One such platform is DeviantArt, which recently found itself under fire following the publication of a Twitter post promoting one of the website’s “top sellers”, a user known as Mikonotai, who allegedly raked in more than $12,000 on DeviantArt in 2023 alone.
What the post failed to mention, however, is that Mikonotai is not a real artist as one could mistakenly assume, but rather an AI enthusiast who generates their images using Midjourney and Stable Diffusion and then sells them in bulk using DA as nothing more than a digital store.
Following its publication, the post in question quickly got a community note from Twitter, which added much necessary context by highlighting that Mikonotai is a generative “artist” and not a real one. Additionally, the note pointed out that most of the seller’s images are priced at less than $10, casting doubt on DeviantArt’s claim of Mikonotai’s $12K earnings last year.