Hooray Xanga! Xanga is awesome! Hooray! Hooray! Hoo..blahdiblahdibleepblahbip.
Did I get past the little preview marker yet? Ok, good, because here’s the cold, hard truth.
Xanga isn’t dying.
Xanga is already dead.
Muffle the protests already, because I’m not talking dead like going out of business dead.
No, I’m talking internet dead.
I’m talking white dwarf dead.
I’m talking Gary, Indiana dead.
Yes, this place may limp on for years and years and years, but it will never grow again. Not substantially, at least.
Some might say that the content has driven xanga into the ground. I don’t think that’s the case. Content is not the cause. It’s only the side effects. The unfortunate symptoms of a burgeoning internet hub that was passed by when it couldn’t keep up with progress.
At its core, xanga is and always has been a social networking site centered around blogging. For awhile, this worked well. Back when I joined in 2003, nearly all my friends in Los Angeles had a xanga page. We all used it for the designed purpose: to share what’s going in our lives.
Simple enough.
Well, apparently not. That’s because as mobile texting became more prevalent and sites like facebook became prominent, people started to realize that blogging was a lot more time consuming than just sending quick texts or status updates. Consequently, my pool of friends with xanga began to dwindle. It went slowly. At first, people stopped updating as frequently. Then they stopped posting altogether. This continued until out of about forty or fifty people I knew personally, I was the only one left.
Therein lies the first problem. Xanga tried to keep up with things like pulses, but blogging just isn’t easy enough for the average person. Those people will never return.
The only people left were those who liked to write and those who liked to write for attention.
This brings me to the second problem that killed xanga: the target demographic. Rather than devote energy towards encouraging professional writers and journalists to use xanga as a hosting site, they chose instead to focus on teenagers and college students. This might have worked, except blogspot got bought out by google, an absolute shit ton of good writers followed the traffic, and every other blog hosting site was left in its wake.
So the refugees still stranded here complain about it all. They bitch and moan about the content of the –ish sites (Which, to be fair, is a valid complaint. Most posts on those sites read like glorified message board questions instead of genuine content.) They whine about how everyone else is whining. And they plead xanga to change. Except it can’t, because xanga is dead.
So please stop writing about xanga on xanga. Stop talking about other xangan’s behavior. Stop trying to “bring xanga back.” It’s not coming back.
Just write.
And save yourself.
The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.
Comments (17)
Gary, Indiana... not right. haha. sad.
i'm not familiar at all with other blogsites. hm. i'm behind the times, sir. teach me how this microwave works, while you're at it.
Chivalry is dead too, don't forget that.
boo yah!
"The only people left were those who liked to write and those who liked to write for attention."
YUP.
xanga in 2002-2003 was sweet. non-bloggers were forced to blog to stay socially connected. but then, as you alluded to, texting, myspace/facebook (status updates changed the world), and now twitter. who needs to blog anymore???
I'm carving out my own little place on the blogosphere and have stuck with xanga. why move to blogspot or wordpress? sure, they might have some more robust features but xanga has made marked improvements along the way.
i'm not an everyday blogger but my blog is still alive and i hope it only gets better. in the meantime, i'll be stready treading
does this mean we're all dead men walking?
Ok now I have the song Gary, Indiana in my head. Thanks a lot!
How's that book coming cause like, I really want to give a copy to my brother once it's out on the bookshelves and well....I haven't seen it yet. Keep me posted, please.
Guess it is only us ghosts left. But that's fine. You know facebook is dying when everyone's grandmother subscribes.
So is Xanga a xombie?
it needed to be said. thank you for being the bearer of news.
@TheBigShowAtUD - a microwave works through fairy dust. every time you clap, a popcorn kernal pops to life. wait, i got something mixed up there.
@Dare2BDiferentt - Chivalry is not dead so long as Gary Busey is alive.
@slamjoe - xanga does have a good engine for blogging. i keep a blogspot, too, but i won't ever fully switch over. too many people are linked to my rss feeds here.
@curtainsopen - do you mean dead men walking like green mile dead man walking, or dead man walking like zombies dead man walking?
and are you confused by that question? because i am.
@LydJaGillers - no word on TSM just yet. i should hear back from the editor soon. if and when it gets a green light, it will probably be about a year before release. i'll let you know.
@murisopsis - facebook is actually declining a bit too.
@wherethefishlives - you've totally been waiting for someone to make a post like this just so you could use that word, huh?
@WeCanFreakIt - i did need to say it, but i doubt any of the attention whores will see it (i don't visit their pages. therefore, they don't visit mine.)
Completely Agreed.
@woodrowwilson - It just sort of popped up in my head, and I couldn't let a stroke of genius like that go unused.
Meh.
Agreed.
There are many copies of Gary here in the Rust Belt; no matter how bad it looks, there is always some good to be found. It's really a social mentality around here. You don't see too many smiles, and most people are "cautiously optimistic" at best, but we have a *huge* appreciation for the things that do get better.
It's where Midwest earnest-emo lyrics come from.
(I guess the point is that, yeah, Xanga is dead. More importantly, Xanga isn't alive. And that makes it much more "legit" in my view.)
I read the whole thing and it was a good read. Thanks. =p
@woodrowwilson - A year! Wow, that seems like such a long time from now but hopefully it will go by fast (for you at least
). Thanks!
Tell me about it. All my friends have gone off and joined blogspot.
But I stayed on. Xanga is where my loyalty lies. Since January of 2003!
yeah i do come back once a while...xanga is my hometown... i have relatives and friends here =p