Saw an old DeviantArt watermark on a piece and it hit me different

I was scrolling through some digital art tonight and saw a piece with that classic DeviantArt watermark grid still on it. Made me think about how my friends and I used to post our stuff there around 2009 or so, trying to get noticed. Now it feels like everyone jumps straight to Instagram or ArtStation and we barely see those old watermarks anymore. That piece was from 2011 and it had like 400 comments which felt huge back then. Anyone else miss how that community felt before everything got so polished and algorithm driven?

2 comments

2 Comments

jordan6536d ago

The shift to Instagram and ArtStation really killed that weird sense of discovery DeviantArt had. You could stumble on someone's experimental sketch with like 50 views and it felt like finding a hidden gem. Now the algorithm just feeds you the same popular artists until you're sick of seeing them. Those old comment sections were gold too, people actually left detailed critiques instead of just dropping an emoji and moving on. The watermark grid was annoying as hell but it also meant you knew exactly where the piece came from and could trace the artist's whole journey through their gallery. I swear the whole platform felt more like a clubhouse back then, messy and chaotic but full of real people trying to help each other get better.

the_dylan6d ago

idk man @jordan653, i kinda like that the algorithm finds me new stuff to look at without me digging through pages of watermarks.