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dA Contest Experiment

As some of you (well, probably all ten of you.  Yes, I apparently have ten people reading my blog.  That is nine more than I had expected) are probably aware, I’m a bit of a masochist in regards to my creative ventures.  As you’re probably also aware, I can afford to – humble I am not.  I mean, christ, you’re reading the words of the girl who wrote crack!fic for the lawls and to piss off a fandom.  Sadly, I (mostly) failed.  I got one person crazy pissed at me, but she was a superfan of my other fics.  Yes, I was a fifteen year old writing crappy Artemis Fowl fanfics and I had superfans.  Superfans that stalked me for years.  Don’t ask me to explain it – I don’t get it myself.  Travis says it’s because I’m better at writing than I give myself credit for.  I, personally, attribute it to my ability to write for my audience… since my audience is myself and apparently there are people like me in the world.  That, and my rarely tapped ability to be charming.

So, yeah, ego.  An ego that was stroked for years due to being the one artist and writer in one group of friends and then further fueled by the interwebs.  Needless to say, I’m an excellent candidate for experimenting on creative groups – I have more interest in the numbers and what they represent than how they reflect on my own work.  Hence my current experiment on the Castle fandom regarding review to read ratios, speed of reading and quality of reviews between FF.Net and the castle_fic LJ comm.  I mean, hey, if I’m going to be writing Castle fic like the fantard that I am, I may as well get some data out of it.

Hopefully I’ll be able to rope in some other authors who crosspost between LJ and FF.Net, plus ones that only post on FF.Net or LJ so I can get a proper set of data.

But I digress.

Last week, in a fit of boredom and annoyance, I decided that I was going to enter an OC contest for the #CriminalMindsLovers group on dA.  Yes, seriously, an OC contest.  Yes, I am 21, not 12.  Actually, that’s sort of why I entered.  You see, when I had decided to enter, the other entries consisted of hilarious emo Sues.  Because, yes, the BAU needs another child genius – Reid more than fills that role… and at least he’s in his late twenties, not eighteen with a pseudo-Japanese name.  So I was all, oh fuck you kids, I never created Sues as bad as that, even when I was your age!  (I haven’t – all my Mary Sues were the right age and they never had a ’special power’ that detracted from the canon characters.  Rather, they were almost complimentary to the cast.)

So I created Ana Novak, a geeky researcher/consultant who spends more time in Quantico than in the field.  Also, she’s in her thirties, isn’t stunningly beautiful or a genius.  She’s just an ordinary person with a fascination with overly violent crimes.  In other words, someone who could actually show up on Criminal Minds, unlike the eighteen year old punks that Hotch somehow allows to dress more extravagantly in the field than Garcia does in her batcave.  Riiight.  You’re representing the FBI (unlike Garcia – she’s a consultant/tech analyst and on a CIA watchlist and, thus, more valuable than the profilers), you’re not going to be allowed to wander around in ripped jeans.

So, yup, I went through the process of hacking up an admittedly bad drawing, submitting it and waiting until Sunday for the results.  They were exactly as I predicted (Sarah will corroborate - she was pretty certain of the opposite outcome) – I didn’t win.  Didn’t place anywhere.

Wanna know what charater won?

A sociopath.

Yes.

A fucking sociopath won a CM OC contest.  Fuck me – it’s Criminal Minds, not Dexter!

Oh!  And to make it even more hilarious?  Hotch doesn’t care that he’s a sociopath and the rest are creeped out by him but not sure why.

Yes.

A team of highly trained profilers, one of whom was involve with starting the fucking unit, wouldn’t notice or care that there’s a potential serial killer in their midst.  Cuz, y’know, it’s not like it is their job to notice these things or not.

dA is special.  I swear to god, fandom is always a dramatastic disaster but dA?  dA takes the cake in stupidity.

(At least the guy who won could draw… in a generic anime style, but, hey, better than nothing.)

