*my sister at Walmart twirling one of the store karts around*
Me: Wait, wait, wait! *I jump on the end of the kart*
Sister: What? What am I supposed to do no- IIIIII CAN SHOW YOU THE WOOOOORRLLLDDDD…

Me: I feel broken.
Me: You always feel broken.

Archiving Your Xanga

I was going to download an archive to see how it compared to the last time I archived this site in 2009 (unless I'm misremembering, they now have a way to archive your photos, pulses, etc.) but the page it directs me to doesn't exist. You continue to fill me with confidence, Xanga Team.

In any case, the largest reason I wanted to see how it looked this time was that, last time, it was a series of htm files. Any form of layout that you had or pulses or images (I *imagine* that images hosted on other sites would appear, with an internet connection) aren't included in this. Also, having been labeling my posts with tags for the past year (I think I made it to 2009 but I haven't made it all the way through yet), there's no way to tap into that very valuable organization method (particular given that the search function will most likely be disabled).

So I started looking into alternative ways to archive my site.

Yet again reaffirming my love for the terminal (as well as wget), I figured out a way to do it (using wget, obviously).

If you have Linux, a Mac, BSD, or Solaris, simply open up a terminal and put in wget with the flags m, k, K, E, and p with the URI of your Xanga (so, in my case, I put in wget -m -k -K -E -p thirst2.xanga.com). Then press enter.

It will create a new folder titled after your site and download everything there. The m flag "turns on recursion and time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth[,] and keeps FTP directory listings". Basically, it makes certain wget downloads more than just the first page.

The k flag "convert[s] the links in the document to make them suitable for local viewing". Basically, it makes certain that, if you click on a link, it'll direct you to file:///home/[your home folder's name]/[your xanga's name].xanga.com/etc instead of to http://[your xanga's name].xanga.com/etc.

The K flag will back up the original files, unaltered, with the file extension .orig (that'll basically be useless if Xanga is taken down but I figure it doesn't hurt to have the originals just in case; that or it's my packrattiness talking).

The E flag will, "[i]f a file of type application/xhtml+xml or text/html is downloaded and the URL does not end with the [file extension .html], […] cause the suffix .html to be appended to the local filename".

Lastly, the p flag will get images and other embedded objects (I still haven't seen how well that works yet; thus far, wget hasn't downloaded any images and I very much want the images I uploaded to this site. Towards the end here, I started uploading them to tinypic.com before using them in a post but I certainly didn't in the beginning).

Edit: It's not downloading the images because they're often on URIs of http://x01.xanga.com/etc. Since it's not thirst2.xanga.com, wget thinks it's not supposed to get them. I haven't tested it yet but adding the H flag should fix that. It enables "spanning across hosts when doing recursive retrieving". Of course, this also means that any pictures I uploaded to tinypic.com and linked to will also be downloaded (even though tinypic isn't going down anytime soon…), and maybe YouTube stuff as well… Though it does mean that any videos I uploaded will be downloaded, so that's not bad. I'll let you know if it works once I get to try it.

Edit: Alright, the H flag, even with the D flag marked with domains that it's supposed to restrict itself to, likes to downloaded anything linked to your site and tries to download all of Xanga. Regardless, this shouldn't even be a problem since the p flag is supposed to download all images, etc. including those that might be hosted off the site. Thus, x01.xanga.com/whatever/whatever.jpg should be downloaded, seeing as it's pretty directly embedded. Sad; it's such a useful and powerful tool otherwise. So, the Debian software repositories had WebHTTrack and I downloaded that. It's in the process of downloading my site but it seems to be doing a good job. It's a bit overkill in that it's downloading everything linked to tinypic and also a PDF version of the New York Times article I linked to but it is not, notably, downloading other people's Xangas. It's just being thorough, which I suppose is nice in the event that tinypic goes down or something. I should have an archive that works entirely locally and thoroughly without an internet connection (which is more than I was expecting before). Go to http://www.httrack.com/ in order to get the program. They have a version for Windows, Mac, Linux, and BSD. The Mac one looks a little bit more complicated but the Linux and Windows versions are nicely straightforward.

