December 28, 2011
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Is Xanga a Better Place Than When You Started Here?
I was reading a pulse by someone that felt that xanga was a better place a year and a half ago when he started on Xanga than it is today. Here is the link: Link
He wrote, “About a year and a half ago Xanga was a great place, entertaining, awesome writes, readings, etc. Now, I get tired of sifting through bullshit and find myself entertaining myself. . . “
Is Xanga a better place today than it was when you started?
Comments (76)
Ugh.
Xanga was at its best back up until about 06, in my opinion. There are still a lot of great people on here, don’t get me wrong, but I miss the hometown atmosphere Xanga used to have.
Nope, not at all but is still home to me
In some ways it seems like Xanga has listened to their users: Like changing the front page, etc. In other ways it’s bad because we have whole countries after us and trying to shut down our sites. Like Malaysia.
I started in 2006? Anyway, it seems about the same to me… Of course I’m not terribly active right now, so I don’t see a lot of the drama that used to come and go, I’m going with that’s a good thing.
Xanga was better in like 2006.
It’s kinda going downhill, and I’ll agree with the guy about having to sift through BS.
Don’t get me wrong; I still love this site and I won’t leave, but some days I have to ask myself why I’m here when I see so much crap.
I like many of the features xanga has added in the past six years, but I miss many of the talented bloggers who have left in that time. Sometimes it feels like the bullies have taken over the playground.
People have been complaining about Xanga like this since I joined 3 years ago. I don’t know if I take these complaints seriously.
When I started my first blog here, I never read anything by the popular Xangans, nor did I get involved in their affairs. I actually knew all my friends beforehand. When I started the Democrab username, I slowly began adding people I didn’t know, and it was good at first. I was making new friends.
Then I got greedy. I started adding people like crazy after I had a featured post in hopes that my popularity would continue to grow. I added people with little thought to content or real friendship. I did it to get my name out there.
And now, I have a ton of subscriptions to a lot of people who are doing the exact same thing. I should’ve stayed away from that kind of greed and I should’ve stuck with the subscriptions I actually enjoy reading instead of wallowing in a million posts that are all trying to get their 15 minutes with some pointless drama. The good subscriptions are enough to keep me here, but I shouldn’t have tried to be famous for fame’s sake.
I think that sort of thing has always been around in some way, shape, or form. It was my transition into the wrong sort of game that made me think this place was going down the tubes.
It is for me.
Worce every year. Xanga loses half its bloggers every year. Fewer bloggers means fewer good bloggers
Xanga is what it always has been. In my opinion, people who bitch and complain about it “changing” haven’t been on it long enough to figure it out.
Im almost at my 7th year. Definitely worse.
The whole time I’ve been here, people have been complaining about how it’s getting worse. That’s mostly what Xanga’s always been.
No, I’ve certainly learned how to deal with it better though. It was shocking to me at first.
@Rob_of_the_Sky - LOL!
Hard to say if it’s worse or better, but I don’t enjoy it as much. It used to be more fun and thought-provoking.
@ShimmerBodyCream - Be thankful they don’t have nukes.
I started blogging here in 05-06. Back then i had no idea there was a community within xanga. The only other blogger i ever read was spontaneous_spitball, my bf in highschool. I stopped blogging and came back a few years ago as mommabamf and discovered the community… I discovered that it sucked. Jk! Parts of xanga does suck and sometimes I wish I could go back to my little bubble but on the other hand i’ve made some really great friends here.
It’s worse though, all in all.
it was til everyone left for facebook…now there are just a few that regularly keep up…the 3 writing groups are now almost all but gone…but there is still some good stuff out there on xanga…
I’ve been a long time xanga user, since maybe 04 or 05 off and on. I feel like Xanga is neither better or worse. Although, looking through the crap on here, you do find devoted bloggers on here. Which i think is a positive note. Xanga is home to me.
Xanga is still good but I miss a lot of the people that have left.
Xanga just gets from bad to worst. It used to be so fun and I met so many friends here. Now I can’t seem to even find real friends here anymore, only seeing people writing so many hate posts and cyberbullying each other. Friends that I’ve known thru Xanga have all left except me because I still find Xanga as my home.
