Requested feature overview description:
Under the popular category/area create a subset/subcategories for still images and one for “video”/“Movies” (eg, Animation, WebM, Gif, etc).

Possibly while still maintaining the existing everything/mixed popular page as the default, for the sake of the pure score system (votes) as well.

Why would it be useful?:
I’ll let you wise (e621) one’s consider that, here’s what I think though.
I’ve noticed that over the years we’ve gone from almost all images in (specifically Monthly) Popular, to a handful of “movies” at the top/scattered into monthly popular, to now when we get a decent chunk into the month (and very must by the end of the month typically) the “movies” have become the majority/dominated the entry’s/could be on the way to essentially crowding out most images.

I think the “movies” are great, they take a lot of work on the artists part and deserve the visibility. However, I want to make sure that we continue to honor those artists who make still images, that we all get to see a slew of images and movies, that we might have the chance to discover even more nice things and artists we enjoy.

Consider if you’ve noticed this trend too. Assuming there is a trend, consider what it might mean for us should it continue and the monthly popular becomes almost entirely filled with “movies”, where does that leave us? What do we loose? (Possible if the trend continues to the extreme or slowly over a long long time that weekly could see less and less images. -I do not wish to consider what exactly has happened if we ever face such a dynamic in the daily popular).

The fandom continues to grow (so does e6, well as far as I’m aware), perhaps more will continue to join us and their will be more creators, some more artists may find themselves drawn to creating more movies (as a percentage of work).

TLDR: We get to see a pile of “movies” and a pile of images, you have the option to specifically see one or the other, maintaining a more equitable visibility to these experiences.
Movie or Image, “Both, both is good” -The Road to El Dorado.

What part(s) of the site page(s) are affected?:
This is the tricky part, I’m not sure of an ideal/clean/simple implementation.

One idea would be if you click Popular and enter the page that’s daily popular by default, at the top where you’ve got Monthly, Weekly, Daily, (next/previous) creating a new line under monthly (or all three) with idk “Video” (movies, equivalent desired word) and Images, centered under monthly, with clicking monthly remaining the existing mixed pure score category.

Seems slightly less neat, simple, so implementation is pretty open to suggestions.

P.S. I want to acknowledge that I could be overlooking a simple solution in the text search box, like Popular (actually I’m not sure how you’d word it to search popular, there’s order:score -which isn’t quite the same, but you could manually add the date range of popular/whatever.) -Animated -WebM or maybe there’s an over arching type: (for all images).

I would also like to point out that I’ve regularly used this site for 10yr+, I haven’t dug into the meat/details/study of or had the same level of knowledge and activity as some of you (well likely most most of you if you’re reading this haha) but I suspect that what little of the syntax and site I do know is likely more than many many of our users, so while there may be a search solution it would be inaccessible / inconvenient / overlooked perspective by many.

Anyway thank you all for your hard work and all your contributions to the site, may we continue to learn, build, incrementally improve, and enjoy e621 together.
No worries if this [Feature] isn’t your fancy, I only ask you keep it in mind should the need grow.

Thank you, Thank you!
-Blackstarwuff