Greetings, all my fellow deviants.

Chances are most of you reading this news article have never heard of me before. And who can blame you? With over 5 million members on dA, who has time to memorize them all? But what I’m here to talk about has to do with the little mark at the beginning of my name. You know, just look. It’s that little wavy symbol there. For those who didn’t know, that little wavy thing is called a “tilde.”

In the world of deviantArt, that little tilde lets everyone know that I am simply a member of the community. No subscription, no “seniority,” no special services. Just a member. And you know, as a “just a member” of dA, I’ve found it so very difficult to get my art out into the community. Sure I’m not all over the place. I don’t really post in the forums, but that’s only because most of my time goes into my art and my job in real life. Can’t really blame me for that. But why is it that if you don’t pony up the dough, it’s so hard to get a following? Why is it that about 99% of the time, that little strip of art on the front page under the “opular” heading is full of nothing but art done by subscribers? Why does one need to pay for fame? I can certainly think of quite a few deviants with no subscription who have art to knock the socks off any subscriber.

Now, now, I’m not saying that dA only lets subscribers get into those categories. That’s quite unlikely, because if they did they would have a good handful of very upset members on their hands. Who says you have to be a subscriber to be good at art? But what I want to know is why do us lowly members get overlooked? Subscriptions seem to put many artists up in this category of “my art is better than yours.” And please, don’t get me wrong I’m not calling any subscribers snooty or anything like that, but it just seems so hard to approach some people on here. I know personally that I make it a point to reply to every comment I get. Some people I watch or will randomly see art on; never even give thanks for the “this is awesome” comments. And what’s even sadder is as I look down the lists of comments, I see replies to subscribers… I see replies to senior members… but to the every day member? No acknowledgement. Usually when someone adds one of my pieces to their favorites, I check out their page, scan through their gallery, and leave a comment thanking them for the favorite. Not so with many members. And yes, I know, when you get popular enough it isn’t really within reason even, to attempt to reply to every comment and every favorite or watch. But I very rarely see a portion in these popular people’s journals, thanking those that make them popular!

Now you may be asking yourself “what’s the point?” Well bare with me, I’m getting to it. You see, I don’t like this whole pre-name-symbol system. It isolates us members who can’t afford to buy a subscription. And believe me, just as I know if I had and extra $30 bucks laying around, I’d buy my subscription to dA back in a flash (I had one a number of years ago), there are plenty of deviants out there who would do exactly the same. I like the idea of subscriptions. No ads… access to new features before others (why not? They paid for it! ), and plenty of cool features us members will never see. But why should they get that little asterisk or equals sign next to their names? It’s almost like flaunting “I have money, and I can do more things because of it.” And of course, I’m sure the vast majority of subscribers don’t actually feel that way, but to us members, we feel it. There is such a separation between subscribed deviants and your average poor deviant, and there shouldn’t be. DeviantArt is a community, and when it started out, there was no separation between “upper class” and “lower class.” The only symbols before our names was that nice little tilde, and of course, different ones designating the higher-ups (they can put whatever they want in front of their names. It’s their site! ). What I think is that we should go back to the way things were, with only higher-ups having their spiffy dollar signs and carrot marks. No more separation between those that pay and those that can’t or choose not to. If we need to designate them somehow, put it on their main page as a badge or something. Something that doesn’t set them apart no matter where you see their names.

So here I am, average deviant, with my little tilde, hoping to make my mark. I may not be able to change the way we are designated, but at least I can get people thinking about it. At least in a community such as this, I can have my say. And that is really what it comes down to. Community.

Viva la community!

~Setsuna A.K.A. Aliko Lecir