deviantART; A Little Story, Part 1
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a little yellow alien named jark.
Wait, this is not a fairy tale so let me dispense with that.
This is an attempt to explain some of the history behind the founding of deviantART. I have no desire to hide a thing and therefore make of this what you will.
“Back in the day†I used to run a little known MP3 website called CyberTropix. I used to hang out in #mp3 on irc.mircx.com, where all the big named MP3 webmasters were. There was a fairly large following in the channel on this small network.
It was here that I met Angelo, who used the nick “spyed†in the channel. He ran a hugely popular MP3 news website called Dimension Music. The site would eventually be bought by Michael Ovitz. I have no details surrounding the acquisition therefore will not speculate.
Interestingly enough, back during the #mp3 days, Angelo was living in New York. He had a girlfriend named Sarah, who showed up on IRC every now and again. Sarah’s mom, with her nick of “mp3mom,†popped in to the channel almost daily. She was a great person to talk to.
It was “mp3mom†that ultimately introduced me to Angelo. I complained to her one day that he was pretty condescending, and acted like an ass to many folks in the channel, but she talked me out of those thoughts. Not sure what she said to Angelo but somehow dialogue between us started.
At some point there was this plan to converge some MP3 websites in to DMusic, which is what the original name was changed to, in order to make one really large site with a unique vision among all the chaos of the MP3 revolution. CyberTropix was one of these sites.
In exchange for a monthly “salary,†the site became part of the “DMusic Network†and I ultimately ended up doing development on both CyberTropix and DMusic. This was back around the 1999 timeframe.
After working on DMusic for almost a year, while nothing but failed promises, things started to look very bleak. This disappointment could not be attributed to any one individual with the exception of Michael Ovitz. My relationship with Angelo was starting to worsen because of the stress of the setbacks on DMusic.
Nonetheless, all of us pressed on in the most professional manner we could.
In the spring of 1999, while in the process of rebuilding DMusic, it was decided that the site needed the ability to host skins for all the popular MP3 applications. This was at the height of Winamp’s fame, before it was bought by AOL.
I had written a user authentication system, news system, and other such features, on CyberTropix. These were merged in to DMusic and a couple other sites in the DMusic Network. The shared backend made it easy to propagate news on multiple sites simultaneously while offering a single sign-on for the network.
At the time we thought it would be useful to build in to DMusic a skin section. Sites like skinz.org and DeskMod were experiencing many issues. DeskMod had problems handling their growth and ultimately saw many of the same slowdowns that deviantART saw. Skinz.org and the whole eFront debacle will go down in history as one of the oddest events in the customization community. Customize.org was gone as it was bought by someone who ended up not having the expertise to comprehend the Perl backend.
The customization community was up in arms. Nothing was going right, per se.
Having run a skin site for a short period of time in the 98/99 timeframe, in a site called screenphuck (which I still own the domain name for BTW), I had experience that I wanted to put to use. I thought it would be smart to start a new site and use portions of the shared backend idea we had going on with the DMusic Network.
The basic premise was the new site would use the user authentication and news system I wrote while the skin submissions would be integrated in to DMusic. This would give DMusic, and Angelo, the much wanted skin “solution†that he sought.
I started hunting for ideas; a way to make a unique vision that incorporated some fun in the name and the ideals of this newfound site. After some hard thinking, and some hard-fought domain name locating, the name deviantART was the name I settled on.
Initially I wanted to use deviate.com but that was taken. The idea of using .org, which was open at the time, did not appeal to me. deviantART.com was open so that is what I selected.
The thought pattern was as such, since the roots of deviantART were with the skinning community. When you skin an application you eventually end up “deviating†from the normal look and feel of Windows. Skins are, at the end of the day, works of art. By putting these two thoughts together, I surmised, that deviantART was the ideal name.
To make things even more fun and exciting I thought that calling the visitors “deviants†and the submissions “deviations,†as opposed to skin, would be a nice play on the name. A kind of branding, if you will.
I ended up pitching the whole idea to Angelo, who was in charge of DMusic at the time. He liked it and, basically, gave the green light for me to migrate from my duties at DMusic in order to concentrate on my vision.
