@Background Pony #DE30
screw you fag, your art is great and I tell you as much on a regular basis
a lot of times people will appreciate or save a picture without bothering to comment on it, unfortunately. Myself included. You kind of have to do something novel or make a name for yourself in a bigger corner of the community to get noticed. You can only get so far hanging out in tiny groups, refusing to interact with "bigger names", and only drawing in short spurts every couple of months
I guess I just don't really understand what you want. If you want fame and recognition, you have to play the game a little bit. If you don't want to play the game, you just have to be patient or not let it get to you
I guess you're not alone, there are a bunch of smaller artists that I love that get mentioned just as little as you do. (And it's definitely on me for not bringing them up or praising them as much as they deserve.) I think generally how much I see their pictures used is proportional to how many they make and post in general, though. Draw more and make more friends and I promise your name will end up on people's minds, tongues, and posts. Also wouldn't hurt to spread around your pictures yourself and post them in more than just one thread that might get less traffic than others, or just dropping it straight onto a booru where sometimes things can slip through the cracks
but if seeing your art get posted and your name get mentioned is what it takes to get you drawing again, get ready to see your stuff around bucko ^;)

@Background Pony #AA1E
>the work I put hours or even days into was ignored, but my zero-effort five-minute shitposts almost always got lots and lots of enthusiastic responses
This is the case everywhere in every fandom on every site, the average person can relate more to something they find silly or funny than a beautifully rendered painting of a sunset, except for other artists who really know what went into making it on a technical level. It's easy and faster to understand. It's the same reason your relatives will spam your inbox with funny cat pictures and not actual photographic art.

@Background Pony #AA1E
Being popular isn't the same as being good, even when anons are involved.

A lot of days it feels like rage baiters and other agitators who pretend to hate everything are the only people left on /mlp/. There's some fun to be had here and there, but the board is practically unrecognizable from even as recent as 3 years ago. Everyone else seems to have up and left, or just plain stopped posting.

@Background Pony #59A1
In all seriousness, in the past, when I frequented /mlp/, I would write stories and I'd also draw.

Without exception, the work I put hours or even days into was ignored, but my zero-effort five-minute shitposts almost always got lots and lots of enthusiastic responses. I don't know what to make of it. Anon is fickle and if you're going to depend on Anon for emotional validation, you're gonna have a bad time. There's a life lesson in there somewhere.

@Background Pony #DE30
I know how it feels, friend! When I make artwork, I do it for her, not them.

>Spend hours working on a full color drawing.
>Post it in one of the art threads.
>No replies.
>Repeat ad nauseam.
>Maybe get an occasional (you) saying some variation of "cute".
>Never see my art reposted.
>Art has never been uploaded to here or Derpi by anyone but me, even though I rarely care to anymore.
>Have literally never been mentioned in any threads.
>Not tagged in any of the old Aggie canvases I drew on.
Maybe I'm just being narcissistic, but I've been posting draws for a while now and it's hard to find the motivation to spend hours creating a drawing if I know that it's going to be mediocre crap no one will even want to save. I doubt anyone on the board has even noticed that I haven't posted anything for a few months now.

"A handful of samefags on /mlp/ were mean to me, why can't this fandom be more like the totally not toxic furry fandom?"
bruh lol

I got b& at 4chins and stopped going there. Now I hang out at 8moe but I don't draw much any more.

Loss of interest and loss of opportunities of generating money.
Better gone than trooning out, though.