June 20, 2009

• Xanga Drama

  EDIT:  Just in case I didn’t make it clear enough. The list of usernames I placed here was meant to be a comprehensive list of users that I personally had seen involved in controversies. I did NOT mean it to call out, praise, insult, shame, honor, or critique anyone. I was not equating the users involved NOR was I exonerating them of wrong doing. If someone is offended by my inclusion of them on this list, please let me know and I will remove your username right away. If you think I shouldn’t include a list of usernames at all let me know in the comments and I’ll edit the post accordingly

  Sigh…  I guess I should chime in on the age old topic. Xanga Drama. Seems like everybody’s got a post about it. I might as well add my own two cents. Plus I think my perspective is different from most people’s.

  I guess for me it’s just all really very sad.

  I’ve seen a lot of controversies on Xanga. So many in just the last two years. I keep seeing this whole Drama thing come up again and again.  And always the result is the same.

  I see a constant string of Xangans either leave or greatly scale back their interactions with the Xanga community. Lots of bloggers who used to post regularly barely post any more. Many others don’t even comment. Others left with sad going away messages. Others mysteriously disappeared without ever saying goodbye.

  And I know, it’s normal for there to be a turnover in any blogging community. People lose interest. People get discouraged. People have better things to do. It ebbs and flows, right?

  But I think this is different. Theirs usually some controversy surrounding the departure. Some big huge mess that leads right up to it. It seems that far too often people don’t just leave naturally. They seem to be PUSHED.

  No it’s not always intentional. Not always. Maybe not even often. Rather it just sort of happens. It’s just sort of has to do with the way Xanga is.

  People get drawn in, they get addicted, they start to LOVE being here. Why? Because you can get so many followers. Because you can feel smart and feel like you’re a good writer. Because you can interact with many people with shared ideas. And because there is such a lively debate about things. There are so many different perspectives. Xanga isn’t one of those online enclaves where everyone just reinforces each other’s pre-existing beliefs. Furthermore it gets PERSONAL here. People share so many deep heart wrenching stories about themselves. People literally put a piece of themselves into their Xangas. Sometimes they hold nothing back.

  There’s so much going on here. And there’s a lot of AMAZING people here. You can make friends here. GOOD friends. Friendships that can last beyond Xanga if you put the effort into maintaining them.

  Yeah it’s addictive. All online communities are. But Xanga I think inspires a level of closeness between its denizens while at the same time making it so much easier for small blogs to attract large readerships that makes it all the more enticing. It’s like a love addiction. And we get so caught up we start to yearn for our next fix.

  But there’s another side of Xanga. A darker side. The side that leads to the crash from the high. The agony of the withdrawal symptoms.

  This is captured in that word you hear whispered about here and there and everywhere. That dreaded word. “Drama”.

  At first when you join Xanga you don’t know what it means. You see a post about how there’s “too much drama” here and you kinda shrug it off. “What does that mean?” you think. Sure you see an argument break out here or there, but that’s *normal* right? It happens in all online communities.

  But then it happens to YOU and it’s not at all what you thought it would be. You get embroiled in the conflict, lost in the DRAMA. And very quickly before you know it, that LOVE you had for Xanga turns to HATRED.

  Or if not fullblown hatred at least a very bitter and cynical view, a sense of disgust. Why did it turn out this way?

  You got hurt. BADLY hurt. And not just you too. Lots of people get hurt in these conflicts. ALL the time. Sometimes by people they don’t care about. Sometimes by people they thought were their friends. And when that happens… It’s hard to keep going on like nothing was wrong. It’s hard to stay a part of this community or to give it your all like you did a little while ago. It’s hard to swallow your pride and accept this hurt. It’s hard to find a way to heal.

  I’ve seen it happen again and again with so many of my Xanga friends. I watched so many controversies evolve. So many “dramas”. I’ve seen ones arise involving the following Xangans:

  purplepixiepoo, huginn, antisoccermom, fullmetalbunny, qccan, legendairy, vaultesl, yukinkoicy, badboydoomdaddy, modernbunny, celestialteapot, silentseekr, godlessliberal, inaneinsanity, raindrops23, vitamin_D, ISpeakLife, avenuetothereal, schristian, and of course thetheologianscafe and many more.

  And I’m SURE you can add to this list. In fact DO SO. If you’ve been been involved in a Drama or a controversy here on Xanga or know someone who has put it in the comments.

  Now some of these people don’t blog here anymore. Some blog a LOT less than they used to. Some considered leaving and had to be convinced to stay. Some focus their posts in protected blogs,  Some changed their usernames. Some went crazy with the banning button. Some took lengthy breaks before coming back with a cooler head.

