Drea Knufken
For lovers of art, whatever form it takes, be it in words, the stroke of a brush, the strike of a chord, the click of a camera shutter, or the click of a mouse, few can argue the wild success of deviantArt.
Started in 2000 by Angelo Sotira (who was 18 at the time) and a few others, DeviantArt is a monstrously popular site where users can set up an account to show off their work, sell prints of their work, buy sponsored merchandise, view others’ work, as well as comment on others’ work. As of 2010, 14.5 million ‘deviants’ call the site home, with over 100 million submissions (an average of 140,000 a day).
Despite its success, deviantArt had its share of troubles. One of the founders, Scott Jarkoff, was let go, and there was a whole legal mess between Angelo and the third founder. Supposedly Angelo was going to use dA’s own money to pay for legal costs.
However it all ends up, we’d like to think that deviantArt is here to stay. Get your act together boy. You’ve got lots of folks who want to continue making and showing off the goods!
