I'm in a stampy mood lately, lol.

I see a lot of animosity towards certain artistic mediums and styles here. Most notably, fanart. But also, I hear a lot of people complain that there is too much anime, manga, and digital art on dA. Some people simply call it boring, while others have gone so far as to claim it's not even art. And of course, for every person to respect what an artist is trying to convey with artistic nudity, you'll find several who claim it's just cheap porn and should be removed. And moving on further, I've seen people say that photomanipulators are not artists at all - a claim that intensifies if the photomanipulator uses stock images rather than photos he took himself.

You know what I've noticed? This fact is obvious but it needs to actually be said: you will never, ever hear anyone saying that an oil canvas portrait is not art. You will never hear that a pencil sketch is not art. Simply put, you will never see a digital artist or a fanartist say that traditional art isn't art. No, it's always the pretentious, traditional art snobs who downplay art genres and mediums that they personally don't take part in. Disagree with that statement? Prove me wrong. I'm not saying that EVERY traditional artist does this, of course, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to artistic animosity, to downplaying styles and mediums, all guilty parties are traditional artists and none of them are digital artists, photomanipulators, anime artists, or fanartists.

And if all you see when you look at artistic nudity is cheap porn, simply put, look away, since you're obviously not mature enough to grasp the meaning behind it.

Art is about creative expression. Art is supposed to convey an emotion, or depict a scene, or give a visual for a written character, etc. These goals can be accomplished with traditional art, with digital art, with nudity, with photomanipulation, and with every other kind of art. Artists are supposed to try to do these things, and appreciate the attempts of other artists to do the same. If you automatically spit on a piece of art because you personally don't approve of the style or medium, and especially if you even go so far as to claim that the style or medium shouldn't be called art, you have no right to call yourself an artist.