PS:  Yes, I really don’t care that I won or lost – it was just a test to see what they were judging based on.  Clearly it was the ‘coolness’ or ‘uniqueness’ factor, not the ‘will this character actually fit in the universe’ category.  Besides, I got more than I expected out of this – Ana Novak actually fits quite nicely in the Caeverse.  She’s going to be the department’s profiler and violent crimes expert.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 22:01 and is filed under misc, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • SuperPorcupineFish
    Oh nikkers. You make me giggles! I love reading your crazy inner thoughts and then I feel glad that I am on your good side for when you take over the world. Oh what a glorious day it will be. Also, I laugh at your need for data. Its the scientist in you, bred from the very genomes that created you! MUWAHAHAHA. Ahem, anyways, also, you made a mistake! You weren't the only writer/artist in the group of friends! Miranda writes A LOT, too! She even worked for several newspapers! And she still wrote a lot of fictional work that I have liked! So, ERROR! Also I draw a lot still! But, I keep it to myself and you will never see it except on my body where it will be tattooed. My new ones still hurt dammit. They hurt. Why do the ankles never heal well? I do not know! Apparently because there is not enough circulation down there. But, I like my new ones, they are traditional, and required little time to be in pain :D. There is also orange on it, I love orange. :D Yes, anyways, you get the point. But, I miss reading your Artemis Fowl stories, fuck did they make me laugh. I also miss your Harry Potter stories, but I suppose to world has to move on! Oh I have some mango juice left! Got to go!
  • Actually, you made the mistake. I was talking about a different group of friends than the high school crowd - I was pretty good friends with Eve, Leah, etc back in WC.

    You got a tattoo on your ankle? Okay, that's crazysauce - I had just decided the other day if I was getting a tattoo, it'll be on my ankle because I can hide it with pants and/or socks if necessary.

    You dumbass, you could read my Castle fics. They're 100x better.
  • SuperPorcupineFish
    Yeah, but you werent really good or anything yet at that point. Dont deny! But, yeah I have two actually on my ankle. Crazy sauce indeed! They are nice! Will have to show you. And yes, I will always get tattoos in places where I can cover them and no one can see unless they know me! But, yes, I am hungry. Feed me.
  • Dude, I never deny how crap I was at writing back then. Hell, I still think I'm pretty crap. I'm just sayin' - I'm writin' stuff now, which you should be aware of since I just posted one to this blog. XP

    I can't feed you - you're in Sweden.
  • SuperPorcupineFish
    I didnt say you were crap at writing? I havent read anything of yours for a long time, usually because its about stuff I have no idea about...and you should send me teleportation food ;_;.
  • No, I said that I was crap at writing.

    As for what I'm writing now... it's generic tv rom-com stuff. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy, girl refuses to admit it, boy follows girl around.

    If I could teleport things, I certainly wouldn't be sending you food to Sweden.
  • aidanc
    Yeah, I had a pretty similar experience with another DA competition - with much the same results. I don't care that mine wasn't chosen, but some of the ones that were? Completely retarded.

    I suppose that's the problem with an art site that was set up by people who aren't really experts - or necessarily even remotely talented - in the field. It does provide a friendly arena for casual artists, but for serious ones? Frustration, more than anything else.
  • I think I'm more with Trav for this one - there are good artists on dA, it's just that the social networking aspect of the site is really, really bad. Though it is one of the oldest social networking sites on the interwebs - you gotta give it credit for that.

    But, yes, the general users of dA are bloody morons.
  • aidanc
    I did talk about it up there and I'll likely repeat myself a bit, but yeah, there are plenty of massively talented, enjoyable and all-around great people on DA, and I suppose this is where the social networking aspect works at its best - in that you can, by and large, filter out people who you don't think are necessarily worth the time. I think where it falls down more is the aspect of it functioning as a greater community, because most of the leaders are the general users. Or friends of. Hurray for nepotism, I suppose?
  • There's also the problem that pretty much all of the 'leaders' need to take a course in human relations or some shit. They all behave too much like general idiots on the internets and reply to everything with boo hoo suck it up princess.

    I mean, yes, I can sympathise with all the stupid requests that they get and I do often agree with the suck it up mentality, but it does nothing but spread dArama. Just send off an effin' form letter to the complainers.
  • Actually most of the founders were pretty talented folks, who were well networked with other artists of high caliber. However what they needed were people proficient in social networking, for which there are no true experts, and anyone claiming to be one is a liar.

