You're right. In American-speak, 'loser' has a perjorative context, implying it's the person's own fault if they don't get ahead in life. Their troubles are always attributed to their bad or negative 'attitude,' which can imply a lack of ambition, an unwillingness to work, a tendency to blame others rather than themselves for what goes wrong. A person can be unlucky and NOT be a loser—but often the two go hand in hand. A certain school of thought believes that you create your own luck, good or bad. Thankfully I've been living in the UK long enough to recognise how flawed that sort of notion is. People are a product of circumstances as well as personality, and some find it difficult to overcome overwhelming odds. That doesn't mean that people aren't ever responsible for what happens to them, but if they are struggling, for whatever reason, calling them a 'loser' is just plain cruel. Cruel, and self-fulfilling.
I don't know much about how age looks in asia. I thought DA's major audience was American. DA might be accepted in art circles. I recall that many famous Marvel artists use that site, but, I work in retail and a co-worker told me she blocked her teens from the site (she said it has a horrible reputation to parents and teachers). Her opinion was that it's well known for supporting the worst kind of child abuse, full of pariahs, and she said that using it could make me look bad to employers. I decided that she was right. I don't judge others who stay on DA but it's not worth risking my name. I used to report things but DeviantART would just send me a note saying that I had to give them the age that the artist intended the character to be (no one will ever give this to me). So basically, people can draw an 8 year old with pigtails and a skimpy bikini, that barely only covers a small part of her breast, and claim she's over 18. They leave really bad art posted. The inflation art is something that bothers me a lot too. It looks like they're making fun of people like me. A lot of people look at me with disgust so it's hard to believe that there is a group on DeviantART that truly thinks of it as attractive. It looks like they're mocking overweight people.
@ChickenFreak : It's interesting how language can influence culture. I find this really fascinating, and wonder whether separating the meaning would lead to more compassion towards the less fortunate? That'd be a simple campaign to mount. @vera2014 : You are absolutely right, and I wouldn't risk it with my boss either. For what it's worth, I think her opinion is a bit severe and that she fails to understand the nature of art. Having said that, I don't judge her decision to ban her teens from going there, that's her decision, but I don't see what benefits there are. If anything, art is a wonderful way to teach the children about the world, good and bad, and to facilitate all kinds of conversations. With regards to reporting, I know, they went through a bad period of not knowing what to do, but these days they are a bit more responsive (they employed more people in that department basically). But art can also be shocking. There are the entire fetish photography galleries, for example, and even though I can appreciate certain pictures, others rile me up. We all have limits, and exploring those limits helps us define our tastes. It also forces us to consider issues we otherwise try to ignore, etc. To get the maximum out of art, one must be truly open minded. And still, every now and again, a huge discussion arises over something that may or may not have crossed the line. As an artist, this is a facet of art I treasure. I'm super sensitive to any abuse, very protective of children, human rights, peace, and I'm still happily surviving, with a few filters, on dA, so it's not all that bad And they should pay me for defending their sorry ass, they really could do a lot better to filter bad content.
Many relatives and non-art friends have a bad impression of the site. One friend called the site "putrid." The co-worker's opinion is more important though because I didn't really think that I could be tarnishing myself in work places. I think DA has a lot of good art on it, there are a lot of good people on it, but it's full of way too much smut. Some of the photography is laughable, where it's all about showing the woman's backside, with a thong--in dark, badly lit closeups. Someone's cheesy one second selfie, or obese Ariel the Mermaid, takes a front page space over far better art. Plus, there are limitations of visual art so I drifted to reading instead. It's hard to show a character's personality with art. Writing is a far superior medium for this. Pin-ups focus too much on physical attractiveness, what a woman should look like to be attractive, they follow certain rules. (And, there are so many pin-ups being posted.) I would like to know: where are all these inflation artists? I'm not finding them in the offline world.
You know, even if there is some raunchy stuff on DeviantArt, I don't think it's all bad, because very few things are all bad. DA actually helped get me into writing, and it's actually quite nice if you know where to look. It reminds me of this class I was taking where we watched this video pretty much telling us that computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. and the internet were terrible things that prevented us from communicating. After the video, everyone stood up and talked about how horrible these things were.Except for me. I said that, yes, these things could be misused and people could get addicted, but it wasn't all bad. There are plenty of good aspects to these things. Of course, I was immediately greeted with cries of "You're wrong!" And "You don't know what you're talking about!" From the other classmates. But do you know what? I said what I needed to. Because the internet and computers aren't all bad.
@vera2014 You sound like a lot of my dA friends, and you are right. I guess this is what divided the community, and anyone who joins the site now has no chance of seeing the good side immediately. I guess I'm always surprised at how bad it is because I don't see it anymore. I simply don't go to the front and I search using keywords, so basically once in several years I might accidentally come across some smut. But I have a pretty high threshold for getting offended and I really love different body shapes being portrayed. So the individual experience of the site can be very different for different people. If you think about it, dA has over 2 million users. Imagine walking through the gates of a 2 million strong city, there's bound to be an underbelly, but it doesn't mean it's shameful to associate with that city in general. That's how I see it, anyway dA has a thriving Literature community, I don't participate much because I'm known as a photographer (and you know how difficult it is to cross genres on dA) but I know a lot of people who do. With characterisation through visual art, I guess it depends. I have very strong artistic appreciation of the aesthetic and well as written word, so I need both. And I agree with the old saying that a picture can be worth a thousand words, especially street photography, which I'm a great fan of. Don't know about inflation artists, or art for that matter, I imagine in the real world they are sort of a niche, possibly within erotic art or pornography. Online, people feel freer to explore their fantasies and experiment with themes etc. I like that (in general; I have no interest in inflation art at all, I find it strange, but reminiscent of those ancient Mother Earth figurines, which in themselves are very artistic).