Not only that, there’s so many functions that Xanga used to have but they now disable it, like API and some javascript. I wish they could bring all these back, seriously.
i’m sad godlessliberal left, and bigshow left, a lot of the first people i befriended and loved to read are gone. i just keep on trekking and hope the people i still read now don’t go … cause … i’m pretty much a lifer.
I think I have just hardened and learned to deal with things better. I have learned some hard lessons and done some things I wished I hadn’t done, listened to people I wished I hadn’t listened to but take full responsibility for my actions.
I don’t think Xanga’s necessarily a better place than when I first started. However, I have seen people here and there talking smack and picking fights.
2006? Pretty sure I have rant post from 2005 maybe earlier…
I think I started using this five years ago…and it hasn’t really gotten better. I used to like reading the top web blogs and seeing familiar bloggers come up with some great stuff. Now, I only find two or three good blog posts on the home page. There’s way too many people who blog for attention now and use celebrity news to do it, it’s annoying. We use Yahoo! and TMZ for all that, we don’t need another place to read all about gossip. There’s still quite a few bloggers on here though that still make me look forward to reading their new blog posts. The problem is that now, those blogs are becoming less noticeable and more difficult to find.
to me, xanga is what you make it. so yes! for me it’s gotten better.
i knew no one when i started blogging here 5 years ago,
but now have met so many wonderful ppl & consider this a awesome community of friends~!
For me, it’s the other way around. It was totally dry when I first joined. Now I find something new every day.
Xanga hasn’t changed much. When I started It was under the name Zayin_michael… and you Dan, I got more news from you than anywhere else. The slants you would put on the news were funny. I remember reading some interesting people like Porcupinsol, and now I wonder what ever happened to remy and her xanga tattoo. There was the fair share of trolls back then and drama queens and attention whores. I wonder what ever happened to AntiSoccermom. Every year people talk about how much xanga has changed and how good it used to be. I watch them funnel in, each thinking they have found something new, and each thinking they have discovered a new thought or fresh idea as they talk about Gays or sex, or politics or God. Then they lose interest or they run out of things to talk about. They cease to entertain, and lose readers, and as such the lose the feedback that they feed off of . This results in people talking about how dead xanga is, or suicide ploys for attention, threats to shut down sites and switching to tumblr or blogger or something. Some Go. Some stay. The few that stay are not here to be famous or to feel some empty place in their life with the validation of strangers. We write for ourselves… for the sake of writing. Some people cant touch that.
I liked the old school Xanga better.
I think over-all i liked it better 5-6 years ago when i started back then. It seemed like it was less drama, but also less traffic in the blogs. I contribute that to how blogging was such a new thing. Now it has more-so caught on and people from all walks of life blog.
I had my blog since July 2005. All of my original friends stopped blogging since then. So Xanga didn’t give me much reason to post, but I am starting to become more apart of the community.(I guess?) So at least it isn’t as much of a ghost town at my neck of the woods. Still wish my old friends never stopped using xanga. :-/
maybe worse. Too much annoying drama! When it was cakalusa and wutuwaitin4, gizz on faces ‘n all, it was funny, but now it’s all about Malaysians and fucking trolls. I find alot of these trolls to be funny and entertaining! It’d be nice if people didn’t worry and write about trivial stuff as much!! So somebody hates you!! Who fucking cares!! hahaha
something enlightening pleeeeease! Oh yea, ‘n perversion is fine too! we’re lacking both of these, right?
tosses empty bowl on floor
Definitely yes but I still love it because of people like you and some of my best friends (; (;
well I started this a few years ago…I don’t think it was a worse place then, but now I got better friends. Within the period of time you mentioned, not too much has changed. A few people left (unfortunately) and I met a few new ones.
As for the general drama I feel like it was the worst around half a year ( or less) ago….I’m glad it has ceased a bit. I wasn’t “affected” but it’s hard to not get dragged in a bit.
I had an awesome dream. I felt my spirit leave my body just like in Yu yu hakusho. I went for my door and noticed someone broke inside and ended up breaking it. At this point I began to question wheather I was dreaming or not. I went to check out my roommate, her door was open and she was asleep in her bed. I went inside. I looked at her and prayed to God that I am dreaming. I snuggled beside her body felt warm. Then she woke up and started yelling at me. I became afraid I was not dreaming. I was and now I am so mad I did not take off her clothes! (angry face).
