I’ve never been a big fan of the social networking site. I’ll cop to it: I love blogging and I bleed Xanga, and my loyalty makes me biased. Whenever I have free time, it usually goes towards my blog—I’m either writing a new post, rewriting the post, getting really frustrated because I’m rewriting the freaking post again and it still doesn’t sound right, or drawing a Paint picture to go with the now tired-ass post that has been rewritten, like, 7 times before it’s made public.
Blogging is an arduous and very time-consuming task, but most creative processes are and will continue to be that way…unless my wish to have super-creative-writing-in-seconds talent comes true. I’ve been wishing on a lot of stars, my friends, but those balls of gas are extremely cheap or something because they keep ignoring my requests. Granted, most of the stars turn out to be planes—but give me a break! I’m in Los Angeles, people; I’m lucky to be able to see anything underneath the smog cover.
My online time goes towards my Xanga, with the most important aspect being the writing itself. The profile was really the last thing I worked on because I consider it to be just an accessory for my blog. It’s there for people who are really, really bored, so you’re not missing out on anything if you never see it.
I view the social networking site as a blog-less Xanga, i.e., pointless. You put up pictures of yourself, talk about your likes and dislikes, and then let it sit there for other people to view. That’s not to say I don’t use the sites. Whenever I hear a lot of news about the newest trend in the social networking world, I’ll create a profile to see what all the hype is about. I’ve tried Friendster, MySpace, and now am on Facebook because that’s where the migration has been heading. My profiles are fairly basic, and will eventually be abandoned, because again, there is no blogging aspect and therefore no reason for me to devote any more time on it.
The abandoning phase of the Facebook account may come sooner than anticipated because a few people on my “Friends” list have gotten dumped by their boyfriends or girlfriends, and have responded by putting up really lame and pathetic status updates for everyone to see. I’m talking about crap like this:
X really wishes he could take it all back…
Y will never believe in love ever again.
Z don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?
I find the last one most annoying. The little Facebook status module looks like this:
The little cartoon speech bubble is asking you: “what are you doing right now?” and your response is you’re doing a Joni Mitchell lyric. Okay…
Anyway, the emo status updates, no matter who they are written by, are all created out of the same formula: overly-exaggerated descriptions of a broken heart that are directed at someone who is never mentioned, but whom everyone knows is the writer’s ex.
This crap is loserish on so many levels. First of all, the dumpee is posting these lame-ass status updates for their ex to see, which makes no sense whatsoever. Does he think that by showcasing how much pain he is in, his ex will change her mind and get back into the relationship? Why would she even care? She is the one who dumped you in the first place, you asshat. She doesn’t care how much sadder you make yourself sound because she expected you to feel like dirt in the first place.
Secondly, whatever happened to maintaining one’s cool after getting dumped? I thought people tried to downplay the humiliation of getting kicked to the curb by acting totally unfazed by it. If anything, you do it to give your ex the impression that you weren’t that much into him or her in the first place. That way, your ex loses whatever ego boost he may have had when he thought you were miserable without him, and you get to preserve your dignity.
It’s not that hard–and yet, you’d rather take the route of publicizing your pussification? You deserve to be single!
absolutangel64 
LOL! true
Ha! I’m sure you did better than you think on your final. =) Now if you want to trade testing horror stories, you haven’t “lived” until you take a test where the teach writes down the range of scores and the lowest score written on the board belongs to the paper in your hands….doh! Lesson learned…..don’t ever try to wing an applied physics exam.=:-0
Maybe you can explain to me those twits with twitter.”I’m Eating a pizza… I’m watching Get Smart… I’m performing oral sex on strangers in the clubs parking lot…) Yawn get a life. I’m bored enough with my own life I don’t need constant updates about yours….As for the Facebook action. Someday I may venture but I have enough on my plate right now.
Facebook definitely helps you to reconnect with people you’ve lost touch with over time. However, I think many of us end up realizing that there was a reason you lost touch with at least a few of the people you just added to your Facebook friends list. Btw, your drawing is hilarious.
