(Fandom) Goodbye, DNA

Over the weekend, the macrophile artist known around the internet as DNA closed up his FurAffinity page. This all but completes his steady withdrawal from the furry fandom, which was announced a few months ago. The announcement came suddenly, and ever since then I’ve been trying to sort through my feelings on that. Now that the last link he had to the fandom is effectively gone, I wanted to write a few words about what he meant to me and how I’ll honor my time with him moving forward.

I considered myself a fairly close friend to DNA, even though we didn’t talk often. He was the kind of companion you could pick up with after months of radio silence without skipping a beat. No matter how long it had been since we last spoke or what had happened during that time, he always made sure that he was glad to see you. He is one of the most generous, positive, hard-working people I know, and I will genuinely miss him. I know he’s not dead, but the grief I feel is somewhat similar; my relationship with him as I know it is dead and gone, and that’s why I’ve had to bury over these last few months.

I don’t know why he felt the need to bow out of the fandom this way, and I won’t submit to speculation here. Doing so wouldn’t honor my time with him. I do know that I wish I could have been able to say goodbye to him knowing that it would be the last time we spoke. I don’t remember the last conversation we had, to be honest; I had taken it for granted that I would be able to pick up with him again sometime later, just like always.

The thing I’ll remember most about DNA isn’t the art he gave to the fandom, though his comics are wonderful, silly, exuberant stories that I’ll cherish. The thing that I’ll take with me is his natural and immediate good nature. I don’t think I’ve ever known someone who was so effortlessly nice and considerate; he was free with his affection, and if you knew him you were sure that you were loved by him. It wasn’t the desperate casting about for connection that can often come with folks who make easy friends, and it wasn’t some weird spell that was cast on you where you felt close while you had his attention, but ignored when you didn’t. He is an incredibly loving person, and he didn’t expect to be loved in return. It was just who he was, and almost everything he did was an expression of that.

That comes through in so much of his work. One of my favorite things about his particular “brand” of macrophilia was that most of his characters weren’t malicious, even the power-mad ones. Growth, for him, was almost always this incredibly positive experience, and when it ran away from his characters it wasn’t necessarily a selfish thing — it was a feedback loop of positive energy, a virtuous cycle that exploded again and again into this other order of magnitude. Most of his protagonists were humble, gentle souls who loved doing the right thing; protecting, helping, connecting with others in a way that spread joy. Somehow DNA managed to combine the best things about macro — that overwhelming power fantasy, incredible size difference, runaway growth — without including some of the most tiresome aspects of it, like small and brittle egos, actual carelessness, or violence and death. It’s really hard to thread that needle, and he was one of the best at it. He made it look easy.

I know that he was incredibly loved in the fandom, and there were a lot of times that love was expressed as more a demand for his time, his talent, or his attention. As a community we have a tendency to make our artists feel more like a commodity than an actual person; we crave what someone can do for us so much that we see them only as a means to that end. A drawing or comic from DNA was a measure of social validation, a sign that our characters and the stories featuring them were interesting, a symbol of our status in the little community we share. Because he was so generous with his time but guarded about his personal life, it was easy to overlook pressures or responsibilities that he might not have talked about.

There’s no way of knowing if I contributed to the decision of his leaving the fandom. I really hope not. But for me, honoring him means making sure that I remember that artists are people first and foremost and to always treat them as such — no matter how star-struck I might be by them. Even the most popular folks who share our interest in giants have full lives; day jobs, relationships, hopes, fears, responsibilities, worries, personalities, pet peeves, a limited ability to manage everything on their plate. It’s so easy to take things personally when someone who is being hounded for attention doesn’t pay attention to me; it’s important to remember that it might not be personal but even if it is it’s their right as people to choose who they befriend.

I don’t have the naturally positive temperament that DNA did, but even still I want to be as positive influence on the community as he was during his time here. I want to put that positivity into the stories I write and share here, and I want to help provide a balance to the spectrum of macrophilia on the Internet. It doesn’t all have to be violent, humiliating, or crude (though hey, if that’s what you’re into there’s nothing wrong with that — you do you!). It can be joyous, silly, loving, and fun, too.

DNA unquestionably made my life better by being a part of it, and I appreciate the love he showed to me while he was. I’m really sorry that I never got a final chance to tell him what he meant to me, and I sincerely hope I’ll get to one of these days. For now, it’s enough to know how he’s made me a better person and to act on the lessons I learned through him.

I know that a lot of us are going through a sort of grieving process for him as well. I think it’s important to recognize and honor that. It’s OK to be sad that a friend (or favorite artist, or community fixture) is gone, and it’s OK to admit being bewildered or lost about the way they left. But please don’t let that feeling curdle into anger or a sense of entitlement; he doesn’t owe us anything, especially after he’s given us so much. Let’s appreciate what an awesome person he was, and hope that someday we’ll get to tell him so properly.