gray scale, please just go away. Post it on your MySpace. It's not conveying anything more than the fact that you are not creative. DeviantID, okay, sure. Go for it. Actual deviation, no.

Finally...these pictures of cats. What is with the cats? I realize people like their cats. I love my cats. I have two of them. One is black, his name is Montel. The other one is a big fat ginger cat named Otis. They're nuts. I take pictures of them all the time. Then do you wanna know what I do with those pictures? I save them to a folder on my hard drive for later viewing. Wanna know what I don't do?? I don't post them here. Why? The same reason I don't post pictures of my families last Christmas together or the pics of me and the girls last weekend when we went to the bar and got hammered. Nobody here wants to see them. It's not art. It's not even photography. It's just pictures. I could take a macro shot of my bloody toenail-less middle toe on my right foot right now and post it here in the macabre section of photography, but I won't because it's not photography...it's a picture. There is a difference. PLUS, it's like every one of these pictures is the same. Looks like it was taken on a camera phone then uploaded directly from there to here. Can't you guys at least fix your white balance?? By all means, work with whatever equipment you have/can afford, but be creative, please. You'd be surprised at how far you can go. Save the rest of it for Flickr, though.

That's sort of the underlying thought to my whole rant. Creativity. Nobody has any. Everyone just copies each others shitty "art". I'm guilty of this too. Go look at my gallery. There's maybe two or three things in it that I might say I'm proud of. The rest of it is just marginally interesting to look at. Personally, I think that's disgusting. So many people out there doing interesting stuff, creative stuff, just overflowing with originality...and then the overwhelming majority who will post any piece of shit into their gallery. At least I can say that I don't have a picture of my cat, I don't have a MySpace picture of myself (well, maybe one, it could be debated, but at least I make fun of it in my description and don't take it seriously), and I don't have any craptastic MS Paint renderings...

This isn't about skill or resources. This is about posting stuff you can honestly say you're proud of. Don't tell me ya'll are proud of your mundane pictures of your weiner dogs wearing witch hats from four Halloweens ago that aren't even in focus because your weiner wouldn't sit still long enough for you to get it right. I know you're not. Don't lie to me. You're not stupid. You know it's just a picture. Just because there is a Photography: Domesticated Animals category doesn't mean that every picture of your pet should be posted. Just ask yourself this question next time you want to put something up: If someone else had posted this very same thing, would I consider it art? If your answer is no, don't post it. If someone else submitted a scan of a Lisa Frank fuzzy poster that they colored in with primary Roseart markers, would you consider it art? No? Then don't post it yourself. This website would be SO much more enjoyable if you didn't have to weed out the millions of submissions that shouldn't have been put there in the first place.

I am so over this journal that I don't even want to post it. But oh well. I didn't write it just so I could delete it. Feel free to rip me a new one in the comments.

(P.S. The first person who can find a deviation of a Lisa Frank fuzzy poster colored in with primary Roseart markers totally gets a prize. Like, a really, really good prize.)