I think what’s worse is when you knew your friend was in a dead-end relationship to begin with. Even when your friend throughout their bad relationship came crying to you about how horrible the relationship was, the friend still did not heed your advice to end the relationship. Then, he or she blames the horrible break-up on you for not telling him or her the relationship was a dead-end relationship to begin with .
I don’t get it as well. And I don’t even care what the hype is all about.
Facebook has a blog app named “Live Blog”. It’s basic and no where near good as Xanga.http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2417711041LOL! I agree with the part about the ex-es.
bwahaha i like this.
@happyjen85 – I agree. Like my Xanga was made for ranting about stuff, usually miscomfort, caused by my friends.They aren’t reading that.
i couldn’t help but laugh hahahah
i ♥ xanga and livejournal with all of my life, but i’ve never been on facebook. but it looks like the myspace status things are a lot better than the facebook ones. does the little cartoon really look like that?
It’s funny, ’cause I just updated my status thing. :PNothing emo or about being dumped or anything. Just telling everyone that I got my molars extracted. :]
Wow, this was a great post you wrote!! I totally agree with everything on here!! :o) I use both Facebook and Xanga… Facebook just to talk to friends.. and then Xanga for blogging and talking to all my Xanga friends…
Totally agree. The facebook statuses are so annoying. It’s like.. calm down, who cares, keep it to yourself, especially your emotional baggage subtly hinted in your statuses..
I don’t know if that first one was (somehow, miraculously) aimed at me, or if it’s a complete coincidence, but I can assure you my post was not about a breakup, and rather about a moral decision that I felt was wrong.That being said, I maintain both facebook and xanga regularly: the first for friends and receiving media updates on their lives; the latter for myself. Therein lies the main difference, I feel. Most xangans DON’T have a large veiwing audience, so sometimes I think those who do forget that most people stick with xanga because it’s about ideas, and wisdom, and writing, and experiences, not because of the great intelligent feedback which, although it happens occasionally, typically feedback doesn’t happen at all for the vast majority of xanga bloggers.-James
Bwahaha. Yeah. Myspace has a blogging feature, but it sucks. Go, Xanga, go!
I think myspace and facebook are all losing their value. It became even more apparent with the 1000’s of apps you can now flood your friends with… Sigh Annoying as fuck if you ask me… No I don’t want to be a Mobster/pirate/gangster/pronstar on myspace… All it does is encourage breeding of the lesser of humanaties Gene pool… stupid + stupid = even more stupid… GG people fail all over again.
haha I always secretly laugh at those kinds of status updates
LOL. I agree with the last part of your blog. It’s easier said than done though…lol. Xanga is definitely the best blog by far. I have been on here for years and most of my friends have stopped blogging, but this is where I find people to actually post BLOGS.. Myspace isn’t about the blogging. It’s for teeny boppers to hit on people…lame.
HAHA love that lil sketch u made to go together with this post!
I agree. Perfectly (:
Not that this will sound at all repetitive, but I include myself in the number who enjoyed this post.And a great portion of the time, I was trying to remember where I had heard it before……Oh, yeah, my own head.LOVED it. Funny, funny, funny.
The only reason I use myspace is to network with people and talk to people I’d never get a chance to meet in real life. The few good people I have found on myspace that are REAL are worth talking to. Xanga is just used to spread useful/useless information among uknown people on xanga and vent about things online that people read for some odd reason, no other reasons for xangas use than the reasons mentioned.
I hate the applications that come with social networking, especially in Facebook. Wasn’t there a time when there were five different types of walls one could write on and I had to connect to all of them to not miss a message.
I agree that the pseudo interactions and aggressive oversharing that Facebook encourages are a downside to social networking. (I quit Facebook because of this.)I love the Joni Mitchell comment, haha.
My facebook statuses are always kind of odd because I update that, my Xanga pulse, Twitter, and Kwippy at the same time. Generally I go with a sort of “… blah blah blah” approach. That way it doesn’t look like it’s trying to make sense. But yeah, the statuses are always a special event – especially when they’re insanely dramatic and/or pathetic. And you’re right – I like to keep my overly depressing tormented whatnot internal emotions… um, internal. My favorite are the status conversations where one person posts something that’s directed at someone else, and the other person posts a status response… and so on. Crazy town.
