I recently decided to stop updating my DeviantArt account, but I was honestly so conflicted. I've heard of so many people straight up deactivating their accounts, leaving absolutely no trace of their artwork, which I wholeheartedly respect. However, I wasn't sure if I could do the same thing, so I ultimately decided to stop uploading there in general.
Updates had decreased in frequency over time since I was mostly on Tumblr, but I can definitely say that I started updating my artwork much less when DeviantArt's Eclipse layout has gotten pretty much impossible for me to navigate. I'm still not really used to it to this day, but that's just me having been used to its old layout since 2005 up until 2020.
Updates have been sparce since the new layout dropped, but I still wanted to update as much as possible. I guess the DA staff made it easy for me by dropping the Dreamup AI update. To say I was disappointed is a huge understatement. I think I wouldn't have cared too much if the program was something that people can choose to opt in, but nah...when it dropped, everyone was automatically part of the AI program, whether they liked it or not.
Thankfully, there was enough feedback that the staff made everyone opt out as a default setting, but that doesn't change the fact that the AI now has billions of artwork in its systems and as far as I know, there's no indication that it unlearned everything.
Sure, my old art can be considered garbage compared to the masterpieces I've seen on the front page, but it's my garbage, darn it! Every artist has the right to decide what websites should do with their artwork, and I feel like the release of the AI was a spit in the face to everyone.
My DeviantArt gallery always served as an archive, as some of my artwork from as far back as 2006 is still there. Some super problematic pieces (of the transphobic and homophobic variety) have been deleted, but otherwise there is almost 20 years worth of memories there. I had been tempted to delete my old art several times in the past, but one thing I always wished when I was younger was being able to see old art from artists I admired. So, I decided to keep most of my old art up so that younger artists can look at it and hopefully get inspired from looking at my hilariously bad art. We all start somewhere after all.
I will eventually deactivate the account, but that time will only come when I manage to put everything here on Neocities. It will take a while, but it will be done!