Beyond the possible image hiccup, wget didn't seem to download the css stylesheets the first time I tried it (though, admittedly, it was without the p flag since I just wanted to run a test). If it doesn't, it's very simple to do. Just open the first index.html file you get (the one that corresponds to your home page) in any text editor, search for "css" and download the links that it finds (mine had two). With those inside the first folder, everything should render nicely.

Even if the images don't get downloaded, this means a site of local files that should look pretty much exactly as you had it (since background images had to be hosted on outside sites, I believe) and can be navigated just as you used to navigate your site, including pulses and (with any luck) images.

The one drawback is that you'll probably have to set all private and protected posts to public given that you have to be signed in to see those (and you obviously can't be signed in if the Xanga site is down or moved to Xanga 2.0). I'll let you know when this first archive finishes.

 

If you have a Windows, the above should work fine if you have CygWin installed (though, if you have CygWin installed, you would have known you could do the above the second I said "terminal" and not had to read until here). If you none of what I've mentioned has applied to you yet, then I'm less certain what will work (given I won't have tried it).

Apparently WebZip and HTTrack are programs that could get the job done but I've never used them.

 

Also, I probably needn't tell anyone but archiving your site will take some times, particularly if you've been here a while. This process will probably take longer than the usual archive way that Xanga provides because it's not just downloading your individual entries but also every page that might be displayed if I clicked the "Older" and "Newer" button at the bottom your main page as well as all the images on the site, etc.

 

Also, I'm going to tag some of you wonderful people who I used to follow on here but have since left Xanga. I know some have used this site as a journal of less pleasant times (and perhaps you wanted to forget that) or stopped blogging as much as five years ago and find the old information useless but I'm doing it in the case you wanted to save this stuff and probably won't be made aware that Xanga is closing, otherwise.

@NatalieTheSaint, @escapist767/@Alyxandri, @LiquidityOfSelf, @FlyAway180, @Opaque_Life, @kassandrag, @opticalnoise, @peloha, @leviculus, @The_Ferocious_Lam, @stephanieoakley01, @iknowyou12345, @xNicolax, @mayjun, @back_2_basic_love, @cermetk, @LaRuralMetroFemme, @SkygreenII, @erinjessicaxox, @avariellefaye, @stephysturt824, @desertraindrop86

I have 9,227 credits. I was going to get 6 months premium. Guess I'm spending my last month here premium.

In light of recent events, a farewell present for @SasGal: Why are Alaskans constantly painting their nails?

8 years.

I guess I knew it'd come, someday. I just never could figure out what I'd do once the day came.

 

I'll start with what we're all thinking: creating a social network you have to pay for will never fly. It's really a reasonable price – $48 for a full year comes to $3.75 per month. While I normally avoid paying anything ever – if I can help it – (particularly because a bunch of services for the low price of only $3 per month eventually build up if you don't keep track – and, at so low a price, you're likely tempted not to be too concerned), I might actually make an exception for Xanga. But I couldn't right now. I have far greater requirements that couldn't allow any justification at this moment.

But even if I was willing to put down $48 per year, many others wouldn't (particular when social sites like Tumblr are right around the corner for free).

 

What would be, in my mind, the wiser decision is to revamp the way Xanga works in order to attract more people (something that Xanga, really, ought to've done a long damn time ago).

Here's what I (and, I think, a lot of other Xangans) like about Xanga: the community. And, as I've a million times before on here (and, I've been reminded this year, there are still some of us here…), it was a safe place for those who maybe wanted to talk about aspects of our lives that maybe we didn't feel comfortable about elsewhere.