So I did.
I worked on a basic design for the site, which offered a revolutionary menu system for the time. This is where “deviant green†began. It was shown to a couple folks, one of which was my friend, and co-founder, Matt Stephens. We met on IRC somewhere. My senility does not allow me to remember the specifics; point is that we met and, in due course, worked together to bring the deviantART vision to fruition.
Matt’s idea was to open deviantART up to the masses by way of allowing any type of art submission, without moderation, rather than be confined to skins. Together we brainstormed and added to our vision for this “utopia†of the art and skin community.
Then one day I had a career shift that had me move from one prefecture (the Japanese equivalent of a province or state) to another. During this change of residence, and the stress associated with it, I got severely ill. For weeks I had fevers of 102, or higher, compounded with lung issues.
It was during a long weekend, with a rather bad fever, before August 7, 2000 that deviantART was born. deviantART was coded from the ground up by myself, in its entirety, throughout this hot summer weekend.
The consciousness of the “Collective Rectum†was conceived.
Interesting read, I’ll be looking forward to the next installment.
August 7th Yellow Or Nothing!
Your story is a good one…and I am not surprised that you managed to create all the code for deviantART in the middle of a high fever…Fevers do some odd things…often creative things.
It is sad how things become so messy between people doing business together. I hope that somehow things are brought back into a balance for your community. You have many deviants who will stand by you for the human qualities you have shown, little yellow alien aside.
You may not have envisioned such a huge community of varied artists when you began, but you followed the vision through…and it’s an amazing journey.
The most skilled, professional artist down to the youngest, barely beginning artist can stand side by side in your community…and talk to each other. That speaks volumes…
Thank you for your creation. =)
Jark,
It’s a shame that with your vision, along with your ambition, initiative, and persistence had to take the path that it did. I know it’s a big event and a tough situation, but don’t let it kill the fire and flare in you that helped you create such a landmark establishment. May it one day lead you to bigger and better future endeavors.
With all sincereity, from a random everyday artist,
James “~ispec” Cabrera
great read; looking forward to part 2!
man, even i don’t remember how we first met. it was like divine intervention or something.
great post. very accurate and informative. i bet hardly anyone knew that part of the story.
Thank you for creating such a wonderful (and often frustrating) site. I do hope things get better.
Do you have any ideas to make another site? Maybe one that is nothing like DevianArt? Maybe something new. Good things can often be spawned from bad times.
Have you ever thought about just letting it go? Concentrate instead on your real daytime job, you know the one that pays the bills and lets you live there in Japan. The dream billit if ever there ever was one. Press on shipmate.
sweet thing, as in all that stress and work you managed to created something as great as dA. I believe that everybody or mostly everybody there understand it, and support you thouroughly.
But I believe that you know this already ;)
Skizo
Keep the strength and motivation!!
Jark,
You are a great person. deviantART has gotten me friends and made some friends into better ones. It is a wonderful thing and I am forever in your debt. I am suprised that you mde deviantART with a 102 fever, the onlything I can do with a fever like that is eat sleep and play videogames. (the essentials to a happy life)
Yours in deviation,
Mike
Life sux then you die. And stuff happens along the way.
I know pretty much how your feel having designed and built a major web application, that was going to generate serious cash; having the company bought out and receiving 4,000 stock options, and then getting fired five months later; except the guy who fired me in May warned me in January that it was going to happen.
So come to the effing party….Please!
Thats #birthday in chat.
I know you don’t know me from adam, but that’s not relevant at the moment.
Happy Fifth Birthday to you Scott, and very much also to Matt. Thank you both for creating this big beautiful thing we, the community, call dA.
Cups of warm sake all around…
You did it once, and you can do it again!
I am REALLY hoping that you’ll make a new website that follows up where deviantART left off.
I also think that you should do as much as possible to trademark or patent the “yellow alien”, I wouldn’t be surprised if SOMEBODY tried to steal that from you too. Stranger things have happened.
While in a way it’s a good idea to “move on” like what other readers of your blog say, I just think unfinished business better get done and not left behind. That includes taking back what’s yours, dude.
