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| It's been 2172 days since you've joined Xanga... (Hello, Comm 504!)
Hello Comm 504,
I am updating my website to give you an idea of how this works. Admittedly, I haven't been on Xanga in a while, so all you other users who sporadically stop by my site, you can ignore this post, or you can not ignore it, whatever. Go to my new wordpress site if you want to know what I've been thinking about as of late.
Anyways, now I'll get back to addressing Comm 504: Here's my VI presentation essay, in case some of you guys weren't able to open the wordpad or open office documents.
Oh yeah, and feel free to read my blog if you're at all interested (I know you have many other things to do, so no pressure. As a matter of fact, I'd prefer you not judge me too harshly on anything that I've written with regards to media, since these posts were pre-UIC Comm Masters program).
Here's the essay:
James Cho
10/12/08
COMM 504
VI
Site Presentation
Xanga
(www.xanga.com)
Abstract
Xanga.com is a
social networking and weblogging site that allows users to create
profiles and connect with other users through viewing one another's
blogposts, video posts, and audio posts. Users can further interact
with one another through means of commenting on weblogs, messaging,
and subscribing and friending one another. Users can have profile
pictures and are assumed to be real as opposed to fictional, even
though Xanga gives freedom in terms of the amount of information
given, its content, and site design. Xanga is a unique VI site in the
sense that it successfully functions both as a social networking site
as well as a weblog. It has recently come out with many new features,
perhaps to compete with other, similar VI sites. This may also be
correlated with the recent trends in site popularity.
Description
Xanga is a social
network and blogging community centered around weblogs, videos, and
photos. The site allows a user to create his or her own profile with
which to manage an online blog. Users can post weblogs on the site
for the purposes of connecting with people, venting their
frustrations, giving voice to issues that they are pondering, or
simply talking about their day.
Xanga was created
in 1999 originally as a book and music review website. The weblog
feature was then added the next year, and the popularity of it
cemented Xanga as a weblogging platform and social networking site.
Video and audio features were added later on
(wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanga).
It is a social
network and community oriented website in the sense that the user can
actively subscribe to other users' weblogs. There is a built in feed
within each user's homepage which allows him or her to see the most
recent blogposts from subscriptions. There are also commenting,
'e-prop', and 'Xanga mini' features which aid in connecting with
other Xanga users. The commenting feature allows users to respond to
blogposts of fellow Xanga users. The 'e-prop' feature comes from the
concept of giving someone 'props' in a social context. It allows
users to electronically recognize a fellow Xanga user's blogpost. A
'Xanga mini' is a gift that a user can purchase using credits to send
along with comments and eprops. A user can accumulate Xanga credits
by using Xanga and buying a Premium membership (see below).
In
addition, there are 'blogrings', which are groups that the user can
become a member of according to different interests, hobbies, and
beliefs. These blogrings create a sense of community and camaraderie
around a particular area of commonality. It functions similarly to
the Facebook Groups.
Users
can control the amount of exposure that a blog has by choosing
differing degrees of privacy. They can allow full access to their
blog content to anyone anywhere. Or, if they prefer, they can allow
access only to fellow Xanga users, or specific Xanga users, or to
nobody but themselves.
Linked
to content of site?
----------------------
Photo/Avatar?
How does it function on the site? Substantial, inconsequential?
A photo is optional
on the Xanga site and is therefore inconsequential to the functions
of the site.
Does
Xanga link you emotionally to the site?
As a weblog site
that functions also as a social networking site, Xanga creates an
emotional attachment to itself so long as people are congregating
around this section of cyberspace. Neil Postman had once said that
cyberspace is a metaphor for the place that our consciousness is. So
long as our consciousness is tied to and metaphorically located in a
cybersite, our emotions will also be attached to that place.
On a personal note,
I used Xanga for almost six years of my life, beginning in November
2002 and finally moving onto a different blogging platform officially
in May of 2008. I had been actively engaged in the website, as many
of my friends had used it as their primary weblogging platform.
However, following the trends of many of my friends, I moved on from
Xanga to other VI sites. I have not yet shut down my Xanga account,
but visit it less frequently because I connect with the majority of
my friends via other social networking sites to which we are all
subscribed.
