I'm sure you've all seen DDs--Daily Deviation awards. Maybe you actually watch the dA homepage, and look at all of them everyday. Maybe you've found them when reading someone's journal...or perhaps, like me, you stumble on them when visiting other people's pages...

And whether you agree that someone should or should not have received a DD for their artwork, if you've never received one, you've probably wondered what it's like--I know I always did!

Well, I received one, for Mrs. Darling, not too long ago, and I found the whole thing rather fascinating...and, after talking it over with , (who found receiving HER first DD just as fascinating) decided to write about it, so other people's curiosity would be satisfied.

First of all--the strangest thing is, no one notifies you! You'd think that there would be a note, in your Inbox...or a tag on your front page or something--but nope--nothin'.

If, like me, you find your "fave"s being boosted every so often, because some kind soul has featured one of your works in their journal--you aren't immediately tipped off by the increase in faves for one particular piece. You do notice that all the faves that are showing up are for the same piece...but hey, only 25 at a time show up, and mostly, you just find yourself wondering who would've featured you.

Then you start reading your comments, and you notice that all the names showing up aren't your "usual" watchers, at all--but a whole lot of other folks...but you still don't quite "get" it, until you stumble on a comment that says, "Congrats on your DD!" (And thank goodness people say this--because otherwise, you wouldn't have a clue! )

You stop. You go back and reread the comment. You scratch your head, and wonder if they've confused you with someone else. Heck, you haven't even POSTED anything recently--so how could you have gotten a DD??

While you're thinking this over, you continue to skim your comments--and sure enough, there are lots of other congratulations there--including some from your friends!

You go back and check your homepage...and your Inbox, to see if you missed a notification--but nope...there's nothing there...and then you flip over to the image in question--and there it is--that distinctive graphic showing up, underneath your description of your art...and a nifty blurb with some fancy verbiage about your art (making it sound MUCH cooler than it really is! )...and a tag telling you who featured you, and who suggested you.

At this point, you look at the stats for the image...and you notice that they're high. LOTS of views. Way more than is normal for your stuff. And tons of faves...although a significantly lower proportion than the number of views!

So you go and slobber all over whoever recommended you, and you wonder dazedly if this can really be happening, and why THAT particular piece, and not another one...and maybe you spend some time staring at it, trying to figure out if it's really THAT good...

...and then you gird up your loins, and start thanking people.

This takes FOREVER.

If, like me, you try to look at the gallery of every person who faves you--you quickly give that up as an utter impossibility, if you're ever going to get through this.

You're rather glad that most people can't be bothered to comment--so you don't have to think of something personal to say to every single person who says something along the lines of "Wow, you're so talented!".

I spent a grand total of about 9 hours, just writing thank yous. And I'm a pretty small fish around here--with this being my first (and only! ) DD , and my artwork appealing to a pretty small subsection of the dA community! (I can't imagine how long it'd take if I'd had any nekkid people in my image, for example! )

Fortunately--most of the people who faved my piece didn't look at anything else in my gallery. (How do I know? Because I didn't get more than a couple hundred new "hits" on my home page.) They faved the one piece--and ducked out again. A few stayed and looked around, and faved other pieces as well...and a very few took the time to write really nice, thoughtful comments about what my work meant to them--and sadly, due to the sheer volume of responses I had to deal with, did not get the time I would've liked to have given them in return...but no matter HOW nice you think you are--your priorities simply HAVE to change a bit, even temporarily, while dealing with this one day or so.

And then here's the really weird thing...the next day--it's as if it didn't happen at all! You get a few stragglers, over the next few days...but not much more than you'd normally get anyway, just normal "new traffic". It's this one totally, insanely busy day--and then *poof*--it's gone, and you're back to normal!

Except for the really skewed stats you wind up with!

Prior to this...I'd say my better images averaged about 700-1000 views. A few of the best, that had been around for longer, might have a little more--but that's about the average. And overall--most of my images *still* have about that many views--with maybe an increase of a hundred or so that I'd attribute to additional traffic from the DD (but could just as well be from journal or article features!)...but that single image wound up with something like 3000 views in *one day*. And it went from having roughly 100 faves (which again, is about average for my better pieces) to having 180...which (up to that point) was more than any of my pieces had ever received. The three or four pieces that had been in my "top 5", went up with faves, as well--but not nearly so dramatically as that particular photo...and a few pieces that get no attention whatsoever, have picked up a few stragglers, here and there.

I also gained a few new watchers--but not so many as you might imagine--especially if you feel that "only the popular kids get DDs". (Trust me on this--I'm not one of the popular kids here! )

And...that's about it, really! Except that you start wondering if other people you know who received DDs had pretty much the same experience as you did...and you go and look at their galleries, and compare stats, and it looks about the same...and maybe you start talking about it to someone else, as I did with ...and then maybe, just maybe, you think that other people might find the whole thing as interesting as you did--

--and you write about it, in your journal!

So...for those of you who've always wondered--there it is! Hope you've enjoyed hearing about it!

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Footnotes:
One of my favorite entries, in my all-time favorite blog - Creating Passionate Users. Prepare to be challenged by it!