Two guesses what this is about...posted Jan 14th 2005, 3:07AM
Mood: Upset
I interrupt the Parade of Premises to chime in on something you've all already heard about by now.
SheezyArt just announced today that, as of Jan. 16, they will be switching to a "family-friendly" format and deleting all adult art from their servers. I can understand their logic, but that strikes me as an almost suicidal move since almost 2/3 of the artists there are there strictly to HAVE a place to post their adult art and get feedback on it (myself included) and are going to split...which might be the point, I dunno. Fewer artists, lower bandwidth costs, I suppose.
The reason it hurts so many people is because the dA and Sheezy interface is unique in that it gives artists the kind of near-instant feedback and sense of community that that you can't find anywhere else. Hentai (damn the pretty euphemistic term...porno art) is looked down on pretty much everywhere, so those of us who draw it often feel, perhaps unjustly, like a put-upon and needlessly scorned branch of the art community. Having a place like Sheezy where we were welcomed and not, in most cases, looked down on was a pleasant change.
Yes, there are arguements against what I've said..."why don't you just stop drawing it?" What if you were told you weren't supposed to draw Mega-Man/Rockman art because nobody wants to see that crap (not my opinion, just an example, bear with me...)? It's something which, for whatever reason, we enjoy drawing, and being told we just can't is wrong.
"Why don't you find someplace else?" Like I said, the interface and M.O. of sites like dA and Sheezy is unique...yes, VCL allows porno art, but A} you can only talk to each other via a separate forum or through e-mails, and B} it has to strictly be furry-based. That's pretty much the universal problems, as well as with forums and groups like Yahoo and MSN, restrictions on content and lack of viable intercommunication...not to mention Yahoo has been cutting down adult groups without warning left and right anyway.
"Well, why don't you stop whining and put up the money for your OWN service?" Ask the mods here how much it costs to run this place...go to dA and do the same...then go to VCL, Slipshine, 4chan...it takes a lot of capital to run an online community, and most of us are pretty much with limited financial means (almost half the journals I've read here are about that same subject...even published artists are doing commission work and auctions to try and break even as well as working other jobs). Also, many of us ARE working other jobs or going to school, so we are unable to devote the time to maintainance.
Many of us take services like this for granted, thinking that it's THEIR right to serve US...but that is not the case, and, deep down, all of us hentai artists were grateful to have Sheezy there for us. That's why changes in policy like this get us so upset, whether it's right or not.
I plan on leaving my art in place until the Sheezy mods remove it themselves. Like I said, I can understand why they're doing this change and I respect their right to do it...but I'm still upset.
OK, so this is a general repository for my more "adult" art (or for stuff I know dA will choke on), so, in the words of Monty Python, "if you are among the type of people to be offended by this, do us both a favor and DON'T WATCH."
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