November 15, 2008

• I've had this thing since 2005. End of Freshman year, high school. While normally I wouldn't tag that as a long time, seeing that most people have had there since 2007 in general at the latest these days, I guess I could call myself a veteran in some respects (then again, some people switch profile names like mad, for whatever reason).

  I love xanga. In fact, that may be the reason why I haven't stopped mine yet. I never needed a reason to keep track of the things I did (though I do think I do now). I think I just stick with it because I like the set up, I like the people - as a social networking thing, I like xanga. It has not (for the most part) started royally pissing me off as Facebook has begun to. And it never sucked as greatly as MySpace did (sorry to those fans out there).

  When I first joined xanga, it was basically (as I believe I have said in the past) a bunch of random journals strung together. Mostly rather depressing stuff and the connections seemed a bit more personal, a bit more like this support network. It was, for a bunch of wounded people, a way to isolate yourself, yet connect if need be or it helped. My xanga certainly isn't that publicized. My subscriptions consisted mostly of my friends in actual life (though most of them have forsaken xanga since then).

  And now it seems like xanga rarely feels empty. It feels like everyone is present and it's constantly buzzing. Things like Revelife and Datingish and being able to rec. posts have made it much more interactive. Which I'm glad for, I am. Because any social networking service needs users and, as I've said, I do love xanga.

  But I can't help but wonder, do there even exist any more (continually updated) privately held xangas? Those xangas which don't have some stupid sign in lock or friend lock on it where it's someone you don't even know, you don't even get an actual name - just their life. A glimpse at a person and, if you pursue it, some other life to get to know.

  There are, to some degree. I have some of them subscribed. And it's not like we've suddenly dropped from the internet, after all.

  And I think that's what I still like about xanga. We can be as private as we want, whether wrapped in our usernames or in the layout we labored on for whatever rediculous amount of hours. We can still connect to others and shield out everything else.

  While the rest of xanga buzzes along. And they can post their comments on whatever topic they wish, and we can wiegh in on the ones that happen to concern us enough (a particularly interesting post I saw today: http://www.lovelyish.com/lovelyish/680456796/ouch-discriminated-for-my-weight.html). Xanga can have it's energy while the ones who originally inhabited xanga, who did stick around when xanga was forced to try their I'm Bringing Xanga Back compaign (even if we updated every month or so), can remain, typing out their lives to whomever may find them interesting.

  Maybe it's exactly the way I like my change - make improvements, progress forward, add more - but don't take away the old.

  Yeah, I'd call myself a Xangan.

  • 12:51 am
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