notforprophet

May 19, 2002

Xanga currently calls itself "the weblog community". And I've been guilty of calling Xanga a community, too. But it really isn't. And will never be. That's a myth I used to buy into—even helped on various occasions to popularize. But a community? Give me—myself, even—a break.

If anything, Xanga's now... several, actually, many communities... Or perhaps not even. But rather a conblogity consisting of numerous somewhat overlapping orbits of visitations with a smacked smattering of loners, first-is-last blog aborted startups, hopeful business ventures, quiet holy people, not-blogging-but-commenting types, not-typcially-blogging-or-commenting-but-almost-always-reading types, and almost certainly a child-stalker type here and a few misanthropic conspiratorial types there tossed-in. No—it's not a community with a common ethos, but a collusion of literary illuminations, illusions, delusions, disillusions and allusions to addictive behavior—an amalgam. Yes, Xanga is not a community but a journal-based amalgam . And we are its amalgamites! LOL

There are, of course, seeming *regulars* forever in the Featured Content, but that's just one *view* and there are so many other *views* possible: There are big circles, there are small circles, there are webrings, there are cliques, there are gatherings, there are calls that go out by flurry of phone and instant messaging to gang on Xanga--making it a *happening*, there are school-based associations, geography-based associations, romance-based associations, etc., ...even hate-based associations—though such tend to devolve into loner types quickly. So many *views* each calling themselves *Xanga*, each knowing themselves to be *Xanga* yet non-inclusive of the rest.

I think it would be hilarious for two strangers representing distinctly different *views* of Xanga to run into each other, get to talking, realize that they both blog *on Xanga* but then also realize that beyond the common structure of the URL's HTML, that their *Xangas* have little in common. In fact, when Xanga was still in "beta" (summer 2000), it didn't envision itself as "the weblog community", but rather:

Xanga is the easiest way to build an affiliate store. Review your favorite books, CDs, toys, anything… and get paid commission when your readers buy them. Xanga helps you make money while you pursue your interests online. Xanga is passion. What's your Xanga?

You see?! *What's your Xanga?* was its catch-theme then...and in all reality, should be now! Your Xanga, my Xanga, his Xanga, her Xanga! LOL As many Xangas as there are stars and gods and goddesses in the heavens!

I even imagine that somewhere out here there are numerous *invisible* types. That is, the ones who only blog private, never public. You go to their site and all you see is the *this is my first weblog* entry, but behind the scenes are countless entries about all kinds of things. That's Xanga, too! And you never even get to read it! :

"The Invisible Web is estimated to be between 2.5-10 times larger (and by some accounts up to 500 times larger) than the Visible Web. This portion of the Web is not made of simple, static HTML pages, rather the Invisible Web represents information sources where information is typically stored and dynamically delivered from content archives, catalogs and the like. …Typical search engines do not have the ability to search through Invisible Web information sources."

Intelliseek White Paper. True Enterprise Search: Leveraging Knowledge from the Extended Enterprise.

Maybe the next pedophile priest is writing his confession in a private blog--to be published by a friend at his request, only after he hangs himself...

...Or a cell of terrorists could be maintaining a private blog and sharing the password. Surely there is enough blogging and clogging of bandwidth here now to render such a conspiracy virtually undetectable. Even if Xanga administrators would randomly sample the contents of private blogs, given the massive amount of info processing in, the chances of discovering such a conspiracy are nil. So it's the perfect conspiratorial forum: instant setup, ease of use, total anonymity, time-tracking, unsearchable, and yet privately shareable! It's so perfect that one could easily speculate that such was it's intended design...and that Bianca brought the first of us here to provide the conspiracy with the proper *cover*. Mwuahahaha