Fuzzy topic, please don't take any of what I will say as an attack, I barely even know how to begin or how to nail the point... In fact, I am not entirely sure what my point even is.

The furry fandom seems to strongly incentivise artists to draw/ paint/ produce characters that are not made by individual artists, but parts of massive mainstream media franchises. MLP, Digimon and Undertale are examples I can think of right away.

I have seen artists who create and invest work into their own world and characters and they do get a fan-base for it. However when these artists then put out basically the same work (same style and tech), but instead draw Renamon, Toriel or some FNAF character, everything suddenly spikes up: views, fave-hits, general traction. Comments though seem to be a mixed bag there.

I'm not sure, I suppose I wish that more people in the FF would give original characters a better chance on a larger scale.
The way things are right now make it seem like there are two rails things go on: the newer casual mainstream ones who just want to see ANYTHING from the super huge massive franchise and the more old-school nerdy furries who pay closer attention to the oc-stuff.

Another thing I personally always notice with myself is a real issue of over-exposure. I had this for many years, especially with MLP.
When I scout for what's new, I go on e621 to see all sorts of things people freshly upload. I DO NOT JOKE or exaggerate when I tell you that from 2010 to 2020, literally each and every single day there were always at least 2-8 MLP new related images on page one.
Having to constantly see one specific franchise being referenced over and over can really kill the tolerance and beyond a certain point it just gets annoying to see it so often.

Yes, there is the blacklist feature people like to point to, but here's the thing: I can't just (or YOU shouldn't just) blacklist everything I get slightly annoyed by, because then I would also miss out on some genuinely well done images!
Because for me, art technique, pleasant looking line-work and fun settings do indeed matter.

The latter point connects back to what I said earlier: well done art, but a lesser known character tends to get shafted by most people, but just because it's (stand-in, pick any super popular character) “Krystal Fox”, all of a sudden everyone goes ape-shit over it.
I know it's not the intended message, but you can't scold me for thinking that this seems to signal that most audiences don't really care about the effort put into the art, but more about the franchise.

And last for now, this is where it gets really fuzzy, because I myself also enjoy characters from other franchises. Most of you will know it's Dragon Tales, Land before Time and Dinosaur Train.
Granted those are all very small, therefore the over-exposure is not an argument, but I still bring it up, just so you know that I don't wanna deny anybody's enjoyment of any franchise.

If however there are already over 200.000 images of a certain franchise, I personally always feel like there is nothing I can possibly add anymore.
Last year I made an image of Lola Bunny just for the purpose of jumping on a bandwagon and some extra views.
It felt so utterly hollow and meaningless that I deleted it 3 days after I uploaded. It had over 530 faves and close to 2000 views (which is still a LOT for me), but next to nobody cared enough to say anything about the art itself. Nobody wondered where the image went and some of my longer time followers even told me they outright forgot I made that image in the first place.


...well anyway, maybe this is something you have thought about as well, so what are your 2 cents on this topic?

Stay tuned!
~Trias