Because the site
also functions as a weblogging platform, I consider the blogposts to
be a kind of stream of consciousness of my thought for the past
several years. Because of my desire to preserve this 'electronic
journal' of sorts, I opted to become a Premium member of Xanga for a
month in order to use its archiving features to save all of my
weblogs onto my computer in case I ever want to shut down my Xanga
site. My personal experience would attest to the emotional attachment
that users of Xanga have to it as both a social networking tool and a
blogging platform.
Is
the profile site specific?
----------------------
Can
users have “fictional” profiles or must they be realistic?
The profiles on
Xanga are assumed to be real. Contrary to VI sites such as Second
Life, Xanga.com is a community that is used not only for social
networking but also for blogging, and thereby probably attracts more
users who want to create a profile that is more realistic than
fictional. However, a user can create his or her account under any
username, and display as much or little information regarding given
names, birthdate, interests, hometown, etc. So theoretically, V.I.s
on the Xanga site can be fictional.
Is it entirely
generated by you or by the site software?
The site allows the user to customize his or her Xanga profile. This
includes the decision to post a profile picture, customize the font,
background, and overall feel of the website. The user has the option
of using any combination of the weblog, videoblogs, or audioblogs. In
addition, while the basic account is free of charge, there is a
Premium membership option that allows for more features, including
more storage space for photos, downloading weblog archives, and the
absence of ads.
Additional Info
Trends
According to Alexa, the web information company
(http://www.alexa.com), as of
October 11, 2008, Xanga.com has a traffic rank of 286 in the United
States. Users in the United States make up the second largest portion
of traffic on the site at 24.8%, the first being Hong Kong at 42.1%
(Alexa ranks Xanga.com at 7 in Internet traffic in Hong Kong).
While it is difficult to gauge the popularity of Xanga due to the
sparsity of data on trends earlier than last year, it appears that
site traffic is decreasing. In the last four months (from June to the
end of September), the total percentage of the global Internet
population who visited the Xanga site decreased 0.08% from 0.3% to
0.22%. Since last October, it has decreased a total of 0.12%. It may
be worth studying the correlation between the trends of Xanga traffic
and the recent upsurge in other VI sites such as Facebook, MySpace,
Blogger, and even Second Life.
Peculiar Usage
Xanga has had a history of being a conduit for law enforcement and
school punishments. Various incidents of students being discovered
slandering and threatening fellow students and teachers, and engaging
in illegal activity such as underaged drinking, have been found, and
expulsions and suspensions have followed in the aftermath. Students
have also been arrested by police. In one particularly notable
instance, police used the last blogpost of a murdered Xanga user to
identify his and his sister's killer (wikipedia.org/xanga). The post
is still up on the web
(http://www.xanga.com/ToTo247/261268578/item.html), and thousands of
fellow Xanga users have commented and eproped the blogpost with
condolences and RIP wishes.
Design
Xanga.com
has added additional features since the last time I posted a weblog
on it. Because of the numerous features added to the website over the
years (such as eprops, minis, photoblogs, private messaging,
friendship invitations, and Pulse: a sort of mini-blog that allows
the user to update viewers on his or her status), the interface has
changed dramatically from its inception. The additional features may
improve the appeal of Xanga, but the interface has not caught up to
the number of new features, and therefore usage of the site has
become a bit cumbersome (a tour of the VI site will be done in
class).
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| http://jameskyongcho.wordpress.com like frank sinatra. like elvis and his mom. | | |
| My days are numbered here.
So Scott Skiles gets fired, but Isaiah gets to keep his job?
www.lowercasepeople.com. I believe in this magazine and what they are trying to do.
I upgraded to Xanga Premium, only because it allows you to actually download your archived posts. Which means
I have already begun the process of weaning myself off of Xanga and am in the process of researching how to go about purchasing a personal web domain.
A couple friends and acquaintances suggested that I try submitting some of my writings to magazines.
I don't want to work a 9-5 job for the rest of my life. Not unless I have to.
Finally, Relient K's "I Hate Christmas Parties".