I don't think those two things are separate. I could talk about depression and SI and ED and other mental disorders and histories of abuse and prejudice at Tumblr or at LiveJournal just as easily (and people have). The difference with Xanga, however, was that the community gave us a place to find others like ourselves (or exercise our desire to yell at, and complain about, others).

The problem is this very unique aspect of Xanga (its community) is not greatly highlighted. Take away the community and what do you got? Any regular run of the mill blog or Blogspot/Blogger.

The strength of Blogger, however, is that it can be used for other things. I used a Blogspot URL for the News section of the Mucho Macho Moocow Military Marching Band's site. While I could probably contort a xanga site into a similar purpose, Blogger is simply set up for strict blogging. It makes complete sense and (the greatest reason I did it) provides a very straightforward layout for those who may not be as HTML or CSS savvy to update the site. And the site itself only provides the ability to provide comments, thus directing all comments to be about the content.

Xanga, on the other hand, is a blogging site set up to facilitate communication between users who blog. The eProps, the Minis you can give people – it's all directed towards you interacting with the user rather than interacting with the content of the site. Blogger, on the other hand, has been able to act seemlessly as an extention of sites or as a site itself or as blogging if you don't mind others not interacting with you or if you don't mind the interaction tending more towards the contact than necessarily the blogger.

 

I once commented to one of my cousins that Facebook was, really, this unique player in the social network pools because you weren't behind a username. Using Xanga as my source of empirical knowledge, I found that I could never imagine getting rid of my Facebook because so many memories were stuck there. This was the space I traded band jokes back and forth with Kristi, where I had note upon note detailing info. about myself and, in turn, learning about my friends, where I had picture upon picture of memories and events, etc. On the other hand, what happens if I junk my Xanga? I can archive it, if I want to keep the memories, and I'm no worse for wear. Ever had a friend drop off of Facebook? Old jokes and comments suddenly are half completely, pictures you may have been tagged in that were important to you are gone.

While there is the hole in my hypothesis of the fact that I've seen an amount of people drop out of Facebook (though some do come back) that has surprised me, I think the reason Facebook has been able to repeatedly change the layout so that it gets worse and worse and do all sorts of other things that have raised outcry from its userbase is because no one is really going to leave Facebook. At the end of the day, it's where not only their photos and videos and notes are – it's where their group of friends in real life are who've commented and liked their stuff. Even if you could archive all the info., you lose that communal interaction that is just as much a part of the user experience. Further, – because it's your actual face, name, etc. there – it's an extension of your life. I go onto to Facebook to get in touch with people or ask them questions or plan things. It's your contact book, E-mail, and IM with practical application – no usernames to separate us from reality.

 

MySpace was purely fueled by social value. It was one of the first social network sites to hit the scene; everyone had one. Ever had a MySpace? First time I actually bothered to get one, I couldn't figure out why people were raving about them. I literally couldn't do anything with it other than change my mood and upload pictures. Could anyone really comment on said pictures? Not really; the site wasn't directed towards that. There was a blogging function but, like the pictures, it was tucked off to the side and had limited capability. The real interaction was on the main page (as with all sites) and what was presented there was a profile picture, your status, and quotes and shit you uploaded that others couldn't really interact with. Was anyone really surprised that MySpace became a major stalk-fest? It was set up that way and directed to that outcome. That's why, once the appeal and social status of it wore off, it tanked and no attempt to revive it has worked.

 

And then we've got Tumblr. Tumblr is this little cluster-fuck of poor organization when it comes to the long-form. This is the largest reason I have never, in spite of the allure, jumped ship from Xanga to Tumblr. Designed as a quick way to share images and short bits of information, there's no real way to form the same type of community interactions and connections that Xanga has and nurtures. Want to comment? Okay, let's just toss it into the mass of text listing who liked the post. Want to do a post longer than three sentences? HA. Let's see if you can make sense of the three or more columns going on on this person's site. Oh, and some of them trail off after the fifth sentence and you have to click through to see the rest. So useful for the passerby or anyone reading a tumblr outside of being logged into Tumblr.

