Edit: Check this news editorial from someone who probably knows more about what caused this particular outburst. It's an interesting article, dealing with the literature community, but largely applicable to deviantART as a whole and something to think about.

I'm going to avoid posting usernames here, because I'm not a fan of calling people out and the mob mentality that seems to follow. I don't want people hunting other people down. But this topic interests me, makes for a possibly helpful discussion for some people on deviantART, and I genuinely am confused about the reaction I got. Unfortunately, there's one part I can't quote word-for-word.

I do have a screenshot of the original screen-cap deviation, but like I said, not trying to call people out, y'know.

So, context. Deviation submitted by deviant2:

<sup>//deviation title// Is DA a community? //end deviation title//
//begin screenshot//
[clearly a screenshot from a dAmn chatroom, though it's unclear what room it is]
deviant1: deviant2: that is very nice of you to welcome people
deviant2: deviant1: Thanks.
deviant1 wakes up
deviant2: I hear DA has a problem with elitism.
deviant1: It sometimes does
deviant2: I don't know, if that's true, to what extent it's true. But I don't like elitism. I believe all people deserve the chance to be a part of this community, and do not deserve to be ignored by "cliques". You are either a community, and help everyone get involved, or you are not a community, in which case just go back to what you were doing and ignore everyone else.
deviant2: I, for one, want DA to be the community it professes to be.
deviant3: deviant2: da has a huge problem with stupidity masquerading as eliteism. most people here couldnt define the word for you.
*** You [deviant2] have been kicked by deviant4 * Thought police.
//end screenshot//

//artist's comments//
I think this speaks for itself.

Full view please.
//end artist's comments//</sup>


In viewing this, I genuinely thought this person wanted to explore the topic. Really, I did. It, perhaps, is a conversation that should be explored. Maybe that was my first mistake. But I followed up on it.

[link]

They made two replies to me that I didn't think to screenshot (the rest of these were taken after because I still had earlier tabs open ). The person basically told me to not assume shit and stay off their page, in two replies (that seemed pretty nasty and simple to me, but again, I don't have an image of those and I'm not going to even begin to claim my memory is good enough to paraphrase any further). They then blocked me from their page, hid all three, and deleted the deviation altogether.

I'm just baffled. Did I really come off that antagonistic? It's possible. Some people seem to think I'm far, far too nice. Others seem to take me as, well, a total cunt. Maybe I should've toned it and threw in a few cute little happy faces? Or did I just go too far in assuming that this person genuinely wanted to talk about what might or might not be a problem with elitism on dA? Maybe it's just my first experience with knowing I was blocked from someone's page. But the topic interests me. And I'm curious about what you guys think about possible elitism on deviantART and what kind of community you think this is or should be.

I don't know. Just odd to me.

[Full disclosure: The person who did the kicking is the person who brought this deviation to my attention. I don't personally believe that would've skewered my opinion in any way, but, you know, some people think that kind of shit's important to know.]