Upon logging onto DA, one is bound to be confronted with fanart. Fanart, fanart, fanart, FANART. (This is assuming that your front page settings include the Popular section and/or, of course, the Fan Art section.)

Digging further into said Popular section, one can find countless photos and drawing of girls wearing the most fashionable varieties of nothing. It's enough to make one think that DA is overrun by fanart, girls in skimpy outfits, and fanart of girls in skimpy outfits - and many, apparently, do.

But is that assumption accurate?

I decided to test it out with one of DA's most overlooked tools: The Random Deviation button. (If you don't know what that is, scroll to the bottom of any DA page and click it. You'll get the idea pretty fast.)

But I didn't just click it once, oh no. Neko clicked it many, many times. The results, including some categories I tacked on, are as follows:

1. [link] - original drawing
2 . [link] - fanart (fan character)
3. [link] - photograph (object)
4. [link] - photograph (objects)
5. [link] - desktop screenshot
6. [link] - original drawing
7. [link] - original drawing
8. [link] - original drawing
9. [link] - original drawing
10. [link] - photograph (scenery)
11. [link] - photograph (eye)
12 . [link] - original drawing
13. [link] - fanart (Gundam Wing)
14. [link] - wallpaper
15. [link] - photograph (vehicle)
16. [link] - fanart (MegaTokyo)
17. [link] - fanart (Pokemon)
18. [link] - original comic (strip)
19. [link] - photograph (building/scenery)
20. [link] - original drawing
21. [link] - photograph (girl)
22 . [link] - sculpture
23. [link] - photograph (group)
24. [link] - original drawing
25. [link] - photograph (girl)
26. [link] - photograph (guy/scenery)
27. [link] - photograph (girl)
28. [link] - photograph (scenery)
29. [link] - photograph (animal)
30. [link] - photograph (duo)
31. [link] - photograph (animal)
32 . [link] - literature (poem)
33. [link] - original drawing
34. [link] - fanart (Invader Zim/Looney Tunes)
35. [link] - literature (poem)
36. [link] - original drawing
37. [link] - tattoo design
38. [link] - photograph (duo)
39. [link] - photograph (animal)
40. [link] - fanart (X-Men)
41. [link] - fanart (Naruto)
42 . [link] - fanart (Loveless)
43. [link] - pageview shot
44. [link] - photograph (building)
45. [link] - photograph (plant)
46. [link] - fanart (Batgirl)
47. [link] - fanart (Lion King)
48. [link] - resource (textures)
49. [link] - stamp
50. [link] - original comic (page)
51. [link] - photograph (guy)
52 . [link] - desktop screenshot
53. [link] - photomanipulation
54. [link] - original drawing
55. [link] - photograph (scenery)
56. [link] - photograph/literature (girl/poem)
57. [link] - photograph (costume)
58. [link] - 3D
59. [link] - desktop screenshot
60. [link] - original drawing
61. [link] - fanart (original character)
62 . [link] - fanart (South Park, + artist insert)
63. [link] - fanart (band, AFI)
64. [link] - photograph (object)
65. [link] - original drawing
66. [link] - original drawing
67. [link] - dyed fabric
68. [link] - photograph (scenery)
69. [link] - fanart (Gaia avatar)
70. [link] - photograph (scenery)
71. [link] - original drawing
72 . [link] - photograph (scenery)
73. [link] - literature (poem)
74. [link] - photograph (scenery)
75. [link] - original drawing
76. [link] - photograph (building)
77. [link] - original drawing
78. [link] - photograph (girl/object)
79. [link] - anthro/furry/fursona
80. [link] - photograph (animal)
81. [link] - photograph (duo)
82 . [link] - original drawing
83. [link] - photomanipulation
84. [link] - fractal
85. [link] - photograph (guy)
86. [link] - photograph (object)
87. [link] - photomanipulation
88. [link] - photograph (animal)
89. [link] - original drawing
90. [link] - vector
91. [link] - DA ID
92 . [link] - photograph (plant)
93. [link] - photograph (animal)
94. [link] - photograph (girl)
95. [link] - photograph (plant)
96. [link] - wallpaper
97. [link] - literature (poem)
98. [link] - DA ID
99. [link] - photograph (room)
100. [link] - photograph (clothing/girl)

Photographs - 40
Original drawings - 19
Fanart - 14
Literature - 4
Other - 23

Let's take a look at that second list. Let it sink in. Photographs outnumber every other category, not just slightly, but overwhelmingly. Fanart, meanwhile, sits in at a cozy little 14/100 - not even a fifth of the entire list.

Another interesting note is that most of the fanart isn't Naruto/Bleach/Kingdom Hearts, the examples that most point to when complaining about the "flood" of fanart on DA. (In fact, Naruto is the only such fandom represented.) Anime-related fanart only counts for 5 of the 14 fanarts, and two of those are arguable - one is of a fan-character, and another is of Pokemon, a franchise that could count as either anime or game.

One other striking result is that of literature. For one, it makes up a very small percent of the total results - not itself surprising, as DA does in general lean towards visual arts such as paintings and photography. Also, all the literature results here are poetry, and relatively short. Whether that's pure coincidence or a measure of DA as a whole is up to interpretation. ;]

I will admit, there were a few results that did pop up that I did not include in the final toll. However, these results were not excluded due to their content, but rather due to factors such as category confusion, (Where I was unable to think of one or even a combo of categories that applied.) failure to load properly, or due to a lack of "artsiness", as in one case where a "literature" Deviation was little more than one line of gobbledygook. You'll have to do better than that, dude.

One thing I did not leave out was art hidden behind a Mature Content filter, or artwork that was clearly erotic/fetishistic. Yet said images do not appear in the results. That's right: out of 100+ random Deviations, not-a-one was raunchy enough to find itself banned from, say, network television. (There are a handful of results that I myself believe are meant to look "sexy", though that could always just be a disagreement between artist intent and my own sensibilities.)

So, there you go. The moral/point of this article? Essentially, that things one finds in the Popular section are not necessarily a reflection on DA as a whole, and that fanart and porny pictures aren't as big of a "problem" as some think they are. :]

NOTE: This is my very first news submission, so if I've grossly miscategorized this, let me know. Editorials seems like a fitting place for this, but the articles currently in the section are pretty varied, making it hard to tell what the standard is.