14 DAY TRIAL // DeviantArt, the site/social network for aspiring artists, is now celebrating its tenth birthday. What started out as more of a sideproject grew into the longest running social network on the web. It’s unashamedly geeky approach to everything from the design of the site to the way it’s run has made it a popular choice for the counter-culture crowd, for better or for worse.
"I can't believe ten years have gone by, but it's even more amazing to me what we've built in that time," said Sotira. "More people look at art on deviantART in two weeks than the combined annual visitors to the top 100 museums in the world. As a cultural force, there has never been a single aggregation and collection of over 14 million living and communicating artists in the history of the world,” cofounder and CEO Angelo Sotira said.
“But, at the same time, the success of the network rests entirely with the one-to-one communication between the people who are here and using this platform to learn, grow, and support each other in the arts and in the practice of making beauty," he added.
The site started out as a community for app skins and themes creators, with all cofounders coming from that background. But as the site grew more popular it started housing different artworks as well, drawings, and photography and so on. Right now it hosts a wide variety of digital works, from 3D renderings to videos, but also traditional art like oil paintings and, of course, photographs, which make up most of the content submitted to the site. DeviantArt says 100,000 works are uploaded every day.
The site is holding a Birthday Bash to mark the event this Sunday and will also unveil a new, mystery app at the party. DeviantArt has a history of launching new versions of the site on its birthday, but has recently unveiled the latest version 7 earlier this year so an update is probably not in the works.