Which isn't to say that last bit can't be arranged. I believe you could set up a tumblr is some reasonable fashion for regular blogging. But the thing is that Tumblr is set up, from default, to be a site aimed at hosting media and being able to offer quick little comments about said images and videos. Which is somewhat silly, really, since posting a single image could easily help determine the length of posts; the real determiner of whether it's a media blog or not ought to be in how you organize how the posts are shown (one column or 1 million columns, etc.); of course, this doesn't address Tumblr's joy at presenting feedback in an unreadable manner that makes the depressed kid almost find the last needed reason to finally hang himself.

But that's also been Tumblr's greatest strength. I want to avoid making generalities about things I'm not entirely certain about (and I've done that somewhat enough already with some of these sites I've only used sparingly) but it was really the perfect solution to a generation that was getting used to faster and faster means of doing things. Tumblr has amazing user experience.

You see, Tumblr is near unreadable to those who may be on the outside. Want to follow a discussion? Good fucking luck. However, from the signed-in Tumblr user's perspective, that's easy. It's all on your dash. On your dash, you can easily keep track of new posts from the tumblrs you follow, easily see who commented towards you or shared something you posted, etc.

Want to post an image? A quote? A post? Easy. It's right in your home page with a beautiful graphical button right there waiting for you. Quick, fast, painless, and easy. Did I mention fast? From the user perspective, Tumblr is this quick and beautiful social network site that allows you to post stuff easily and allows you interact with people. You can follow your favorite tumblrs (and, I imagine, message them) and get to know these people. Ever seen those posts about those crazy tumblrs who stay up until 3 A. M.? Tumblr's been pretty great about having a very opening and welcoming Queer community. Feminism thrives. Hell, a good deal of the images I've posted here and a few of the posts regarding Queerness and Feminism have come from or been inspired by users on Tumblr. Community! You could define a Tumblr community.

 

But let's say that you want to have an actual conversation outside of messaging a user? Sure, you can respond to how a user acts by commenting them or unsubbing them. But the second you comment to a person, you fork the conversation. Tumblr treats comments by pasting it on your site (with a quote of what you're responding to) and plopping a little note at the bottom of the post you respond to. So say I'm discussing something with someone. Someone else responds to my fifth comment to Person A. Does Person A see what Person B said to me? Can they easily track it? Nope; you've got a brand new conversation, is what you have. Tracking conversations on Trumblr is hyperlink jumping "fun".

Tumblr responses drives a user to your tumblr. Anyone looking at Tumblr is fine so long as you're signed in (and, even then, it's really all about who you've decided to keep track of and follow and who responds to you). Tumblr usage literally revolves around you.

Xanga, on the other hand, regulates non-message conversations to one page – the page of the subject you are discussing. That is the key to the reason why Xanga, in spite of it's (really serious) dip in popularity, has maintained a very close-knit community. Xanga forces you to have to actually interact with the people around you beyond just the material they post. I would also argue that's why Xanga has one of the most hostile communities I've ever seen on a social network site. It's a fallout of actually having to deal with people. On Tumblr, you can ignore the response in your dash if you don't want to deal with it. On Xanga, that person is on the page you were commenting on; you can stop commenting on that post but you have to deal with them otherwise.

I think the fact that Xanga is a long-form blogging site helps as well. You can better explore ideas and concepts over long lengths of text than you can over short little posts. There's more to respond to as well, in that way.

 

Which isn't to say that Tumblr is entirely bad (despite my own biased frustrations with it). From an inginuity standpoint, Tumblr gets up there with Facebook, for me. It changed the way we use social network sites. There's something nice (and connecting) about constantly quoting your fellow bloggers. And posting is made so much simpler.