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what that dude has to say. He’s pretty moody from time to time. You would be too if you were a detective and only to find out later that your job called for the investigation of some rapist dude who just killed a bunch of people and slit the throat of your wife. Don’t ask me if he captured the luny because this conehead of a guy gives us his results a chapter at a time. Its a wonder I still read his shit !
@ShimmerBodyCream - I certainly wouldn’t blame “The Malaysians” for the state of Xanga. Mainly since in the 9 years I’ve been on this site, I’ve never had a problem with them. Then again, I never looked for one either like some other people tend to do.
I just rejoined after a long absence. Back in 2005-2007 when I was a big time poster it was a great place. I’m still trying to find out what it’s like now compared to then. So….I’m neutral on this one.
Xanga has taught me dedicate my life to goodness and niceness instead of badness and eeevil.
March of next year will be my 7th year… I’m at a toss up. I loved it then, because people weren’t so bluntly rude and it had cool fetures. But it didn’t have most of the features that has made this site worth staying to tolerate the assholes. So many great bloggers have left, and some of the new ones who get attention just aren’t doing it for me. They just cause hype and drama.
It is about the same as I joined. Plenty of fantastic bloggers on Xanga.
It’s what you make it.
It was the best during 2005, 2006. But I could be biased.
It was better back circa 2005-2006 before Myspace torpedoed Xanga’s market share. There were so many more users on Xanga back in those days. A lot of fun and interesting people have left. Xanga itself is I feel a fine blogging platform. It’s too bad that it’s become so depopulated.
I started in 2006, when i was going through a “rough patch” in grade school. Xanga was an outlet, and and i was totally in love with all those layout sites and made around 3 of them lol. Miss the communities that were around before, and most of my friends left xanga. It’s still an outlet for me, which is a good sign i guess.
My flirt with the Eastern side of Xanga continues. I have a subscription with people in Malaysia and the Philippines and so I get updates throughout the night. Xanga before just contained stuff from sleepless folks at night.
Then there were other massive commenters. Bald Mike has slowed down on his massive comments but still those folks who comment more than one paragraph are rare.
Some blogs are meant to incite.Theodan does try not to cross the line too strongly and I suppose I should be glad for that. Pretty much people still speak up on the folks that troll and purposely instigate. Also I suppose all that is left here on xanga are a much of mild sheeple.
Can we say that the internet can’t do the work for actual good blogs? Well Theodan does borrow headlines and I PPhilip steal (with credits given) whole articles. The few people who do speak at my blogs do have other things to do but at least I see more thanks than thanks given to Theo Dan. (yeah I have a biased point of view and really didn’t bother to count the thanks given to Theo Dan)
Most folks do not have flexible schedules. I suppose during the evening things at Xanga are really busy. I do like to thank A ….(the old man) for his early morning blogs. My schedule does not match all the other bloggers here at xanga.
I’ve never even heard of the majority of people who responded.Never seen their names.
On any website people will come and go…that is to be expected.
But we have lost a great deal of good people to Facebook. This, I just don’t understand.
Question now is why? And what can we do about it?
No.
Banqueting hall (Birmingham)Now itz realy coo xanga I can’t seem to even find out real friends here anymore..
You want my honest opinion? Xanga was a better place a few years ago like back in ’05 or ’06 when all of this drama wasn’t around then. That’s why I’m sticking with who I know and just talk to them off of this site. That’s why I also wrote a blog to Stop Trolling For Unicorns. A must read I may add.
Xanga is a reflection of the community that uses its interface.
Sail on… sail on!!!
I created my first xanga probably about 10 years ago. In the beginning, I was completely uninvolved in the affairs of the greater community, I just read and commented my friends’ pages. Then I started to make new friends through blogrings, and got more involved.
Honestly, I think the Xanga community as it exists right now is a pretty sad state of affairs. It was definitely better back in the day. We have lost so many people who wrote interesting, quality content. The state of the front page is just pathetic.
