deviant

comparative more deviant · superlative most deviant

1. Characterized by deviation from an expectation or a social standard.

   At the trial, the extent of his deviant behaviour became clear.

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   He’s like more successful but equally morally abhorrent right-wing undercover operative James O’Keefe’s non-union Mexican equivalent, a dunce whose one move involves incompetently attempting to frame figures of seemingly unimpeachable moral integrity, like Robert Mueller or good old Mayor Pete, as deviant sex criminals like Wohl’s God Donald Trump by unsuccessfully trying to get people to come forward with bogus sexual assault allegations.

   2019 May 1, Nathan Rabin, “My World of Flops Get a Load of This Maroon Case File #121/My Year of Flops # 18 Jacob Wohl”, in Nathan Rabin's Happy Place

   Synonyms: deviate

plural deviants

1. A person who deviates, especially from norms of social behavior.

   He was branded as a deviant and ostracized.

   Synonyms: heteroclite

2. A thing, phenomenon, or trend that deviates from an expectation or pattern.

   As the graph shows, the March sales trend is the deviant.

   Synonyms: abnormality

3. InternetA member of the online art community DeviantArt.

   Our data stem from these DD’s and galleries of the corresponding deviants and were acquired directly from dA Headquarters.

   2013 February 22, Alkim Almila Akdag Salah, Albert Ali Salah, “Flow of innovation in deviantArt: following artists on an online social network site”, in Mind & Society, volume 12, pages 137–149

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   In contrast to Flickr, deviantArt offers a broad range of user affordances, enabling both synchronous and asynchronous interpersonal and group communication, as well as networking with other deviants and the surveillance of the work of others (through the deviantWATCH affordance).

   2014, Peter Mechant, Lieven De Marez, “Studying Web 2.0 Interactivity: A Research Framework and Two Case Studies”, in Cyber Behavior: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, Information Science Reference, →ISBN, page 1709

   While I myself have no problems as far as favoriting instead of commenting is concerned, since a lot of deviants are like this, I thought it was right to tell people how to comment correctly.

   2009, Grekkikay, post on how to critique art; quoted in Linda Vigdor, “Constructing Learning through the Creative Evaluation of Visual Arts Production”, in Hiesun Cecilia Suhr, editor, Online Evaluation of Creativity and the Arts (Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture), New York, N.Y.; London: Routledge, 2015, section “Creative Evaluation as Practiced in Three Critique Environments”, exhibit 2 (DeviantArt.com), pages 87–88

   Many deviants strongly criticized the sharing features as facilitating art theft (Herr-Stephenson & Perkel, 2008; Perkel, 2011).

   2016, Brian Lee Jones, “Deviously Deviant: The Strange Tapestry that is deviantART.com”, in Barbara Guzzetti, Mellinee Lesley, editors, Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media (Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts), Information Science Reference, →ISBN, page 390

   “Deviants continue to own their own works,” [Angelo] Sotira wrote. “In the future, there's a possibility Wix might provide opportunities for you to license your work — only if you want to — to more people around the world.”

   2017 February 24, Natt Garun, “Wix has acquired DeviantArt, which may let artists license their work for the site builder”, in The Verge

plural Deviants

1. Alternative letter-case form of deviant (“a member of the online art community DeviantArt”).

   If you have a strong teen/young adult population, you probably have a decent number of Deviants in your community already.

   2012 November, Donna F. Ekart, “What’s Your Flickr Backup Plan?”, in Computers in Libraries, volume 32, number 9, Information Today, page 37

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   Matuszczak credits the advice offered up by fellow “Deviants” for his artistic and technical development. […] In such a thicket of creativity, notes Gamiddo, who says he spends up to 10 hours a week on the site, “you have to do some work to get noticed. You get what you give.” In keeping with this philosophy, he has operated over the past three years as a news administrator, heralding the latest software and contests, such as the recent competition calling for Deviants to design a new icon for the legendary metal band Megadeth.

   2006 March 1, Deidre Stein Greben, “Cool 2 Know, deviantART.com”, in Newsday, page B02

   Cosgrove is one of many Deviants — as DeviantArt users call themselves — who believe that the unbiased commentary and advice of his peers has been crucial in their professional advancement. […] Cosgrove has created a tutorial about what he does and studies tutorials fellow Deviants have posted.

   2006 August 9, Chris Marlowe, “Designer takes Deviant path to career success”, in The Hollywood Reporter, volume 395, page 6

   DeviantART's biggest milestone to date was celebrating its 10-year anniversary, he said. "It gave all of us on staff a concrete day to look back and see how far we had come. We sold out the House of Blues in Hollywood to Deviants who flew in from all around the world. […]

   2012 August 21, “Smart enough to follow its audience; Social media; Industry pioneer took ‘ceiling’ off of art”, in National Post, page FP.12