Cues in Deviant Art

Hey guys,
I'm with the group that is exploring Art communities on social networking site and my website is deviantart.com, which many of you may be familiar with. After reading "Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook" by Tong, Heide, Langwell, and Walther, there was some similarities I have drawn between Facebook and deviantart. After reading this parallels if anyone would like to comment or has any thoughts as user of deviant themselves, don't be afraid to comment, I would love to read what you have to say.

One thing that struck me was how on deviantart, because the website is structured around the postings of an individual's artwork, buying artwork, and networking with other artists, a lot of the way that people put themselves 'out there' on the website or navigate through it is through the nonverbal cue of the pictures of the artworks themselves. Walther according to his SIP theory (social information processing theory)in the article people manage to find ways to use their environment in any means available to create a presence, identity, or impression, even when nonverbal cues are not present. If you think about art solely by itself, in the physical world, it is visual image in which say in the gallery or art showing space, we use to strike up a conversation about the work, introduce ourselves to the artist, or as art historians do, implore their own opinion/impression of the work. In a similar manner, on this social networking sites that are in design for the art community, the initiation factor for sociability still functions as in the physical world. For example, when I am surfing through the site, i like to click on top best paintings. I depend on the visual image to then connect me to the artist/creator of the work to view their profile, 'deviant watch' them (their artwork pops up automatically on my profile for personal viewing from then on), to comment on the work, or introduce myself to the artist by friending them, etc. However, the difference that exists from this point on in the online space, of what I have noticed, is that the art fades into the background from becoming to sole focus to a medium/tool for initial introductions between people and further establishment of social ties, customer/buyer relations, fan relations, friendships, and a sense of belonging to community that is more social, but still artistic at its base. For instance the journals that people write becomes more a intimate conversation. One friend of mine posted a journal that she was sick and got 19 comments of people wishing her wellness and led to a conversation of germs and germaphobic people. It also appears that forming first impressions by being extra nice (a lot of works that are bad recieve positive critique and feedback) is also crucial to setting up relations with other on the site. Anyways, I could write more, but I rather hear what you have to say if you have experienced deviantart at all and look for me on the site! my deviant id is 'thinkmadcrazy'.

Artist666