  Some just… stopped caring.

  Maybe you think some of these people deserved it. Maybe they did. Maybe you think some of these people were in fact the Problem. They instigated it.  Maybe they were. Maybe you think some of them just need to develop THICKER skins. And maybe they should.

  But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s HAPPENING. Far FAR too often…

  It’s too easy to ignore it. To think of Xanga as just like any other quirky little community that has its share of disagreements. To think we’re like the community in the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Peaceful and secure in our traditions MOST of the time, but the occasional old animosities resulting in huge arguments lying under the surface.

  But we’re NOT. It’s much worse than that. The DRAMA here gets out of control. The hurt feelings linger like a dour rain cloud coloring all that people say, all that we do. It’s like we’re constantly afraid. Tip toeing around each other, but pricklish and quick to anger anyway. We’re all trying not to be the cause of the next big Xanga Drama, while at the same time creating the very conditions most likely to trigger another Drama.

  And then people start to think “This isn’t worth it. Why should I keep doing this to myself?” Can you blame them? Doing this. Blogging on Xanga stops making them happy.  For those who stick with it, it almost becomes a kind of chore. Something you do out of habit or some misplaced sense of lingering responsibility to the Xanga community or a hope that things might change.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure plenty of people are perfectly comfortable with their Xanga experience. Some have fun and somehow manage to avoid all controversy. For a long time I was like this. But for others I’m sure this situation is intolerable. Even if you yourself haven’t been involved in dramas, you maybe like me feel the community has gotten out of hand. That something precious is being lost every single time another blogger just gives up and closes the door or decides that this isn’t worth it anymore.

  In a way DRAMA isn’t even a good term. It’s a term like “love” and “hate” and “life” where everybody assumes they know its meaning but really doesn’t have a clue.  It obscures more than it illuminates. It equates every little skirmish, every argument, every mishap. But they aren’t all the same. Some are misunderstandings. Sometimes it’s a case of blatant trolling. Sometimes it’s a legitimate difference of opinions. Sometimes it’s something darker, a kind of harassment or even a case of deliberate verbal abuse. Sometimes it takes on more of the character of a mob attack or a lynching. They aren’t all the same.

  NOR are all the actors equivalent. But the word Drama equates them. If a Man beats his wife, we can call it “Family Drama” and yeah there’s some truth to that. But it’s also DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. It’s also ABUSE. It’s also CRUELTY. It’s also WRONG.  It’s NOT the same as a normal couple of having a spat. Here someone is in the wrong and another person is the victim. Maybe we need to start using more specific terms to deal with these situations.

  When we say “Drama” and cry out from our holier-than-thou position “STOP WITH THE DRAMA ALREADY” we not only equalize the participants no matter who is in the wrong, we also are trivilizing their problems. When you say that, this implication is that this is just a Childish conflict. It invokes images of teenagers embroiled in their petty high school conflicts disjointed and unrelated to the rest of the world. It makes you think of acting. It makes you think the people aren’t really hurt, are just pretending or are just lying. Phrases like “Drama Queen” come to mind. Of course WE are above that. We smarter, wiser, more mature people who know enough to call a end to the drama.

  Ugh, how arrogant.

  It’s far too easy to forget that for many people the internet is NOT a GAME. When someone they think is their friend says something terrible to them or abandons them or treats them with no compassion. It HURTS. When a stranger comes up and ridicules them or attacks them, it SUCKS. It hurts and it sucks just as bad as it does in so called “Real Life”.  Remember just because something is done at a distance with someone you’ve never met doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Just because it’s online, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.  For so many people it matters so very much.

  So… what can we do?

  I don’t know.  It’s not an easy problem to solve.

  But I do know that we won’t make any progress unless we start talking about this. We need to open up a deeper more honest dialogue. We have to start sharing our stories and explaining ourselves and taking the time to try and empathize with one another.  So let’s start DOING that. Start talking about it. Not judging, not condemning. Just talking. Sharing. Understanding. And then let’s brainstorm and work together to come up with real community based solutions that we can implement. You can start by replying here or by posting your own entry on the topic. Let’s start to share our stories and brainstorm our ideas on how to deal with these situations better.

  Xanga won’t live or die based on whether we do this or not. But that’s not the point. The point is to make this experience as good an experience for all of us as it CAN be. And hopefully the kind of experience that doesn’t lead people to want to leave or give up on it.

  I think Xanga is worth it. Do you?

  • 2:49 am
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