 

 

 

So the basic point is this: Xanga will die or live on in its own gated community if it decides to stop being free. The alternative (and I don't know if this is necessarily feasible) is to revamp itself so that it can pull more people in. Between a premium option (maybe, as much as my cheap ass hates to admit, without the option of credits so that you're forced to spend money) and advertisements, a popular and well-used Xanga should be able to turn a profit.

The first means of doing that is truly make it feel like an interlocked community. I want to feel, once I enter, like I am literally *in* a place where, from within its halls, I can do whatever I want. Facebook has this appeal and so does Tumblr. A dash can give that feel. Changing up the private page was *definitely* a wise move. While there's always the risk of being called out for copying (though Facebook and Google+ seem to be playing a game of tag of that), streamlining what you can post (text, quote, image, video, etc.) like Tumblr does could help make it feel like getting stuff done is quicker and simpler.

One of the things that made Xanga unique from the beginning was the complete customability it had in its themes. While the level of freedom has gotten Xanga in trouble in the past, having a manual way of mucking around in the plain code of your theme while keeping the remix theme wizard would be great. The fact that themes have been important, I think, is evident from the fact that it made it into the Xanga Fundraiser post. We've long been sour since losing that level of customability (though the remix theme thing is really rather impressive and detailed). What would be really nice is a theme "store" (except without any charge), like an app store or Google Chrome's plug-in "store". People could share themes they've made and other users could select them and mess around with them. This would make it really easy for new users to get into the spirit of a nice looking site, allow for theme-makers to advertise their site, and give the interconnected feeling that app stores give (tapping into experiences others might have had with app stores and plug-in repositories).

The same could go the plug-in idea, which I think is a fantastic idea. The Widget idea would have been fine, if a remote amount of JavaScript and regular HTML/CSS worked nicely in them.

Also, security. I think, if Xanga got security measures on par with Facebook, there would be a huge surge in attendants here. it would fit in perfectly with the use of the site as a personal place to post information about yourself that you might not want others (or particular users) to see.

Another buisness to take case of: get that Xanga app working. That's further advertisement and, the more you act like a social network and reach into every other network device, the more Xanga will seem like a modern social network site and be used.

And, of course, some advertising might help. Maybe some on YouTube and general Google advertisements to bring our existence back into the general populace's awareness.

That also means deciding whether we want to integrate the images and audio hosting into the use of the site more or leave them to the side like they currently are. I think the blogging aspect (and, in turn, the community interaction) are strong enough sellers that they could be fine as they are. It's just that it's awkward and you don't want to give a user that lingering feeling.

 

With the notion of having to pay for your site gone, the fundraiser should be pursued strongly with an emphasis that you can donate what you can. While I know a lot of people are going to be turned off by the notion of putting down 48 (or more) dollars, I think there are many who would be okay with putting down 5 dollars or less for the social network they've grown to love and call home (as well as those willing to give much more than that as well).

We say we're a community so let's prove that. I know there are graphic designers out there amongst us. I know there must be coders. And there has to be those willing to sit down and figure out how to code an iPhone app to get their beloved site alive. I have experience with doing design; maybe not enough for Xanga to hire me on their payroll but enough for a dying site to come to me for free work. Besides, you could give every person who worked on redesigning the site premium accounts, if saving the site isn't reward enough.

My point is, I know we're willing to band together and do what we can to save this site. I never really realized how much this site had become a community to me until I realized it was going to be gone; I'd talked about it and reasoned it but didn't realize I felt it. There is a real community here with real interactions and real connections. It's not just our sites and data that's being taken down – it's the people that's being taken away as well.

So let's get everyone giving what money they can towards saving this site while we alter Xanga so that it becomes a social site that'll keep users, whether that's graphic designs or coding services given for free because we don't want to lose this site. And, at the very least, try to keep open an avenue to sell it to someone else if saving it becomes an impossibility.

