It's been over three months since Scott (°jark), the founder of deviantART, was forcibly terminated. This entry may initially appear to simply be rehashed anger or sentimentalism or any number of emotional reactions, but such a presumption about what is to follow would be wrongheaded.

We are all given time, inherently, in the fact that we are alive and that one day we will die. As unique individuals, we have the free will to spend our time how we wish, either devoted ourselves to worthy pursuits that have a clear payoff, or squandering our time in the pursuit of selfish concerns. Like many, I have spend countless hours of my life in front of various computers, interacting both online and offline with deviants that I've met in dusty backalleys and through deviations, news articles, et al on deviantART.

Today though, three months after the event that fundamentally changed my view of this website and its leadership, I have come to realize that deviantART is no longer a worthy pursuit. This may not be true for all here, but it is most certainly true in my case, and in that of many other of the old guard deviants, of which even I'm fairly "new", having only joined in 2003.

Where have we come in three months? I tell you now that we've come nowhere. Sure, we can use the search function again. How, though, has devious ART been enhanced or artistic abilities enhanced? Featured chats? Search ability? Soon-to-come Groups? What are any of these things worth when the sum total and core of this website and this community have been neglected, starved, ignored and laughed at by a new group of administration and staff that are among some of the most egotistical, apathetic, poorly reasoned, poorly spoken, unrespectable individuals in the history of deviantART?

Does anyone question this? °Josh called the founder and father of deviantART, without whom we would not have this site in the first place, an "asshat", among other childish things. Was he reprimanded? I could name literally dozens of others whom I regard among the most childish, incompetant and generally vulgarly-spoken, but my point is clear enough: deviantART is not in good hands.

As my good friend `justthorne mentioned in his recent entry, there was always an attitude of "Us versus Them", but that used to mean the "level-headed (the administration and many deviants) versus the hot-headed. Now, "Us versus Them" means "anyone who does not bow down and fully support whatever stance the administration takes". This is not community.

I loved deviantART because even when there was elitism in some cases, the administration and most deviants maintained responsible interaction and made this place one most could call "home". Now, though, egotism and elitism have overthrown responsible thinking.

Look, I could wait it out here like anyone else, for this new feature or that. I could be excited when $lolly, a man whom I respect, says that "deviantART is going to kick ass". The truth is, deviantART did kick ass - that is, before Angelo ($spyed) took prime control. It's not a case of me being anti-establishment or not liking Angelo. I did like him. Honestly, I looked up to him as the model of what I wanted to accomplish in my life. Over time, though, as I've seen more of him in his interaction, both active and passive, I'm come to despite him.

This place isn't about community anymore - it's about a cotorie of administrators living in Los Angeles who have power and those across the globe who fail to think critically in the defense of the average deviant. Why else was °jark desposed of so unceremoniously?

I could go on all night about it (I apologize if it feels like I already have) but in the end I've realized that I could wait for the rest of my life and deviantART would not be what it should. My moral compass pointed away from deviantART on July 28; it just took me longer to listen to it than it should have. I want to be a part of this community, but it's no longer a community grounded in anything I respect or admire or look to for inspiration in any artistic or personal sense. Sooner or later Angelo and his cohorts will see that the community built for them by Scott has left, and when they do it will be a day of reckoning.

This is not a community that I want to be a part of anymore. I feel that way out of my own accord, but must point out that it was largely the lack of morality, responsibility, capable leadership, sensible use of power and lack of communication that drove me to feel the way I do. I am almost brokenhearted that I feel more like an exiled deviant than a freely-leaving one. One day, far sooner and more unexpectedly than any of us hope, we will die. I refuse to spend any more of my life in a place where I am subtley derided, belitted or ignored, let alone the cardinal sin of being neglected.

deviantART has changed. Some will say for the better, but those who have actually been here since the beginning or had the luck be a part of things before the slippery slope of greed and incompetant business "professionalism" ran its course know that nothing about deviantART today qualifies as respectible. The new generation of deviants may belittle ruminations like the ones I've made here, and many staff members and administrators will say "good riddance" to me and others like me.

Regrettable.