Since it seems that TCFKAS (The Criminal Formerly Known As Spyed) has a disability that prevents him from speaking clearly, I have decided that given my penchant for clarity I would provide a translation. Free of charge!
About a month ago deviantART parted ways with one of our beloved co-founders.
Last month I fired Scott Jarkoff.
The common response by an organization in such an instance is to say very little. Normally saying very little is the respectful and expected thing to do. But I guess you could say that deviantART is not a normal company, and more information, not less, is expected by the deviantART community.
I would have liked to pretend that he was "lost" or some other euphemism, however, it has been made clear that I know less about human nature than I do about ethics.
With the large black cloud surrounding his departure some of us have found ourselves standing further apart than we'd like to. And we have a few major roadblocks preventing us from coming a little bit closer together. I think it's time that we remove at least one roadblock by taking a moment to fondly remember Scott's contributions to deviantART over the years.
Given that somehow people have figured out that I fired him because I thought it would allow me to get away with stealing his ownership rights and hijack the direction of the company, there has been a problem with my plans. I hope that by providing another distraction in the form of a wake I can get some good will and move on.
It began with an Idea
Perhaps if I capitalize Idea people will consider it significant.
For starters, Scott introduced deviantART's original (overall) framework. Following a trend that continued to fail for other sites at the time, Scott's most notable innovations to the trend were the deviantWATCH followed closely by the actual layout of the user pages. I personally consider the user pages to be absolutely brilliant. For the simple reason that unlike other community sites, deviantART's user pages feel like home. I enjoy theorizing on why, but you should really ask Scott. He later enhanced them with Phase I of journal features, and planned Phase II which will still reach completion one day.
deviantART was Scott's creation and I loved it. Best thing I ever stole!
An astounding amount of effort goes into building a community like deviantART to the point where it is today. A lot of people contributed their time and energy, and some gave so much more. Hearts, souls, vials of blood. I couldn't summarize for you what I've seen with my two eyes here. Some of the characters believe so strongly in this vision a book could be written on the contributions of each. And Scott's would be longer than most.
Scott's creation inspired many people to help build it into what it is today. Vials of blood are popular, so I will mention them.
The result?
If you take a look at deviantART with regard strictly to it's implications on free speech. So vast, so free and so pure that only the collective appreciation of the whole receives greater acknowledgement than the individual. It's a tribute to the Internet, a vessel for artists to convey unhindered expression. Devious, purely devious. Transformative, differing from the norm.
deviantART is a great place here on the internet and will hopefully make me a rich man.
For this we have a few people to thank, Scott Jarkoff among the greatest.
Thanks Scott, you too Matthew who I will not mention by name. Ever.
The Past Month
Can you believe it has taken me a month to write this?
As the head of the company I get to take credit for the hard decisions. Someone has to, I suppose. But as with every good team, we do reach consensus before making any big decision. Alas even with this painful beating taken arms down, I've done little to defend myself. One week passed, two weeks passed, three… four. We witnessed a tremendous celebration for our Yellow Alien. Thousands of deviants, yellow icons, works of art submitted and thousands of comments. Call it a rebellion, call it a protest; I call it a celebration of Scott.
Now I will make the play for sympathy. Including somehow turning around the fact of my silence into something admirable. Then I'll choose to redefine the outrage at what I've done into something else and at the same time give this journal a title. Boy I'm good.
In hindsight we should have released a joint statement. We didn't, and within 12 hours there was a very angry mob, armed with the idea that anything said by "this side" would be a spin. There really was nothing that we could say that would have slowed that storm down. Latch on to something steady; that's about it.
We? Okay, I can't even figure out what he means by this. Come to think of it, who the hell is he referring to by this "consensus"? I'll try to translate this, but I really don't think it will be accurate.I really screwed up by not putting out a spin campaign from the start, but given the manner in which I fired Scott, and the deadline I was facing regarding him taking legal action to obtain the documents he is legally entitled to, I really wasn't thinking clearly. Next thing I knew, all hell had broken loose. I hadn't counted on the steps that Scott had taken beforehand just in case I fired him to avoid being caught in what I was doing.
However much I disagree with a lot of what has been said; however hard it has been to remain silent. I took the beating, in front of every one of you. And believe me, I felt it.
I will now contradict what I've said previously about sleeping well and hope no one notices. Combined with a further assertion that ignoring people's demands for an explanation is somehow something to command sympathy it may just work.
On some level my silence was out of respect for Scott, ironically enough. You can doubt that if you like, I won't fault you for it. In my defense, the stress that I and undoubtedly a few others behind these scenes have been through together isn't something any one of you can relate to (directly) at all.
I will just assert that you being you can not imagine what it is to be me being me. I'm hoping you forget that Scott was one of the people demanding an answer.
So what happened?
Don't blink, when asked in the future about an explanation this is where I will claim to have given it.
If there's one word I'd like to use that might help you understand it would be mutual gridlock. It was a difficult situation. The company felt it needed to do what it did to break the impasse.
Did you see that? I've now shown that I can't even count.
(Mutual gridlock being two words.)If it helps you to know, Scott is still one of our main share holders. We are hopeful that Scott continues as an active productive contributor to the deviantART community and that the Company someday becomes a financial success.
I left Scott with a portion of his shares in hopes that he would not sue my ass off. Looks like I guessed wrong.
Celebration of Scott's contributions
To celebrate Scott's contributions, a "Co-Founder" status has been created and applied to °jark's account. A History document will grace our About Us page in good time honoring Scott as well as some of the other major contributors to the site.
Generally we embrace Scott with open arms. Scott is technically and metaphorically speaking, the very first deviant. From just that perspective, things wouldn't be the same without him.
Someone else came up with this idea, and since I don't have to acknowledge matteo I figured I'd agree to it. I'll be honest, I owe my entire future to Scott. Too bad he didn't realize I was a crook until too late.
We look to resolution and a bright future ahead.
Can someone pass the gravy?
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Please let me know how you think I did. Unfortunately, it seems that there are some who in their hope to see the good in everyone and in the situation are seeing in this bile what they wish, rather than what it is. I don't. I see more crap.
My main problem is that it isn't even plausible let alone anything of significance. My guess is that there are folks who are trying to move forward and Angelo had the task of saying something soothing while announcing Scott's new and unique status.
Somehow I really don't think that changing the status on his page is what Scott is looking for, but that may just be me.
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Thank you Scott Jarkoff and you others responsible for this place. It was a place of much good while it lasted. I will toast you in person some day, regardless of the outcome of things here.
Educate yourself. Speak to others about the issues. Discuss things. Think critically. Question your own views. Question authority. Respect others. Respect yourself.
