GretheFenyx

It's been real, DeviantArt. I'm abandoning this account, maybe soon deleting it.

I was seventeen when I made this account, under a different username, in 2006. I am 32 now, in 2020... and still here after just about all my friends had left.

I stuck around because there's something about dA that felt like home - like nostalgia. This place had seen me grow from a naive college student (read: obnoxious child) to a fully-fledged professional, internationally published fashion photographer... and I've even gained a few DD's along the way.

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During this time I've seen this site go through many different evolutions and yes, people had always been upset about some of them but it's never been something that you couldn't eventually grow into.

But this. This just makes me sad. This just breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart because nobody wanted this. Since it's been announced, there's been vehement opposition about this "upgrade" as far as I could see and it's extremely disheartening that the development team and Admin team just blatantly disregarded their subscribers: the people paying their salaries, the heart of this operation.

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I'm upset because for the first time since joining, I'm seriously considering leaving DeviantArt - not because I hate the new site (I kinda do because it's unintuitive, clunky and disorganised) but because it's become crystal clear that those at the top don't care about their users and their needs.

Instead of spending the effort, time and resources spent on an unnecessary "upgrade" (and I put this in air quotes because it feels like everything but an "upgrade"), they could've spent it on actually adminning the site and dealing with trolls, art theft and the mountains and mountains of straight up porn that masquerades as "artistic nude".

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DeviantArt - you dropped the ball on this one. If you care about your users at all, at least bring the "switch to old site" button back. Give people a choice.

Otherwise - and I'm sure this means absolutely nothing to you - I will probably abandon my account that I've had for fourteen years. Which would suck, but it is what it is.

This makes me sad.

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PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE: grethephoto.com

PHOTOGRAPHY FACEBOOK PAGE: facebook.com/grethephoto

ILLUSTRATION WEBSITE/TUMBLR: grethefenyx.tumblr.com

ILLUSTRATION FACEBOOK PAGE: facebook.com/grethefenyxart

INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/grethephoto