Seriously.

I've been noticing some serious bullshit in the dA community lately... Aw, who am I kidding? I knew it was a lot of bullshit from the start. I decided to become a member here because a free art community is an excellent idea... idea. But the more time I spend here and the more time I spend working on my photography; the more I notice something: No matter how good I, or anyone else, gets; we can never hope to get the kind of exposure half naked 16-year-olds can get. Or any skinny, white, poorly dyed-black-hair person with too much fake blood and mascara can get. Or people that upload soft core porn images stolen from websites can get. Or people who exclusivly take macro shots of their right eye (with a lone tear) can get. Seriously. Stop with the bullshit.

I by no means am saying that I am one of the top artists on here; probably not even close. But I know I'd be in the top 25% (which is still a hell of a lot of people mind you). But more importantly I've seen people on here that I could safely say are in the top 5% or higher; and yet they get next to no exposure despite amazing originalty or sheer technical ability. For technical ability just take a look at Valimar's minilmalist architectural shots. I'd they they're better than coxi's (and we all know who he is since he's a total hottie... Damn, there's no emoticon for "I'm not gay") yet he gets less than a percent of coxi's pageviews. Then you have MartheMa who is, in my opinion, the most original photographer in the whole dA community. I should say most original GOOD photographer; I'm sure there are worse people that could be called more creative. And finally you have shayes, probably my favourite photographer. Note: I mention only photographers because I will not claim to have any expertise in any other field; and I'm still sketchy about my photography expertise.

The three photographers I have mentioned will never be able to dream of getting the kind of exposure a fetishist will get. Even a terrible fetishist. Anyone who somehow indulges in some sort of dark masturbatory fantasy will always be at the top echelon of the dA community and it pisses me off to no end. OK, maybe not even masturbatory fantasy; all I, or anyone, else needs to do is take a mediocre picture and write some long, bullshit, angsty poem to accompany it. Or type out a song by Slipknot or Korn word-for-word and all-of-a-sudden the entire community thinks your otherwise lackluster work gains unfathomable depth.

Yes I'm bitter. And I'm not upset at EVERYONE on dA (I have a few people that watch me ) and there are people here with legitimate taste and who are actually an asset. I'd say the solution would be to make dA a paysite only but I know that it wouldn't be fair to some of the younger artists with actual talent. Perhaps someone could invent a jpeg scanning program that'd monitor for any of the dA "cliche's" and then just block it. It'd cut practically all submissions by 70%.

Seacrest out.