Interesting, so Angelo was with DMusic to begin with as well…
Yeah, I agree with Chris on the yellow alien thing.
how interesting it is to be enlightened of the history of this most wonderful of my addictions.. deviantART.
how sad that the ideal of utopia seems forever damned to be challenge by the shadows of the human spirit– greed, mistrust, betrayal..
fortunately, in this case.. you seem to have the whole community behind you (count me in!)
and ultimately, where the well-being of our beloved DA is concerned.. i believe the human conscious will speak louder than money, powerlust, or whatever lies behind this discord in the site’s leadership..
-shai :)
So basically what this part of the story is telling us is:
spyed was involved in the beginnning of dA, but he wasn’t a co-founder like he claims.
In other words, he’s mis-representing a half-truth about what happened?
The story is vary sad but so true. I hope this end will be a great beginning to something way better.
Let us all know about your new project and this time make sure your new partners won’t pull a joke on you by writting down a proper invoice.
Keep up the good work.
We’re with you, Jark. All the way.
And if nothing else works… You say you still have the rights to Screenphuck? Well, as I said. If nothing else works, you have a base to start with. And a mass of people who will follow you anywhere.
In other words. If nothing else works, and Angelo keeps acting like the ass he is, screw him. If you start anything new, we’ll be there for you. Spyed will starve to death, ’cause we’ll go after you, not stay with him.
…but while there’s still hope, you have to fight for DA. And we’ll be right there to help you.
- Martin “~hiryu-kaga” Barczynski
We’re with you, Jark. All the way.
And if nothing else works… You say you still have the rights to Screenphuck? Well, as I said. If nothing else works, you have a base to start with. And a mass of people who will follow you anywhere.
Was very interesting to read. If there is a Part two, i can’t wait to read it. ^ ^
Yadi, yadi. Deviantart is in such an uproar. I stopped going for a bit because I wanted to find out whether or not the rumors of Jark being forced off was true, but I didn’t have time… Deviantart has been going downhill as of late. People leaving because of all issues of Deviantart becoming less open and more… like a very closed-minded money-hungry place. Can anyone tell me if it is true? You can contact me at: thehidden_1@yahoo.com
Deviantart is one of the huge missing
jigsaw pieces to my life puzzle
&you;
the one who found it for me.
Thank you so much, Jark
for the most amazing invention of yours
:D
DA has become so terribly important to me
,just a little deviant from masses of deviants
we’ll be behind you all the way
Thank you for spending your time towards giving out information regarding the recent and past events on deviantART. It is interesting, if nothing else, to hear the story and I look forward to part two.
Why haven’t I seen matteo online on IM recently?
Thanks to Shawn Lockeheart and Akash and Brian at Spoono, I’ve come up from under the rock and have been reading through these latest entries on here and other sites.
After watching yaxay fall and the TF->NeverSide development/move which practically caused TF to die for a good month or so, seeing this sort of malarchy at dA is painful and saddening.
Scott, Though I don’t personally know you, I hope you and Matt make it out through all this back on top in control where you belong.
Cheers, good luck.
Stop spreading your propaganda Scott.
You wrongfully banned numerous artists without allowing them to plead their case, for no reason other than dislike of them and/or biased one-sided reasons.
Now you’re terminated, and you’re the one ‘wrongfully punished’!?
What goes around comes around my friend. Now you’re in our position. And now that you and the other biased admins are gone. I think I’ll enjoy the ‘new community’.
Welcome to our world.
I’m shocked at how much of this I already knew. Haha.
OMFG! Thrawn of Kuro5hin fame?
Im rubbing shoulders with the digerati!
My initial insticts were, “Oooo bad DA, Jark Good”.
But what DEVIAN said resonated.
I have found DA to be strangely censurous.
For a place that claims to be ‘liberal’ in art submissions it is strangely oppresive.
I was aware of SOME artists being banned, but how many were purged exactly?
Secondly, its OVERZEALOUS and PUNITIVE overinterpretation of Copyright laws makes me sick.
No court in any country interprets the law so far in favour of the megacorporations stealing from the artists as DA does.
I see this schiism as the beginning of the end.