@jazzabel - I wasn't aware that the UK definition of loser was different to the American's, but maybe I've just been watching too much American TV. Generally speaking though, no matter what you mean exactly when you use the word "loser", it's always a degrading term. You only use it if you either don't like the person or you pity them, but not in a sympathetic, kind way. Oh and what you said about Asian women looking pretty young. My own teenage students thought I was maybe 18 or 20. If I dressed up in a school uniform, I'd easily pass for 16. I'm going to be 27 this year lol. People think my mum's in her 40s and she's actually nearly 60. Someone else thought my dad was 30 (he's in his mid-50s). And on more than one occasion, by different people, they thought my dad was my husband @vera2014 - I don't think DA has a bad rep at all. In fact, most people I know don't know about DA it's just one aspect of it that's bad.
That takes a lot of guts to speak up and speak against the tide like that Just read the comic finally - it portrays people's prejudices very well, our wrong assumptions as though we know the person's life story, when we don't and we're condemning the innocent. We also can't predict how someone might turn out and it shows the importance of giving people a second chance. It's sad, however, that the artist chose to portray only the bad. Nobody except the gay couple had a happy ending, well, and I guess the granddad.
Disagree about the grand dad. Men , especially old men, are programmed to be nice to young girls, on top of that that girl is his own genetic offspring. Nothing redeeming about that character at all.
I really liked the idea behind the comic, and the ending was pretty clever. Thanks for sharing that, Duchess
Well, plenty of people are mean and nasty even to their own children. While I get where you are coming from and I think I agree to an extent, I wouldn't say it's nothing worthy of note. Children and grandchildren do nothing to be loved - they are loved by the grace of the adults around them. If anything, children often do not deserve half the kindness and tolerance that they receive. I believe every child should be loved, yes, but the truth is none of them earned that love. (in fact, half the time I am baffled by how much I do love the children I teach, when they misbehave and don't listen so often!) When we say "Every child deserves to be loved" - that form of "deserve" is very different to the idea of a worker who "deserves" his salary. So I'd say it is still redeeming - it shows he didn't turn out to be such a bad person after all, because to be a grandpa, he needed first to marry (or at the very least he needed to have raised a child either single-handedly or with a spouse/partner), raise the kid, develop a good enough relationship with his child for that child to later bring their child for a visit. But anyway, what you're saying is actually similar to what Jesus said: "If you only love those who love you, why do you deserve any praise? How are you different? Even pagans love those who love them!"
Yeah but when Jesus used the word "pagan", he used it to mean those who are lawless and without God (therefore without righteousness). As for what Jesus might say about paganism as a religion or set of religions and pagans as in those who follow paganism, I shall refrain from comment Firstly I don't know enough and secondly it's just gonna be offensive and thirdly, it's off topic lol.
@Mckk Well, my argument is that the guy isn't in any way reformed from how he used to be, just older. Being nice to your grandchild, I would argue, is instinctive. In fact, there are plenty of adults who COMPLAIN about how their dad/mom was crappy to them, but super sweet to their grandchildren. This is because old people are at the end of the line. It's easy to be nice when you're weak and feeble and your glory days are far behind you.
@Mckk : I agree that it's off topic. And I respect your belief, even though I find aspects of it offensive. I do not equate religions with goodness and righteousness so comments implying as much immediately bother me. I can't help that any more than you can help mentioning it in the first place
I understand some of it but not all. I get that it's meant to show the evolution of ourselves in our lives. But why the persistent theme of insecurity? It seems like most of the characters have social interaction problems, why?
@123456789 - that is true, and it's true that grandparents do commonly spoil grandchildren lol. In a way, I think it's a good and natural way. It's good to be humbled (by being weaker physically) and even better to come to peace with it. I'm coming to realise my favourite age group might well be people in their 50s and 60s. They're often so honest and open, chatty, and also wise with many interesting stories and experiences to share. They have a measure of stability and peace in them that I love and find very comfortable. The Chinese says that such people are able to "see openly" or "see away" - I guess the idea is that they've released their grudges and come to terms with things they cannot change. Either way, it's very attractive and tend not to be possessed by anyone younger. @jazzabel - that's fine. I also don't equate being religious with necessarily being righteous. Jesus was simply saying you have to go one step further - love not only your neighbours but love your enemies. Religious or not, I would see that as a mark of righteousness - a mark of kindness and peace that I'd seek after. And He was saying that those who love God have no excuse but they must love their enemies, because those who follow God was supposed to be different. The shame is of course those who love God are often not different, and often those who do not follow God lead kinder, more loving lives than those who claim to know the God of love. Here's where I totally agree with you that religions and being religious does not necessarily mean righteousness. Yes, I suppose these things are things dear to our hearts!
@Mckk : Pagans are repeatedly put in extremely negative context by the writers of the Bible. This is propaganda against those with different belief systems, something I am deeply opposed to. Hence, I always react when I see it sneaked into a discussion about something unrelated. I don't need help in interpreting the Bible, I read it and made my own conclusions about it. Which doesn't mean I dislike religious people, or religions themselves, I just object to discriminatory claims, should they arise