 

Xanga's my home, in ways I've never expected. And I don't know what to do if it leaves. There is no other social networking site that I'm aware of that offers what Xanga does. There are people I don't want to lose contact with. There are people who are safe here in ways that other places just can't offer. And we're not going to be able to just move the community to another site (or, at least, easily).

We want to stay.

Reblogged from msjosephinemarch:

Abby Wambach for the ESPN Body Issue.

I love these photos. I love these photos because it’s the first time I can think of when I haven’t had to see a female athlete be overly sexualized and objectified. She’s naked, yes that’s the point of the issue (and the men are just as nude), but she’s powerful. She’s athletic and strong in both of these photos.

They just make me happy, okay?

I remember there was one moment my brother, eager about music as he often is, was mentioning a line from a rap song he had heard recently that he really liked. Unsurprisingly, this sparked a comment from my mother about how much she hated rap. My father chimed in as well, noting that what he particularly couldn't stand was the arrogance and bragging. My mother notes that there's "just too much cursing".

In regards to the bragging, my brother gives the argument that's been given before: they strove so much to get where they are and came from so little; they've earned, to quote Kanye, the "right to be a little bit snobbish".

I ask whether Catcher In the Rye would be the same novel without Holden's candid expletives.

My father says he feels that's different.

 

I'd have to agree.

Granted, I think the notion has weight in the context of a well-put-together album such as Reasonable Doubt or the like. And I think there is something interesting and worth studying in seeing a genre – that is largely produced and put out by a group of people consistently kept economically deficient – should find a study of wealth to literally be a past-time. Kanye, in particular (or at least I'm most familiar with him), is rather good at illuminating the source of such consistent and, arguably, negative habits within rap.

However, – much as the sexism and misogyny in rap often tries to be explained away – I don't think all bravado can be so cleanly explained away. Some of it's irritating; and some of it really isn't healthy (within the culture of hip hop and for human beings in general, though I wouldn't say all of it is). And, in general, I don't think most of the bragging and trash talk can be explained with simply "You deserve to be able to do this".

 

I just don't care.

Granted, I grew up as a kid off of Detroit rap (largely because my introduction into rap was Eminem). So I have a particular affinity for rap battling. Add to that that Midwestern rap does have an appreciation punchlines and wordplay and that my second area of interest was East Coast rap, I have a large appreciation for clever wordplay and creative raps.

I really like trash talk, so long as the trash talker can back it up. Other than working on sentence structures in writing (in part because I'm more of a nerd than I know what to do with), there's a great rush from hearing someone talking about how great they are and then proving it. I dunno, I imagine it's the same rush most rap listeners (or, given the influence rap has had on pop music, any music listener of the 21^st century) have to listening to someone brag. I guess it's some vicariousness we've got going on. I dunno.

But, for an example that makes more sense, there's also this real rush to hearing a really clever punchline or witty bit, particular those that make you have to think about it for a moment so that you laugh more than you really should once you get it.

I like the juvenile wordplay of Da Ruckus:

I told you once, but you forget so here's a flashback
"You couldn't be shit, if you came out my asscrack"

Or Beastie Boys':

So put a quarter in your ass 'cause you played yourself

Or Juice's pun:

I haven't even started my reign: I'm only drizzling

Or even corny ones from Jay-Z that I still enjoy just because I somehow managed to miss it the first time around:

Flyer that a piece of paper bearing my name

Or other ones which I just can't seem to think of at the moment because I'm blanking.

Sometimes, you just want to hear good, old-fashioned, clever trash talk.

The vibe is unsettling: as soon as the verse cuts,
I kill 'em with the medley and then ready the hearse up
Overflowin' on the levy and it's ready to burst up:
Those that wanna get me, wanna sweat me, get burned up
I make 'em feel like they flows is in the amazon,
On the land being stampeded, gettin' trampled on
They can't beat it: so damn heated, they can't respond
And I'm so damn weeded, I can't see 'em – so carry on…

Yerp, that'd be the stuff.