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DeviantArt is a dead mall
Sep. 17th, 2025 07:34 amThe Tragic Downfall of the Internet’s Art Gallery
https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/deviantart-what-happened-ai-decline-lawsuit-stability.html
It’s not unlikely, as WyerframeZ surmised, that someone constructed a low-effort bot network that could hold up a self-perpetuating money-embezzlement scheme: Generate a bunch of free images and accounts, have them buy and boost one another in perpetuity, inflate metrics so that the “art” gets boosted by DeviantArt and reaches real humans, then watch the money pile up from DeviantArt revenue-sharing programs. Rinse, repeat.
This is an interesting article from May 2024 that meticulously documents what's been happening to DeviantArt since late 2022. It's really sad... and kind of spooky.
https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/deviantart-what-happened-ai-decline-lawsuit-stability.html
It’s not unlikely, as WyerframeZ surmised, that someone constructed a low-effort bot network that could hold up a self-perpetuating money-embezzlement scheme: Generate a bunch of free images and accounts, have them buy and boost one another in perpetuity, inflate metrics so that the “art” gets boosted by DeviantArt and reaches real humans, then watch the money pile up from DeviantArt revenue-sharing programs. Rinse, repeat.
This is an interesting article from May 2024 that meticulously documents what's been happening to DeviantArt since late 2022. It's really sad... and kind of spooky.
