I think it'd be too ironic to call it irony

I've been very busy and decidedly ill, but I wanted to get this out before I forgot about it (however temporarily, as these are very persistent issues).

There's been a lot of drama on deviantART lately (oh snap, not another entry about that darn place, but hey, it's a site I visit on a very regular basis; I can't help but have some opinions about it, right?). There seems to be a growing uprising against things being posted that aren't "art." As usual, this is a very contentious topic because of the very subjective definitions of the word. I will agree vehemently with those hoping to purge the site of "mySpace photos" and artthefted things, because, after all, deviantART was never meant to be Photobucket. But what's all this nonsense rallying for prosecution against those who post "ships of MORTAL ENEMIES and characters who have never even met each other or have had existing relationships with the opposite sex"?

I can understand the dislike, trust me. I consider myself quite a bit of a fantard in various fandoms, but my main complaint against almost every fandom I find myself a part of is the other fans. The overzealous, "psychotic" fangirls (and boys) that parade their fandom and most annoyingly, their fanpairings, all over the place. I've always been for the idea that everyone has their own ideas and they can do whatever it is that floats their boat. Therefore, it's their own business if they want to slash every character from every series they've seen with each other, or if they want to introduce a thousand Mary Sues to fulfill their own fantasies. "I may not like what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." That was Voltaire, right? Well, in the same vein:

I MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU DRAW, BUT I'LL DEFEND TO THE DEATH YOUR RIGHT TO DRAW IT.

I think the main problem with all of this is devianART's "today's popular" system that displays some of the days' most favorite'd or commented pieces on the front page. Because some fandoms have grown to outrageous sizes, it's not surprising to see artwork that represent these series over and over (and over) again on the front page, often with ideas and pairings that disturb or offend others within and outside of the fandom. (Specifically, I've seen a lot of people hating on Akuroku for Kingdom Hearts and Sasunaru for Naruto because they appear so often, although I'm pretty sure I've seen a lot more Sasusaku action on the front page).

Personally, this doesn't really bother me that much. I used to vehemently disapprove of Akuroku, but as long as the artwork featured on the front page was well-rendered and executed, I was fine with it. I absolutely hate LxLight, but once again, if it showed up on the front page and was pretty, then fine, whatever -- whatever floats people's boats. But I know a lot of people would still prefer not to see that kind of stuff if they could help it.

The general solution would be "if you don't like it, don't look" right? But with how deviantART currently handles their front page, it can't be avoided. So my idea would be to have some sort of filtering system for the front page. If you don't like anime, filter out all the anime-related categories. Find furries offensive? Filter out the anthropomorphic stuff. Maybe that'll stop some of the crazy hate-journals and stamps going around. Of course, this isn't a catch-all solution. Naturally, a big portion of the people that hate on some of the targeted artwork consider themselves part of the fandom itself and it would be unreasonable to expect them to filter away such broad categories, but really... for those people, I think the only solution would be to suck it up and grow some tolerance. There's already too little of it in the world.

Anyway, yeah. Those are my two cents on that drama. But once again just to clarify, my moral protection only extends to people shipping unpopular ships, not all the teeny boppers posting their webcam pictures with no real thought or artistic value or the silly folk who think it's all right to post official artwork and think that no one will notice. That's one of those "come on guys, have a little common sense" kind of things. All the same though, I severely doubt that deviantART will be taking any action against any of these people any time soon. After all, having a high number of "deviations" is something for them to boast, nevermind that many of them shouldn't be counted as legitimate pieces of art.

Oh well.