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RIP VCL 1999-2023
a year ago
I have just learned that the VCL, as a functional website, is no more. Last October vclart.net was no longer reachable.
I can't say that I'm shocked, I only go to it about once every other year at best to try to track down some old-old image I half remembered, or to peruse an artist that is no longer around and I didn't feel like digging into my box of CDs of archived stuff from that era to see. But it was always a little comforting to know it was still out there.
I don't remember how I discovered it, but I was downloading stuff from it when it was just an FTP site through my college's T1 connection. Had to click on the file, wait to see it load to decide if I wanted to save it, go back, write the filename down, then go onto the next until those most recent uploads were gone through, then then click to save them all. Super cumbersome but this was back when all the other sites were either for a specific artist which were limited in what they had, or the Squeaky Clean Furry Archive.
VCL had.....adult furry art. >..>
<..<
>..>
Which was kinda unique to have in one place. Couple years later they restructured it so that you could actually see a preview and the artist could put in a nifty description. Just like SCFA, but larger. For the era it was pretty dynamic. Got updated every day, and there wasn't any approval method you had to go through once you got an account. That was becoming an issue over at the SCFA, soon to become YERF. With that it became a regular bookmark tour every few days to see what was uploaded. Simple and clean, no comments, no faves, no drama. At least not right there. You had to go to the forum for that. We were still furries after all.
That was probably only about six years overall before FA finally got it's legs going and took over, for me, to be the regular go to art site. By comparison FA has been chugging along for almost 20 years now. But my memory wants to trick me to thinking it was around for like decades. It was that noteworthy.
And now it's gone, and I wonder not for the first time about all the work that artists that have moved on or passed away is gonna vanish.
There still is an archive of the art, which ironically enough I find easier to navigate, over at https://vixencontrolled.net/. It's just a simple file structure and shows the pictures themselves with no descriptions. And I guess it's fitting that it both started and ended quietly as a simple folder based, image sharing site.
I can't say that I'm shocked, I only go to it about once every other year at best to try to track down some old-old image I half remembered, or to peruse an artist that is no longer around and I didn't feel like digging into my box of CDs of archived stuff from that era to see. But it was always a little comforting to know it was still out there.
I don't remember how I discovered it, but I was downloading stuff from it when it was just an FTP site through my college's T1 connection. Had to click on the file, wait to see it load to decide if I wanted to save it, go back, write the filename down, then go onto the next until those most recent uploads were gone through, then then click to save them all. Super cumbersome but this was back when all the other sites were either for a specific artist which were limited in what they had, or the Squeaky Clean Furry Archive.
VCL had.....adult furry art. >..>
<..<
>..>
Which was kinda unique to have in one place. Couple years later they restructured it so that you could actually see a preview and the artist could put in a nifty description. Just like SCFA, but larger. For the era it was pretty dynamic. Got updated every day, and there wasn't any approval method you had to go through once you got an account. That was becoming an issue over at the SCFA, soon to become YERF. With that it became a regular bookmark tour every few days to see what was uploaded. Simple and clean, no comments, no faves, no drama. At least not right there. You had to go to the forum for that. We were still furries after all.
That was probably only about six years overall before FA finally got it's legs going and took over, for me, to be the regular go to art site. By comparison FA has been chugging along for almost 20 years now. But my memory wants to trick me to thinking it was around for like decades. It was that noteworthy.
And now it's gone, and I wonder not for the first time about all the work that artists that have moved on or passed away is gonna vanish.
There still is an archive of the art, which ironically enough I find easier to navigate, over at https://vixencontrolled.net/. It's just a simple file structure and shows the pictures themselves with no descriptions. And I guess it's fitting that it both started and ended quietly as a simple folder based, image sharing site.
And for some of the ones that are still around but were posting them. A few were just as good then as their work now. Man, the size of those galleries. ^^
Many memories and a shame it's gone.
RIP to the old site.
Critters don't know 'bout my uudecode article123.txt article124.txt article125.txt.
Critters don't know 'bout my telnet muck.furry.org 8888.
Uphill, in the snow, both ways! :)
Practically the dark ages.
I don't know if it was the first thing I found, but it was indeed, the main base of the time, the central hub of sorts.
I'm glad there's an archive! I should check it out, but I feel like I saved all that I wanted, back in the day.
I probably have too, and I don't think the archive may have caught all the galleries. It was interesting to look through a few both of artists that are still going today, and artists that I haven't heard since FA got rolling.
(Lamb is one of the OLD ONES!!!) :O