Four years ago yesterday (March 11, 2008), I became a member of deviantART, although I actually discovered it in late December of 2006 (which is now a little over FIVE years ago … holy cow).  I was gonna write a journal on the 5th anniversary of my discovery of dA, but since I never got the time, I'll just combine what I was gonna say in that journal with this one.

So, where do I begin?  In the past five years, I've met some interesting people, drawn a slew of pictures, written a few stories, made some videos, and pretty much discovered a whole other dimension of the Internet I never even knew existed—which in turn allowed me to tap into new dimensions of my creative consciousness that I would never have been inspired to explore otherwise.  And that's barely scratching the surface.  I couldn't possibly go into detail about everything I've done or that's happened to me since I first became Internet-active, so, for today, I'll just talk about what's pertinent to me joining dA.

You see, before I got my first laptop as a high school graduation present, I'd never really been active online or had the chance to freely explore the Internet.  Having an unlimited wealth of instant information and media, all to myself, was pretty much brand new to me.  I began searching for anime pictures, downloading video game music, and pretty much looking up information at random (gotta love that Wikipedia).  One day, I decided to look up the furry fandom on Wikipedia, just to see what I'd find … and it opened my eyes to a dream world of fantasy and imagination that would change me forever (and it wouldn't be the last time I had a mind-blowing paradigm shift of this kind, either).  I discovered the true meaning of furrydom as an artistic and literary movement (and not just … well, you know) and how deeply the appreciation for anthropomorphic animals permeated art and culture—and appreciation that I'd had all along.  In a certain sense, I'd been a furry fan for almost my whole life—I'd just never realized it.

I blame Star Fox.  Among other things, of course—but that was probably the big one.

On that note, my discovery of the furry fandom, combined with my quest to download game music, led me into a kind of a Star Fox obsession (tricking out my laptop, that sort of thing).  Or was it the other way around?  I can't remember.  Anyway, in my search for Star Fox pictures, I came across deviantART.  When I entered "Star Fox" in the search tab, one of the pictures that came up in the results was this: [link]

That's right—Virus-20 was the artist who introduced me to the fat fur/inflation community and, ultimately, inspired me to join dA.  I'd always been fascinated with cartoony inflation/weight gain—even as a kid—but before I found him, I honestly thought I was the only person in the world who did.  So, in a way, I have him to thank for inspiring me to actively tap into that fascination and (once I joined dA) share it with the world.  Of course, I discovered plenty of other cartoon/furry WG/inflation artists after I found Virus (too many to list), but for me, he was the first.  And to this day, I'm still proud to support him and have him as a friend.

All of this culminated in me officially joining dA … and the rest is history.  Four years have gone by (or five, depending on where you count from), and for all I've done, there's still so much left I wanna do.  People I want to meet, pictures to share, stories to tell … I wish I could be more active, both as a deviant and as an artist.  It's hard for me to find the time or the inspiration to do what I wanna do … but I'll always keep at it.  I'll keep making new discoveries.  After all, in an ever-changing place like this, there's something new to discover almost every day—new inspirations, new media, new fascinations … whole new fandoms, even.

Yep, *sigh* I've got a long road ahead of me yet … I hope.