About

Pixiv (site domain: www.pixiv.net), usually stylized as pixiv, is a social networking service for illustrators in Japan, comparable to DeviantArt on the English web.

History

In 2007, the Japanese programmer Takahiro Kamitani, who hit upon the idea through Flickr, launched Pixiv^[1] on September 10th as a beta test. The website went under a renewal on December 18th into what it offers now. Later, Pixiv came to support multiple languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean.

Pixiv announced that the number of community members reached 20 million in 2016^[2] and then increased to 84 million in September 2022.^[3]

Features

High Affinity with Doujin

Trends in Pixiv are often coupled with those of the Doujin (popular social trends) market as many Doujin circles register accounts and make posts promoting illustrations for their books released at Doujin conventions or e-commerce sites. For example, Touhou Project fan art accounts for 5.8% of all illustrations.

Pixiv Encyclopedia

Pixiv Encyclopedia^[4] is Pixiv's online glossary that offers information about illustrations, characters, internet memes, tags and community-driven trends through users' voluntary contributions. Unlike Pixiv itself, the encyclopedia serves primarily as a documentation resource, recording the origins, usage and cultural context of illustration-related memes and collaborative projects, including many user projects.

Illustration Response

Illustration Response (Japanese: イメージレスポンス) is a trackback feature in weblog tools that Pixiv's officials implemented on September 15th, 2008 to encourage smoother collaborations among users. Pixiv users use this feature less to send completed illustrations as a response but often to share exploitable templates and drawing prompts centered on specific themes.

User Projects

User Projects (企画, Kikaku) are collaborative events and community activities organized by Pixiv users. Pixiv officially supported these initiatives through dedicated project directories and catalog pages, allowing users to browse, promote and participate in ongoing projects across the platform.^[5]

Among the most popular forms of user projects were Illustration Response Projects (イメレス企画), in which users shared templates, drawing prompts and visual formats that invited other artists to create their own variations. Many illustration response projects developed their own tags, conventions and recurring formats, allowing them to spread as collaborative drawing memes. Expression Practice and Bottle Meme are among the most notable examples.

Pixivision

Pixivision^[6], formally called "Pixiv Spotlight," is Pixiv's official curation service that has provided tutorials on illustration techniques, interviews with creators and trending tags/topics, including the home-grown memes, on the illustrators' community in both Japanese and English since 2014.

pixivFANBOX

pixivFANBOX^[7] is a subscription-based creator support platform launched by Pixiv in April 2018. Similar to Patreon, it allows artists, illustrators, manga creators and other creators to offer exclusive content to paying supporters through monthly membership plans. The service is closely integrated with Pixiv accounts and is widely used by Japanese illustrators, manga artists and doujin creators.

In May 2023, Pixiv announced a policy shift regarding AI-generated content on Fanbox.^[8] The policy took effect on July 25th, 2023, when the platform formally prohibited AI-generated content on the platform and the use of Fanbox pages to promote or distribute such content through external services.

Pawoo

Pawoo^[9] is a Mastodon channel initially launched by Pixiv on April 14, 2017. It became the world's largest channel by earning 100,000 users just two weeks after its launch, and its number had increased to 200,000 in August of that year, thanks to its additional features for illustration-sharing. On the other hand, many other Mastodon channels have blocked Pawoo because of loli contents. In December 2019, Pixiv afforded this service to another company and withdrew from its running.

Related Memes

For the complete listing of memes that Pixiv is contributed, check out KYM Collection – Pixiv.

Search Interest

External References