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| Is this Biblical? Or why what I thought about Jesus Camp doesn't matter as much as what I think about myself.
My friend Daniel and I recently went to a Derek Webb concert. Derek Webb is known for being quite the subversive musician, which is of course one of the reasons why my elitist side likes him so much. He performed a song called "A New Law", which tongue-in-cheekly describes the need for a new religiosity; a new law that governs the way that we live. It is really a polemic against the tendency to seek out a new Pharisaism, if you will. Anyways, during the song Daniel leans over towards me and tells me about this interview with Derek Webb he came across. In it Derek said that one fan thanked him for writing "A New Law" and said something to the effect of, "You're so right, Derek! We DO need a new law!"
You probably don't find that as funny as I do (especially since it's lame to start out a blog with a point by referencing a hearsay), but the point that I'm trying to make is that it's interesting to see how our worldviews inform how we read and interpret a certain piece of art. I could sense Derek's sarcasm in the song immediately; but that obviously wasn't the case for the fan of a new law telling us what we can or cannot drink.
I finally watched Jesus Camp. A handful of Wheaton friends told me that it is worth seeing, and the dude at Blockbuster who was checking us out said that it was the scariest movie he's ever seen. I geared myself up for a documentary that, like the movie Saved, was polemical in nature against what some, including myself, saw as deep flaws of evangelical Christianity. But while I was watching the film I found I had somewhat of a conflict with myself. Besides the juxtaposition of the on scene footage with the cuts of the moderate to liberal radio host, the film seemed intent on remaining neutral, as the directors claim that they had no agenda one way or another in making the film save satisfying their curiosity. And what I saw made me feel two different and distinct things and ultimately led to a third feeling that I hope poses some questions about ourselves and how we treat one another.
The first feeling that I got was what I expected to feel from watching the film. My unique experience at Wheaton lends itself to a critical reflection of my heritage which sometimes makes me angry and feel hopeless. The film seemed to fall in line with those sentiments, as I saw much of what was demonstrated in it (a conflation of the Republican party, President, and American democracy in general with the gospel message, the mutual exclusivity between science and faith, the militant training of youths to take back America) as being extremely problematic for society, both for the proponents of the gospel message and those that are not. Being someone who has been profoundly influenced by Mark Noll's Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, I cannot help but feel that a profound awareness of self and of the world is missing in these endeavors to change it. This feeling makes the film a scathing critical commentary.
The second feeling that I got was when I noticed that I began to watch the film as if I were a conservative evangelical. At the risk of being stoned by my close Wheaton compatriots who share in my progressive sentiments (they wouldn't actually do it, I hope), perhaps the reason I was able to do so is because there were definitely elements of my heritage depicted in the film. I could see myself cheering and being encouraged by young people passionate for Christ as much as I could see myself becoming inflamed with a desire to school these naive kiddos. After all, I used to be that kid who thought he could bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. And really, when it comes down to it, we cannot spurn optimism for the sake of "being real", which is really 99% of the time cynicism anyway (all you former emo boys and girls know what I'm talking about). The gospel does not cease being the gospel because we have some weird cousins in the family of Christ. There are thing that I share with these people. And this feeling makes the film a triumph because I am encouraged by minute bits and pieces of it barely whispering that maybe, just maybe, there's something good that can happen here.
It sounds schizophrenic, but I prefer to think of it as an edge that allows me to see this idea with two different perspectives. After all, is any movement completely hazardous or benign in the eyes of the world? Have we finally found a Savior on Capitol Hill (as Derek Webb sings)? In my humble opinion, no. But to some Christians, the answer to both questions are an emphatic yes, including those in the film. Pastor Becky Fischer, who holds an annual summer camp at which some of the film footage was taken, was interviewed in one of the scenes by a radio host (I didn't catch his name). The host was an emphatic supporter of the idea of separation of Church and State and challenged Fischer with the assertion that training children to take back America for Christ was nothing short of indoctrination. Fischer insisted that she is a teacher and is in no way doing anything different than what other parents or teachers do with children: namely, sharing with them a particular worldview that seems to make the most sense.
