There is this Facebook page...

…and it’s called Beka z ''artystów'' z DeviantArta XD ( www.facebook.com/bekazda ), which could be transladed as: LOLing at “artists” from DeviantArt xD (beka is an extremely informal term for laughing at). I know I shouldn’t be bothered by it. I mean, freedom of speech is one of the most wonderful human rights and it’s great that people engage in a discussion about art. However, I cannot help being greatly saddened by this Facebook page.

First of all, the discussion between the members of this community barely counts as a discussion at all. Indeed, there are some witty comments, but most of them contains rather noticeable amount of verbal abuse. Actually, quite a few are nothing more but cursing, shaming and straight-out bullying. For example, a photo featuring people cosplaying as some of the members of the Justice League got uploaded with a description saying: Liga Spedalonych, which more or less means: the League of the Faggoted (spedalony is Polish offensive term for a gay person changed into a form of adjective).

Secondly, I really don’t get why some of the pieces featured on the page even got there. I mean, most of them only committed the “crime” of being drawn my young, inexperienced artists who don’t own any other software than Paint. Most of the digital artists starts like this. Shaming and harassing is not helping them improve. Seriously, it’s like kicking a puppy!

Other than that, when it comes to quality, some of these supposedly “terrible” artworks are actually quite good. Apparently, the subject alone is what can classify the piece as artistically faulty. Among such forbidden subjects are: ponies, fat people, Sonic the Hedgehog, re-interpretations of characters form nostalgic media, crack pairings, ponies, cosplaying, parodies, irony, and some more ponies. Oh, and porn. Lots and lots of pron.

Even though I have to agree that some of the presented pornographic pictures are really disturbing (too deviant for deviant, I would say), most of them is pretty harmless and I honestly don’t understand why their mere existence upsets the members of this community so greatly. Isn’t surfing the net and finding some lame porn a little bit like going into a forest and then complaining about finding trees?

Also, it would appear that one of the admins of the Facebook page has some serious issue with foot fetish. I mean, REALLY serious. Like being obsessed with the fact that this thing even exist. Seriously, dude (or dudette), I understand that it is not your thing – to be honest, I never quite did get it myself – but don’t you think it’s time to at least try to get over it?

Speaking of artworks, I noticed something funny. I really liked one of the pictures I saw on Beka... and wanted to visit the author’s gallery to see more things in his or hers style. To my great surprise, name of the artist was nowhere to be found. Actually, I failed to find even one artwork that would be properly credited. What I also was unable to find, was a single thing indicating that the artists even know that their pictures got featured on the page.

Last but not least, the main admin, when asking people to propose artworks  to be featured on the page, wrote: (…) JAK KOGOŚ NIE LUBICIE LUB COS (…) CHUJOWO RYSUJE TO DAWAJCIE NA PRIV (…), which translates as: (…)IF YOU DON’T LIKE SOMEONE OR SOMETHING (…) DRAWS SHITTY SEND A PRIVATE MASSAGE (…). Yes, your eyes are not mistaken. A feeling of antipathy towards an artist is listed before the quality of the art as the main reasons of condemning a picture.

There is one more thing I would must say about the subject, even though it makes my heart feel heavy.

 Over 3,200 people likes Beka .... It’s not so few, taking into account that it is meant for Polish-speakers only. The worst part is… I know some of these people. That’s how I found the page – Facebook said that couple of my friends likes this and I should too. I have to admit, finding the people I know among this community shocked me quite a lot. The presence of one particular person shocked me even more than the others’.

The person I’m talking is not friends with me. Not anymore. And I am the only one to blame for it.

Anyway, when I knew her, she was the nicest and the kindest person under the Sun. Very sensitive and intelligent, exceptionally gifted with writing abilities. Prodigy, I would say. At age of mere 13 she wrote better than I could ever hope for.

She has a gallery. Here. On DeviantArt. Even though nowadays it’s filled mostly with photos, in the past it used to feature quite a few hand-drawn pictures. Pictures that weren’t all that better than an average picture ridiculed on Beka z ''artystów'' z DeviantArta XD.

Seeing her there, in the crowd, bulling and laughing at people who mere few years ago could have been us… It… It hurts.