January 7, 2009
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Blogging
It’s been over a year since I’ve restarted my Xanga. This one seems to feel a bit different. But I think it’s just me. For the most part, the folks who subscribed to me before are still here (thank you). I subscribe to about 130 blogs in Xanga although about 30 to 40 of them are now inactive. I’ve started to prune a couple of them. But I keep thinking and perhaps hoping that they’ll start again. Maybe that’s just part of blogging. The online friends and community keeps changing and evolving.
It’s interesting that over time, you get a good impression of the person behind the blog. How much of that is accurate, I’m not really sure. But I find it very interesting how we are able to develop a level of friendship and trust with each other even though (for most of us) our interactions are mostly through Xanga.
If someone was really sneaky, they could create an online persona that is very different than their real one. I mean, I could be some weird stalker. And all those pictures of food – maybe they aren’t mine. And I probably hate babies too.
Ok, I’m just kidding. I do miss some of the folks that have dropped off. I’ll always wonder what happened to them. Sometimes it seems a bit ruthless that these connections can be cut off so quickly.
Comments (26)
130, wow!!
How do you manage to read all those?!!!
Well, anyway I am already contented with even only one subscriber. To begin with, I signed up at xanga just to ventilate myself. When bloggers started subscribing, it was more than enough for me. Welcome back.
=]
I hope that you will continue xanga for a long long time...cuz you're kinda like my virtual brother. :]
Even though I really like the new change to ElusiveWords, I must say that Onetonman had more...personality :]
I'm pretty sure that kids these days have wayy better things to do than create fake xangas. Besides...isn't it usually obvious if someone created a fake persona...I mean, i'm sure people who are in the 30s and 40s are wayy too busy with work and other things to care about ...
anyways :]
I'll have to learn "speed reading" if I subscribe to 100+ friends...By the way, all my food pictures, those are the food I actually ate! LOL
Busted. I really hate kids.
Believe me?
LOL
Yep, you described the blogging community pretty well. It was a fad that is starting to wane already. However, video blogging is becoming more popular, but alas... it is much more difficult for search engines like Google to crawl and understand the content of millions of these videos.
Anyway, I'm blabbing. Happy 2009, man!
I find that blogging is part of a community that comes and goes. I wonder what happened to some of the bloggers I no longer see on line. I found it a place to be honest. Sometimes it is easier to be honest when not sitting face to face.
My sister and I were actually both friends with someone who was blogging on line only to discover much of what she was writing was work for a novel she was attempting to write. There are those but I certainly hope they are few and far between.
be well, *~matthew~*
That seems to be the nature of blogging: people come and go, you build connections with people that are reciprocated by some people and abruptly ended by others, and it is hard to know whether the story you read is the whole story. And inevitably, it isn't, because we choose what we write and therefore edit out some parts and present others in a particular light.
Along the way with Xanga, I've managed to make a number of friends who have moved beyond the virtual realm into reality. I expect that those numbers will grow over the years, especially as paths cross. One of these years, for example, I'll get back up to Toronto and finally meet all those Torontonian Xangans I've met online and see whether they pictures they are posting are the real food they cook.
I think the worst thing is when there is an untold "story" left and the person stops their blog... Happy New Year!
exactly! i feel the same way! when my xanga friends decide to take a break from xanga, there's no other way to keep in touch and find out what's up with them. but xanga still rocks though. i've made tons of friends here and i get to meet amazing people everyday
geez, how do you have time to read 130 blogs?! i can barely keep up with the few i subscribe to, let alone have time to post anything. i wonder, if we were to meet in real life, would we all get along as well as we do on xanga?
@stevew918 - @Dezinerdreams - well, about 30 or 40 of them are inactive now. As for the others, not everyone updates the same day so there's not that much actually to read.
@Devilzgaysianboi - are you doing ok in school? You're gonna have to send me your report cards soon! I'll have to try to add some more personality.
@Norcani - yeah... I agree with you. I started to write for myself and to explore my own feelings. It's always nice to get someone subscribing but I always remind myself why I am doing this.
