I got it wrong 9 times! x_x

Oh, btw: great idea!

excellent article.
you get a gold star!

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Life is a spectacle. If you're not looking, you're missing it.
-Sean Morris

Nice article, I can tell you why the pieces you chose are either popular or unnoticed:

I hate to generalize, and would rather go through each individual piece, but what it comes down to for me (and probably others as well) is that a Favorite is something you place on your site...it represents who YOU are, what YOU like. I may see a pretty picture and think "ooh, that's neat, but I wouldn't want it representing me as a favorite piece of art."

Take, for instance, the first piece comparison: the right-hand side looks like it could be an advertisement for a band, or Coca Cola, or whatever. We're so inundated with advertisements on a daily basis (thousands daily) that we just tune them out. Polished, well-thought out, photography that appears designed with only a generic emotion involved ("Rock concert, Coke is it, Refreshment!") versus something calm, serene. So many people (especially on a place called deviantART) do not want to be associated with, and spread as a meme, something which appears intended to do just that.

Second comparison: it's the whole suicide girls, stereotypical grimacing shot. It looks well-thought out and planned. The emotion looks unreal. When I saw that, I thought "wow, extreme close-up, cool..." but then I went on to think "...just like the 100,000 others I saw this past year." People trying to emulate currently popular art without any personal purpose other than trying to be popular. Is there a message? Not one that I can see. HOWEVER, the piece on the right that has all of the favorites...it's someone, and a piece, who is obviously trying to send a message. The piece is useful in my favorites if I want to convey that message. Also, it's not well composed (static composition, subject dead-center) so it looks less polished, and therefore seems less of a marketing/advertisement, which of course appeals to an audience of folks who might visit a place called deviantART.

I'm glad you switched it up on the third one...the left is cool, minimalistic, has a message and a lot of people would enjoy having that pop up on their favorites. The right one? Looks like clip-art I'd buy to put on the front cover of a corporate annual report. We're so desensitized by marketing messages that any symbology that is used repeatedly just disappears, until another style is co-opted, it becomes popular, is overused, and then a new style must be sought. The right piece seems fresh to me. Someone's experimenting, and has a message.

Fourth: guy with a bike in black and white versus quirky girl with a quirky expression with quirky color. The message works, and people here want to be associated with quirky...not "I'm going to go mountain bike with my Trekkk Bike drinking my Gatorade and Super Chibi Energy Bar."

Fifth: the girl on the right...I'm not sure an advertising agency could use her because she has a lot of emotion, and that's not easily co-opted. It would require sanitization...and that would remove the actual emotion from the piece. Ad agencies homogenize pieces to make them relate to the highest number of demographic groups (or at least not offend anyone) unless they are specifically targeting a demographic. This piece is a fun art piece...not yet co-opted...it does not appear to have become a symbol in a language of commerce...yet. So it's fun, and people like it. Who doesn't like crying robot chicks? The right? It's just a gratuitous sprig of nature. Again...very usable in commercial art.

So I go down the list, and I see these pieces...one thing I notice is that the people who are popular are posting a lot of pieces that are pretty visceral and emotional in nature (in the present and past). They've drawn in an audience over time, with a larger number of submissions, and the people like what they see. I don't think you can discount the commercial versus non-commercial impact...because quirky people like quirky art - and don't enjoy (whether consciously or unconsciously) spreading commercial memes.

Whew...great article though!

hat dich da etwa unser kleiner diskurs drauf gebracht???
ich finde die idee und den artikel sehr, sehr gut! : )

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_{"One cannot eat as much as one would like to vomit."}

Nicely done. and I`m really glad to be in there.
Wonderful.

thanks great article

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Én voltam!Én vagyok!Én leszek!Még akkor is,mikor hamuvá esek szét.Mert örök a lét, s itt hagyom lenyomatom, mi nem más,
mint sok - sok aprócska atom.

Interesting work! thanks for insert my shot in your article..
I agree to amarand's point..(QUOTE: "a Favorite is something you place on your site...it represents who YOU are, what YOU like. I may see a pretty picture and think "ooh, that's neat, but I wouldn't want it representing me as a favorite piece of art.").
besides, there is also the luck-factor.. many shots are unnoticed just because a few people run into them..
However, recently I was looking through Cartier-Bresson's scrapbook... and I was noticing that some of his shots were much "imperfect" for tecnic-qualities but so extraordinary.. so intense..
I think photography is a very subjective art... quality is not always important.. many times what is more important is the impact one shot has on our minds..

i dont like this game. thats a shit
at least compare similar stuff u idiot...

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everybody lies