Of course the great xangan MODs would feature this blog. hahaBut it’s also so very, very true.
i dont like writing about my life so i just read xanga, and stick to facebook
LOL so true, I’ve done my fair share of emo status messages in the past and even AIM away messages! I’m so over that now! These days i’ts over-the-top party photos showing “just how much better I am without you!”
totally agree with you… social networking site creates too much social dramas. i have once deactivated my facebook account because of that. but i reactivated because it a convenient way to keep contact with oversea friends.i love xanga 🙂
Don’t fall for it and also, do things in moderation.
thank god you don’t have Twitter then. i imagine then you get it in realtime all day long.
status updates can be annoying, esp the emo ones where people post about how terrible their lives are or who got dumped etc etc. there are WORSE things in life than that.however,the spam is the worst part. no, i do not want to be invited to use an application that shows me who has been looking at my profile by first sending out 45 requests. gimme a break.
I always get drunk and sing “BYOB” when I get dumped too!
I think the roles of Facebook (and other sites like it) are very different from Xanga, so it’s a bit harder to compare them. Xanga is for blogging; that’s fairly straightforward. I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook (and not really so much on Xanga either since I tend to stay fairly busy), but it’s very helpful in staying in touch with people. I know a lot of friends who have their email or phone number change from time to time. With Facebook, you can always send them a quick message or find their email or phone number (if they posted it). You don’t do that with Xanga. Sure, you can find pros and cons of each, but it seems that each has their own roles. Facebook shouldn’t be abandoned just b/c you’re not spending a lot of time on it (in fact, you probably shouldn’t spend a lot of time on it). If a particular friend keeps cluttering your newsfeed, there are options to fix that so you’re not seeing their hourly status updates. Plus, the whole picture deal on Facebook is nice too. To “dump Facebook for Xanga” is about like dumping CNN for Myspace; the sites have different roles (although, granted, there has been efforts to make them more similar). Then again, maybe most of your friends aren’t on a site like Facebook or Myspace. In that case, it probably would make a lot of sense to abandon it.
I never got the point of Facebook. It’s not a journal because everyone knows who is posting, and so all you can do is show an edited for-public-viewing of your life.
Hahaha. Always something funny to read on your site :)
lol i don’t do facebook statuses. i don’t wanna give them the pleasure…
Xanga is my secret hideout from almost everyone on Facebook except for my closest friends. :DFacebook is just a convenient way for me to contact people that I don’t talk to that much. XD
I hate it when people put lame crap like that on their Facebook status. It’s like, do you want the world to know about your private life?
lol! you deserve to be single? you’re cold!
I think networking sites are stupid. I agree with you! 🙂 I think networking sites focus on popularity. -_-
I used many blogs before I failed in love with xanga!!
breaking up is not humiliating . it’s just a common occurrence in life . some people need extra support , some people need a space to whine about it , some people deal and get over it on their own terms . who gives a shit , really .
Ha ha this is quality!! I love the paint drawings as well =] If you re-wrote this ten times it was worth it. Another really annoying thing is where people post status updates on how in love they are with someone, like “has never been so happy before in their life love you forver baby xxxx” or “suddenly understands the meaning of love”. For Christ’s sake we don’t want to know!
I started on LiveJournal, and I am in the process of copying all of my old entries here. Once I have finally copied everything, I will post new entries to both sites simultaneously.I have a lot of friends on LJ, but I have found that it is much easier to get comments here on Xanga.
i loved your post, it is soo true!
Merry Christmas!
“Whatever is yours, it will come to you if you are worthy and have fought valiently to get it. Whatever is not yours, you may never get it no matter how hard your try or how many hardship you created in the process to get it. One can never be at peace with themselves until they have learned whatever they pick up, they can place down with the same mindset.”-Ancient Chinese Proverb 259BCTranslation in todays world. “Biatch, let go and go have a great life. He/She with you was never meant to be”
rock on! 😀