Shexyo did exactly that, got caught tracing and using AI twice and it boosted his popularity lol. Not sure people give a fuck anymore, even less with AI making top tier art trivial.
That's not exactly the norm tho, Shexyo also does porn which I mean obviously is the topic here but porn is more '' underground '' for a lack of a better term.
If people only follow you because they want to jerk off then I mean... You're going to get a lot of people who don't care about ethical problems.
People are literally doing illegal shit like deepfakes of real people even people who are not involved with porn, and that's nowhere close to the most unethical things people do.
Ngl at least imo I think Shexyo's stuff is just really boring and always looked like a ripoff, Dandonfuga has more SFW appeal on top of the NSFW.
While Shexyo is basically just the same looking nudes/ porn, Dandonfuga's stuff is the kind of stuff I could use as a wallpaper or would even commission to do OC art.
I'd never commission Shexyo to do OC art lmao, Shexyo is just smut and nothing else.
I think ai shit should be banned from Patreon, I think it's ridiculous that people pay for it you're basically paying to get scammed it's completely nonsensical imo.
But I think Dandonfuga's art is more '' respectable '' in most peoples eyes while Shexyo is more like porn shitposting so people care less.
But people in the more SFW space especially ( even moreso professional areas ) do care a lot and you'd basically commit career suicide if you did what Shexyo did/ does.
There's always going to be exceptions and people who successfully do things that are wrong and get away with it or even be rewarded for it, I don't think it makes sense to look at those people as indicative of anything tho.
Edit: Another good example of someone more like Dandonfuga is Cutesexyrobutts, their work is just more like actual illustrations ( and a lot of it isn't even pornographic ).
Robutts even moreso than Dandonfuga tbh, even tho he's an erotic artist his art has a lot more artistry to it, it's a legit illustration with actual composition and things going on.
If Robutts started farting out ai garbage it'd be a much bigger loss and screw with his work much more than someone like Shexyo which is already quite low quality to begin with.