Almost 3 years ago, when I joined dA, I had been attracted by the great diversity of the fractal community. I remember there were a lot of different people using very different personal styles. You could very easily recognize at first sight the creation of a precise artist, and many people had built strong artistic personalities.

What I see today and what worries me is the extreme standardization of the community. The vast majority of people is following trends, what this means is that hundred versions of the same fractal are made at the exact same time, and it has become very difficult to associate artistic styles to fractalists. When the trend changes, most of the community follows, and so on.

You know me enough to know I don't follow trends and never will (on dA or in real life), my project is exactly the opposite, I'm trying to develop a personal style since 3 years and stay true to what I'm doing.

How come I'm still here posting fractals when most of the "originals" left? This is because I had the chance to be supported by the community 3 years ago, people accepted my personal style of fractals and I had a lot of very positive feedback, and I still have, thanks for that. But many people did not have this chance.

Imagine a new artist in the fractal community comes up with the picture of a horrible zombie, or anything very far from the standard "beautiful colorful flower", what will happen nowadays? He will get 0 favs, maybe 0 comments. He will probably try to post more of his work, but after several days/weeks seeing he has no feedback, he will simply leave dA.

If the community had not ignored his work in the first place, he could have produced a fantastic gloomy night scene that many people would have loved, even if they didn't like his first zombie work. Maybe he was a great fractalist, and he's not here anymore.

Ask yourself this question: why, in the fractal community, don't we have "pointillist", "minimalist", "dark" fractalists (the list of styles can go on forever), just like in painting or photography where they are appreciated by many people? Because these people are automatically rejected by the community, maybe not by individual people, but by the community as a whole, using collectively and unconsciously a very strange system of appreciation (in short, make a beautiful colorful flower or no one will notice you).

I think this has to change and I sincerely hope you agree. So, next time you see a fractal you don't like at first sight, try to see if there is something original or unusual in it (for instance, you may ignore the zombie and look at the beautiful background behind it), and even if you don't want to fav because the fractal doesn't match your exigencies of quality or personal tastes, try to leave a comment so that the artist can have a feedback. For instance, you could say: "I don't particularly like the theme, but the background you have made is beautiful, or this detail is very original", etc...

Please encourage diversity and the emergence of new personal styles in the fractal community!

Thanks for reading,
Luc

Original journal entry here: [link]