I'm using my right as a grumpy old community member to have a bit of a moan. If you're not interested in this, just skip this journal.
Over the past few months I've had very little emote inspiration, and that really saddens me. I think a huge factor is the lack of community spirit right now. The stream of new deviations has drained to a trickle, and the miscat issue has taken over like a bad weed.
One of the things that always used to stand out about the emote community was its close knit friendships, and that's something I feel we have sadly lost. In the past we've had low points, but I'm not sure we've ever been this low. At times I wonder if we have any community left at all, which is painful to see for someone who has devoted so much to this cause in the past.
Whilst I can see places where things have fallen apart, I don't really want to dwell on the path that has lead us here, or even think of placing blame on anything. But I really do wonder what the future holds for us.
Years ago, this sort of thing seemed fairly easy to fix. You write a motivational journal, put on a few contests and projects and start a new avatar trend and everything would burst back into life. But now I really don't know how to tackle it.
The few community member who used to stick everything together have moved on or chosen to retire and the new blood are struggling to rise up and get noticed. And it is painful to see people devoting their time, effort (and sometimes money) to events which get not reception or acknowledgement at all.
I know that draining feeling first hand, as my emote article series last year fell by the wayside, with drafts gathering dust within my stash never to see the light of day. I can only imagine what that must be like for someone new to the community that would love to give back more but get nothing in return.
It does make me wonder if this trend is just in our community, or whether it stretches further. I've been so focussed on emotes so long, I've lost touch with dA as a whole, which I guess adds to why I feel so isolated and lonely in a community that used to be my home.
Whilst I would love to dive back in and try and jolt some life back into the community, part of me knows I just don't have the time, and part of me just doesn't want to try knowing that I'm likely to end up even more hurt and disheartened.
I understand that putting all of this out in the open probably doesn't help in the slightest. Nothing eats away at hope more than someone bring attention to all the flaws. But I've fed up of having this eat away at me, so it was time to release it in the open and just hope it's not the start of a negative chain reaction.
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So it's a bit of a fixer upper, but this we're certain of ...
You can fix this fixer upper with a little bit of love.
I'm not sure I can really pinpoint what happened, my only explanation is that some key people sort of fell out of the habit of being on dA at around the same time. I did always feel that in some ways the community was held together by a group of good friends who then brought in, supported and maintained a group of new starters and half-emoticonists. Myself I believe it was that I took a relatively short break, and came back to find so many new faces I felt like it had moved on a lot without me. These were people I no longer knew or related easily to, and rather than sliding into the group easily as I did the first time with your support, I just felt a bit alienated.
The community was full of my friends though and you were all hugely supportive of my other work which I always considered my key focus.
I'm trying to get more active on the internet overall and the plan is to become more active in creating again. May even involve some emotes. 