@curry69curry - well, not all of them are active anymore. There's about 30 to 40 that are inactive. As for your food porn - it's up there with the best!
@CareyGLY - HAHAHAHA
@ABloggingHorse - I guess what will remain will be the hardcore serious bloggers rather than the folks that took it up as a fad.
@Fatcat723 - you're right, it's often easier to be honest online than face to face.
@bleuzeus - that sounds like an odd way to blog. I think that person should have disclosed it up front.
@christao408 - that's interesting. I took out a couple of sentences when I edited my entry. It was about how much thought and effort we put into managing what we write. As an example, I could write my own version of a situation and of course, people will agree with us. Therefore that validates our position.
@brooklyn2028 - hmm... when I was writing that entry, I was thinking of my own experience too.
@carpe_diem99 - yeah, Xanga still rocks!
@kunhuo42 - well about 30 to 40 of my subscriptions aren't active (e.g. ZenPaper - where did he go?). As for your question, I often wondered that myself.
Interesting... I actually had a friend from university that I wonder what happened to him. He's not really a friend, but with his kind of lifestyle, I wonder where he is today. Maybe he's dead or something.
I think getting to know people online vs in "real life" is the same. There will always be people who are decieving and dishonest.
People are more honest in their thoughts and behaviors in a way, since there is the anonymity involved.
Once more people a person knows in real life read his or her blog, the more restrained they become...
@kunhuo42 - That's an interesting question. There's several Xangans I've met. Many of them turn into friends while others just remain aquaintences. I guess it just depends on whether the personality in real life clicks as well as it does in virtual life.
@ElusiveWords - Which actually illustrates the point, doesn't it? We end up editing ourselves and, thus, change the perception others have of us. There are tons of potential entries I've never written. I wonder how others might view me if I had written them.
@Wangium - That's the truth. Especially as more people who I know originaly outside the blog world start reading. There's nowhere left to complain about them! Ha ha...
110 active subscriptions. that's impressive. i would also want to know what happened if someone that posts regularly drops off. when you dropped out of your previous blog without a word i had no idea what happened--was it forever? did anyone know what happened?...so many questions. luckily you came back, though! that was a good surprise.
@stepaside_loser - well, not all of them are active anymore. So I think the actual active ones are probably around 80ish. Even then, not everyone updates regularly either. So many questions when I left... yeah, it must have been strange.
@Wangium - I agree.... I guess I'll continue to remain anonymous.
sneaky people on the blog
...I'm sure they are there....it's just I havn't discovered one so far......
sharing our life, thoughts and sometimes even feelings on the net with someone we don't actually know is adventurous though risky, it's challlenging when being criticized also another way to learn new stuff...
Bloggers come and go, even our real life friends or relatives, tresaure the moment when we are connected....
Oh! Me! Me! I hate babies too!
Not really. I'm just always afraid I'll drop them, or scare them with my asymmetrical face (studies show that babies are upset by facial asymmetry; I got one nostril from each parent [round Asian nostril from dad on the left, narrow white nostril from mom on the right!], or that they'll spew onto me one of the 324623 fluids infants regularly erupt. Ugh.
I have found, after meeting people in person I've "known" from the Internet, what's projected online isn't necessarily what you'll see in real life. Some very outspoken Internet friends have turned out to be extremely shy in person. An absolutely hilarious funny online friend was dry and mild in person. The Internet creates a safety net of sorts; with virtually limitless contacts available you can project your inner personality without inhibition; if someone doesn't like it, you move on. Rejection online isn't as bad as in-person rejection, which most people spend an incredible amount of effort trying to avoid. So you can be the person you want to be, online, that you might not be able to be in person.
But that's not always the case. Other online friends I've met (fewer than above cases though) have been exactly who they were online, in person. To clarify things with me, what I have stated above really is exactly how I feel about babies and will tell anyone so, in person!
thank heavens I've met you in person and know you're real!