    I think most peoples frustration with dA is that they either ignore or don't understand the 80/20 phenomenon where in 80% of everything is crap and 20% is worth paying attention too. Some more cynical people even propose that in the case of the internet its 90/10 or even 95/5. Serious artists are doing some cool stuff with dA, it just takes a little digging. (to which I say, welcome to the internet)

    To me, it boils down to this; if you seek to value from a system, then you first need to add something of value into the system. Complaining that the system sucks, isn't adding value. dA is big enough that communities are breaking off all the time from the larger concept of community and in those there is really interesting stuff happening. Its easy to point out how a fan group of a tv show would be full of tards, but I don't find that a compelling damnation on the site.
  • aidanc
    The competition I was talking about was a site-wide one, where the judges were all moderators and other site administrators. What I was saying (poorly) is that the DeviantArt administrators tend towards what I'd definitely call odd choices, in terms of selecting work and so on. There are a lot of fantastic artists there, definitely, but I think that there's places that I think tend to be slightly more balanced than DeviantArt.

    But to recant on my previous sweeping comments, I suppose I have a few things to say, which are firstly, I think that the site is filled with talent - just largely undeveloped and underutilised; and secondly, I'd wonder how useful the 80/20 statistic (I'd always heard it as 90/10, but that's beside the point) actually is, within the realm of the internet. While it might be loosely true for 'everything', it's not really relevant when you have to think about the creator - for example, is a highly-skilled creator with years under their belt inadmissible failings worth intrinsically more or less than an intelligent, talented, just-beginning creator, who can't really be judged on the same artistic standards? And to what degree do we, as the viewer, influence our own reception of the work (which is just a wanky way of saying that I think most people don't really stretch themselves enough to even attempt to like something)? And how is quality defined?

    So yes - while I find the administration and some of the ways that the site are run slightly questionable in their choices and tastes, DeviantArt as a whole is really too diverse to quantify in any way. And the lack of critical analysis as a whole on the site bites.
  • I had always heard it as 90/10 myself.

    And, I suppose, as with everything crap/non-crap it is all a matter of personal opinion - it's not judged by any particular rules.
  • Yeah, I'm with the 95/5 group, maybe even weighted further with crap. But I'm a cynic, which we all knew.
  • personally I lean 80/10/10 where 80 is still crap but then one of the 10%'s is that its crap but I don't care because I enjoy it anyways.
  • Ha, true! There's always the guilty pleasure crap!
  • This comment gets a separate thread, because it does. Also I forgot to include it in the last post until after I pushed submit.

    Re: experimentation;
    Count me in, I'm not sure how well the metrics of my comic experimentations would match up to your writings but I'm starting to figure out how to draw more attention to the comic anyways so I may as well do it in a way that can be useful to you as well.
  • Sweet! Your metrics will be useful for when I do get on with the comic experimenting. Whiiich will be in 88 days according to my countdown.
  • That's true. Though I haven't actually come up with any ideas yet, you'l
    have to help me brainstorm up some.
  • Ha, my schemes to draw attention to my work generally consist of little more than talk to people. So I dunno how much help I'm gunna be....
  • Actually talk to people? woah girl, lets not go crazy here. I'm sure there are other things to try first.

    I think if tv has taught me anything its that crazy schemes are always fool proof and will work out great for me if use them with absolutely no downsides.
  • Talking to people? Madness!
  • Apparently because I'm Travis, my opinions sucks. Perhaps its my fault for assuming this, but I consider making things for yourself as your own primary audience crucial to being great at that creative thing. That is a step minus 5 to me. (Is that an official saying, and if not can we make it one?)

    At least the experiment provided useful results, not in terms of the contest, but you made a new character who will further shape the world of your comic. I could have told you the results of your experiments based solely on the name of the group. You know, if I had been paying more attention... for some reason I thought this contest was a more official thing.
  • I don't count any of my friends opinions, really. Too much bias. XP But, yes, writing for yourself as the audience is obviously a really good way of succeeding. Fangirl certainly proved that, as did a decent percentage of my old AF fic.

    Yeah, the name is terrible. But the Sanctuary group on dA is actually pretty good and the Stargate one is so-so (but that's just because there's this one guy posting drawings of weapons and ships that are really boring). It's just that there are too many kids in the CM group.
  • rainflyx
    I've never been a fan of the writing section of dA... too much drama, not enough quality content. Glad to see I'm not missing out on anything after all.
  • Oh god, the writing section is beyond awful. This was actually an experiment on the art section... which may explain why the writing is even worse than usual.
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