However, it is like everything else in this world – it will cater to the lowest common denominator until the community makes the decision to raise its standards, and refuses to accept crap. The front page will not display quality until we demand it to. The trolls will not stop coming unless we stop feeding them. So yes, I think things are getting worse, and I think that the only way to make it better is to not accept that.
2005 was great. At some point it all became about God vs. atheists wars.
It was definitely better when I had my first account on here 4-5 years ago. Upon returning this year I’ve found that there’s a lot more hate going around and silly arguments.
Been on xanga since 2003, it serves the same purpose it always has for me, a place to vent as no one from high school blogs on here anymore. They’re too busy on Facebook to notice that I’m still active on this site.
I think it better for that reason, of being able to write freely and the bloggers on here now are more interesting. Like minded folk. And in like minded folk- I mean the crazy people.
Been here since 04. For a few years I didn’t read the popular blogs or those of people I didn’t know. Everyone I subscribed to/subscribed to me, gave/received comments from, and etc was a personal friend. All that died during the dawn of Myspace. Most of my blogs have always been for me to outlet and analyze myself, although I leave them public. They’ve gotten more personal as more “real life” friends left the site. So for me, xanga still serves it’s purpose and I’ll always try to be around.
I do miss the old school “Look and Feel” and I remember how popular Xanga was back then and how easy it was to look up super fancy layouts and such haha. I still like the community, and yes I do have to sift through to find the good blogs. But again, I still love it here.
@BlueButterf1y - exactly!
liked it better way back when but it was different then.
I guess he/she was just not subscribed to the right people
I started around 05-06 and it’s just so different you can’t really compare.
I started in 2007 the good old days
I come to xanga to write and to write only, so to me it has gotten better because when I first started the editing features that are available to everyone were only available to premium members. I couldn’t give a shit about who is on here or all the xanga celebrities that are consistently featured on the front page with simple questions like these. My purpose for xanga is to write and it is well served.
I’m the only one left out of my friends on here from when I started blogging back in 2002.
it’s the same for me!
I like the xanga neighborhood very much but many dear friends have left this site. I miss them.
I was a subscriber of yours years ago. I left Xanga to persue Facebook, didnt like Facebook in the beginning, then it grew on me. Then it got to be a royal pain in the ass. I shut my Facebook down yesterday and decided to come back to Xanga.I’m hoping I can find what I left here. I missed the blogging and the networking with people you don’t even know. Facebook became a place for Friends and Relatives, but it doesn’t feel like a friendly place to me. There seems to be a lot of hate floating around. Almost like a place people are tolerated rather than a place people go to because they really want to read you. So …here I am. Back on Xanga, and hoping to find the networking and the good reads I once had a few years back:)
@Bricker59 - I left for Facebook but it has grown very old. I’m back now because I really missed the Blogging aspect of Xanga.
I am glad you posted this. I am so disappointed in the present Xanga. We were once a tight group who laughed and cried together. Now I rarely blog unless one of my friends posts. It is sad for Xanga strengthened us, made us laugh and we supported each other in good times and bad. Now I seldom blog.
Xanga used to be awesome. Until 2006, EVERYONE I knew had one. Then everyone switched to Myspace. When that died, Facebook. Twitter drowned in its first couple of years. Xanga was so much better than any of them. I made my own layouts and it was actually a BLOG. I still use it, but it can get really boring because pretty much nobody uses it anymore. I’m pretty much talking to myself.
I miss Xanga from 2004. It was much more personal back then.
@lacrymosa_x3 - Twitter definitely hasn’t “drowned.” It’s a great place to network, get current news, and stay up to date with friends. I like it much, much better than Facebook.
well, since I started writing on Xanga in march of 2001 (as a travelogue for my Alaskan Odyssey) I am not sure if my input would apply to the nature of Xanga a year or two ago. I will say that Xanga like a lot of sites, including FB and Twitter, evolve and shange and the people that make the communities on these places in always in flux. What made Xanga very cool in 2001 was that blogging was stilla fairly new phenomena and so we were all kind of learning together, but what made it especially neat is realizing that you had to be active in order to be part of a dynamic community. You had to take the time to red and commnet on others’ blogs and build the online relationships the same way you would build real life ones. But alas, life happens, and soon we progress into different areas. I hope to starting blogging on Xanga again and I hope to see many of the old names and faces along the way.