Popularity on DeviantArt

It turns out if you are popular on Deviant Art, you're set.
You have legions of rabid, foaming at the mouth (and sometimes the crotch) fans who will happily grab their pitchforks and torches at the slightest provocation to defend your honor whether it was ever actually insulted or not.

How do I know? Because recently I got the chance to make like Frankenstein's monster. But I didn't run from the villagers, nor did I simply stand my ground. For all the difference it made, I actively tore into each one of them who came after me.

The primary rule to fighting back on the internet is this: every website or forum where you can comment or make posts has guidelines or rules about what you can say. Well except for 4chan. Anywho, when you fight back, you have to make sure that you stay inside the rules.

In my case what happened was a very talented artist who does beautiful work posted a series of character art pieces that all belong to an original story he has developed. And he wants to know what people think.

Well one of them, a one-armed bad-ass had a few problems with how he was wearing his weapons. If the guy was a live person, and needed to draw those weapons it would be a slow and horribly awkward process. So I left the artist a polite, well written comment pointing out the problems, explaining why they were actually problems, and offering at least one solution per problem. You see, I really like this guy's art, and I want him to have the best possible "product" in terms of his stoy, to sell to publishers. In short, I want him to succeed.

And I never heard a peep back. So for all I know, he never saw my comment, so later on I sent him a Note, which is Deviant Art's version of a Private Message. I never heard anything back from that either. So I proceeded to make mention of my comment and note whenever the artist brought up his project. I thought that was much more professional than bombarding his message center whenever I felt like it, like some rabid fanboy.

So, I'm about to give up on it when the artist posts another journal about his story project, and I make one last post, Saying I'm a little disenchanted and jaded over his project, but that I wish him well.

Miracle upon miracles, he responds. I respond back referencing my comment and note, and telling him I'll resend the note to him so he doesn't have to dig deep into his inbox looking for the original.

...and here comes the rabid army with pitchforks and torches, and a zealot-like belief that they know all of the relevant details and are entitled to interrupt, inserting themselves into what is in all essence a private conversation being held in a public place.

And no matter how many times I tell them that this is a conversation they are not part of, that they don't know everything that has been said, and that their interruption was not welcome they just kept coming back to try and tell me not only was I wrong, but that I essentially had no business correcting anything this guy did, nor did I have the right to tell them to shut the hell up because they weren't involved.

I have met mentally retarded people who had a greater ability with social interaction, with understanding what they're told, and with learning than these zealots.

The moral of the story is that no good deed goes unpunished, especially when people with internet access are involved in the process.

Edit: Something has been brought to my attention that needs clarified. The comments and communication attempts was around 6. And they were made over the span of several months. I was not constantly pestering the artist, which is definitely the wrong way to go about giving critiques.