Danbooru

Danbooru is an extremely popular website that’s been blazing trails around the internet since it first came out in 2006. The site is very similar to a Wikia, in that it’s built around the concept of open source software that lets people upload anything and everything they want, centered around a common theme – drawn smut.

The Birth of the Booru

Back in the early 2000s a couple of specific types of websites took the internet by storm. One of them you should already be very familiar with – the wikia. As invented by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, this format has been used by thousands of other websites as it is available for free. It’s built around ease of access and it comes with ready features that offer a community of people the ability to bring together large amounts of data in a coherent manner.

Another popular type of website from that time was the imageboard format which came in two fan-favorite varieties. One was the Chan format and the other the Boory. The chan format was built around the idea of people coming together to communicate with text and images, live. The chan format doesn’t support saving images over a longer period of time. It’s more of a communication device. The booru format on the other hand took the porn world by storm because it was built around the concept of hosting images and tagging them with as many tags as possible, to then make cross-referencing a breeze.

Danbooru is one of the oldest and most beloved of these boorus and while it came out in 2006, which is pretty late in internet years, it’s still one of the oldest and most appreciated porn hosting sites on the web. Given that boorus are intended for the storage of images and not videos, there are no animations on Danbooru and chances are there never will be. This is an image hosting site first and foremost and everyone is welcome to upload their favorite flavor of smut.

The Gem that is Danbooru

Danbooru’s design and approach to smut is identical to that of other booru sites. It might be the case that Danbooru are better because they were first, or maybe the community simply cares more about this site above all others, but one thing is certain: Danbooru hasn’t lost popularity in over two decades.

What’s truly fascinating about the site is that the library of smut it holds has been growing steadily every single day for over two decades. Granted, they do not host any live-action smut, so to speak, but the anime and hentai style that fans have come to expect is going very strong.

There’s also an unwritten dedication to rule 34 type pornography on the site in the form countless fan renditions of popular animated characters from anime, manga and western cartoons. Most popular of all, however seem to be the female main characters of popular video games such as Overwatch and World of Warcraft. There are countless nude artistic depictions of these characters ranging from lewd to full on sexual. The sky is the limit when you’re looking for rule 34 on Danbooru.

Complete Freedom of Use

While Danbooru do have some general rules that apply to pretty much any other similar site where users can upload their own content, your hands are pretty much untied here. You can’t post any illegal content, but beyond that the sky’s the limit. After all, it’s a website mostly dedicated to posting drawn smut so finding something that can be considered illegal is almost impossible. Hence, the site is absolutely bursting at the seams with drawn hentai content.

The site is also free to use. You can make an account any time you want and start uploading. Also, there’s a certain air of anonymity if you do not wish to expose yourself to the world. Your Danbooru account can be as public or as private as you’d like.

You’re also encouraged to communicate with the other members of the Danbooru community and discuss the types of smut that gets shared on the site. You might make a friend or spark a discussion that could lead to smut getting uploaded or found. This is especially helpful if you’re trying to find more of a certain niche. The site might be built around easy-to-use tags, but there’s nothing more helpful than a group of people coming together to rally around their mutual love for smut. You’d be surprised by how friendly Danbooru’s users can be if you’re friendly yourself.

Feel free to tag yourself as an artist as well if you’ve got hand-drawn smut that you’d like to share with the world. Artists get a different kind of tag that’s unique and separate from the genre tags so even if you find your smut uploaded by someone else, you can make sure to clarify that it is drawn by you and get your tag in the rightful place. It’s not just a great place to share your smut, it’s also a great place to get discovered and grow your following as an artist. You could even share censored or half-nude versions of your art and spread the word about the full version available on your own site if you’re trying to turn a profit.

Many artists use Danbooru to get exposure in this way by hosting a Patreon that offers full nudes or high resolution versions of demo art that they display on Danbooru for free. The community isn’t going to be upset at you for sharing your demo art since at the end of the day it’s just more free smut for them to enjoy. On top of that, it’s not like you’re stealing revenue from other artists. Danbooru has more than enough room for every smut wizard out there.

The Genius Tagging System

Danbooru’s tagging system isn’t particularly revolutionary on its own. It’s just a database infused breakdown of tags that can be cross referenced very quickly. The magic comes from the fact that the site is built in such a way that all of these tags are properly aggregated and indexed. Therefore, you don’t just get the ability to find more of the same type of smut. You also get the ability to throw in as many tags as you can think of, if you’re looking for something extremely specific and instantaneously get a breakdown of every piece of art on the site that matches your preference.

Imagine looking for content that’s so ridiculously specific that a search engine doesn’t yield any results. Perhaps you want to combine a niche, a genre, a fetish and a backdrop. Well, you’re more than free to look up “BDSM submissive 2 girls window” and find a ton of images of submissive lesbians in front of a window. It doesn’t really matter why you’re looking for something that specific – it matters that you can find it immediately. Danbooru’s tagging system doesn’t judge, it just serves you.

A Few Downsides

As with any website that’s been community driven for two decades there are going to be a few cracks in the otherwise perfect canvas that is Danbooru. One of these cracks comes in the form of bloat. There is such a thing as too much content and Danbooru is the perfect example of what happens when a community is a bit too zealous about sharing smut. Even though the site can technically handle any amount of smut and there is no slowdown from the bloat, the tags suffer.

Basically, because there are millions of entries on the site, the tagging system has become flooded with so many tags that you can’t simply browse through them if you’re feeling curious. You can do that on standard triple A porn sites, but on Danbooru the tags outnumber the amount of unique videos you mind find on a porn tube.

That means that unless you start off your search randomly or you know exactly what you’re looking for, navigating through the tabs is going to be a nightmare. Danbooru’s fans take the fact that you can tag anything within the images for granted and they go way out of their way to tag damn near everything they can think of. That means that the majority of the tags on the site aren’t smut related, rather, they reference the content within the images.

Still, the system seems to work really well and the fact that you can browse it as such high speeds and see tons of content within the span of a few seconds means that this site is here to stay. Beyond that there are no real downsides to using Danbooru if you’re ok with the old school text on plain white background style. And if you’re ever looking for a specific piece of drawn content, chances are you’ll find it on Danbooru so you should probably just check there first.