I really wish this was one of those times where my brain cooperated with me and allowed me to speak in big long paragraphs about how much you have done for DA. But sadly, I can only try to astound you with my bluntness-
You = awesome
Angelo = not so awesome
I’m rooting for you and your buddies all the way, dude. Don’t give up hope. Justice is served where it is needed in some form or another. And if things don’t go according to plan…well…there’s always karma to look forward to.
Peace out. (o^-^)o
Nice story..always known bad days can produce some good work…
ill remember to work oon my site(s) when im ill next(which is rare i think..) to see if anything amazing happens(which i doubt…)
Nice story jark
Scott,
Because of deviantart people have met - and married - myself being one of those. People have met and made friends for life. Artist have exchanged invaluable knowledge, skills, techniques and resources. The world of graphic design for many began with deviantart. I can, without reservation, state that I would not have my current job as the Director of Marketing for Sova Digital without being a part of deviantart. For many the careers they chose or jobs they landed were from the vast knowledge gained at deviantart.
You and Matt are directly responsible for all of these events and much much more. Whatever you do in your life you will always be held in the most respectful way possible. I wish I could wave a magic wand and end the agony you are having to endure.
Much love to you and yours,
Marina
I joined deviantART after I saw some pictures made by a member who posted links on another site. I checked out deviantART and thought it was very intriguing to have a community where artists could post their art and share their thoughts about it with each other. I’ll be the first to admit that my art isn’t the greatest, but being involved in the process and being inspired by other artists of various skill levels was fantastic. Shortly after joining DA I decided to support it by subscribing. My financial circumstances are not great, but I can tell you that I’ve been on the internet since it was text based and have never paid to become a member of any service or site of any kind until DA.
Unfortunately, it’s clear to me that the current CEO is focused on how to run a corporation rather than how to support a community. Your firing and the subsequent fallout from that highlights this idealogical/economic divide.
Thank you very much for all of the sacrifice you have personally made to bring DA to all of us. If DA should take a different path, I would like to support you and others in re-establishing the spirit of DA somewhere else.
Paul
I neglect my account for three months, and look what happens!!
wow, man, that sucks hard. today marks the first day in about 3 1/2 months that I’ve logged in to my deviantArt account - for reasons not relevant here. i remember randomly finding deviantArt online while looking for something else, and being ecstatic! i told all my art school friends about this cool and wonderful online community that they should know about, and now it’s come to this.
i wish you the best. in fact, i’m sure the best will come to you, the website was a wonderful idea and you implemented it. i’ll keep myself posted on this issue, and follow you wherever you go.
for you :teddy: (use your imagination)
I haven’t really been a dA addict for very long, but long enough to know the work that you’ve put into the site. I read a couple comments about how you should just let it go, and to me that’s completely messed up. You created dA. It’s your “baby” (so to speak). That’s like telling someone to just forget about their marriage of five years because the wife was raped. It just doesn’t make sense. Keep fighting Jark, cause I know we’re all fighting for you, and with you.
Mike “~SparticusToast”
If DeviantART is your making, you should obviously not be kicked off the time. You should be the leader. YOU should be the official owner and man in charge. YOU codded the entire site. It is YOURS.
yup… the good old days….
he was pretty condescending, and acted like an ass to many folks in the channel,
Laura from Orlando here. Is it possible to subscribe to this blogs rss?
Great web site! I read the last post and completely agree. I came across your page when searching on information about cancer and smoking. I need to start a web blog yours! I am jealous :-)
August 7.
we remember. we hate thieves.
will this work? :jarksaber:
With you, always.
Ruben The AnswerMan
http://rubentheanswerman.deviantart.com
Once again having read this i feel so sorry for you.
A website that you put your heart and soul into creating, for artiss of all kinds to share thier work, has been “stolen” by one who didnt even originally co-found Deviantart.
I support you and i believe that Angelo should be the one to be fired and not you
I hope that you come back to DA one day where you will be welcome by open arms and you can share with us your many ideas to make DA even better.
Good luck with your future, whatever you decide to do.
Jenny “~jennyrose54″
Wonderful beginning ;)