I think that Fischer inadvertently made an observation that makes a lot of sense. She is simply claiming that her methods do not differ much from the methods of public educators. The state of public education aside, Pastor Becky's work in Jesus Camp finds legitimacy in its method mainly because all of us, whether we thought this movie was the scariest thing ever, or we thought it a interesting brain tickler, or whether we thought it was great or horrible publicity for evangelicals, have a context that informed us in childhood and a context that informs us to this day. None of us have opinions that did not start with someone telling us how the world is. And because of this, the incredulity we find in Jesus Camp is unfair unless we understand it in terms of the general human condition to want to make sense out of the world, which is inherent in all of us. And that's the third feeling that I have: a general frustration with the absolute polarization of America. Not because America is polarized, but rather because it is so easily done. Even those who watch movies like this will dismiss this Christianity as being benign or insane or just plain stupid and sad. And all of these not based upon objective science or the merits of faith, but rather on whim which more often than not stems mostly from standards designated by the self, usually disguised as some objective measure of acceptability or excellence.
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| Running on a treadmill (metaphorically)
I'm quitting my job. For the first month and a half or so there were times during the week when I would seriously consider quitting. The reason was because, quite frankly, it was a very hard job. The hours are so funky that you don't get the normal eight hours a day. You get 6 hours some days, and 11 or 12 hours another, sometimes consecutively for two or three days in a row.
But I thought I was being a wuss for wanting to quit. After all, what kind of crazy work schedule do our first generation immigrant parents usually pull? And that for a good 20 to 30 years? I remember there was a time in my life when my dad would work seven days a week, over 12 hours a day. Today he is my Superman. He utterly puts my overfed fat work ethic to shame.
And then there were my co-workers. Oh, my co-workers. Although, technically I was their boss, despite being younger, less experienced, and having no family to be responsible for. It's because I spoke English and had an education and was "smart". I wanted to know what it was like to be one of those workers by being in close contact with and building relationships with these people. And they are great people. Sometimes, better than the customers that come in. But there was a fundamental difference between these people and me: I had the choice to keep working there if I wanted to. Or, more precisely, I had more of a choice than they. I have options. I can afford to be the proverbial bum for a while.
Whether it was pride or conviction or the fact that I really did enjoy my job, I stuck around as long as I could. But I had to ultimately make this choice because my life was suffering because of my job: Sundays weren't guaranteed to be free to meet with Church people, and nights were certainly not free to pour into relationships that were put on hold, or to build new ones. I had a talk with the Area Coach of Operations (my former manager when I was working as a counter help), and he told me that I was making a different decision than he made straight out of college. He decided to forgo investing in relationships to work on his career; he broke up with his first girlfriend because he was too busy. He has quite the career, however. But me, I cannot manage without people. Especially when I feel like I'm running on a treadmill: going nowhere. But that doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything. Whatever you want to call it, the treadmill, the desert, the dry place, I guess I'm learning that it's not just a proverbial, mythical, meta-physical concept that we generally refer to when things are not to our fancy. If there is one thing that I did learn from this experience, it is that choices are powerful. Not in the sense that every one we make is of the red-pill, blue-pill caliber. But that the fact that we have options is a privilege, kinda like what Uncle Ben Parker once said.
I really don't believe that people should see blogs as being a place where they can vent their frustrations and let their emotions out. It's because I think that the internet as the end point in communication can lend itself to a one way street in which an otherwise healthy person can become unhealthy by thinking their catharsis is worth the while (hence the calculated and wordy posts that appear on my site every now and then). But the problem is that the internet doesn't talk back. It doesn't console, give advice, and is not a great conversation partner, and therefore, on the off chance that it or some other human being doesn't talk back, one's self esteem will plummet along with the hope of any vindication. The purpose of my posts is so that those who know me may know what is going on in my life and may give me helpful tips on employment in the real world, or just to say hi hope I am doing well. So, if you've read this far, I am mandating you to leave me some kind of message to bolster my sense of worth (some eprops would be nice too) and give me a sense that the internet perhaps can be, at the very most, a place where some amount of relational communication can happen. Ready... GO!
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