June 29, 2013

• When I Said, “Cute,” I Meant Professional, Of Course

  I told @roadlesstaken yesterday in a response to his comment that what I meant by “cute” is he has an amiable and even self-deprecating manner about him on the radio. Also, his sense of humor and his kind of…informal approach, I guess…makes him seem like the kind of guy you’d like to know in person. So I didn’t mean “cute” in the way people called me “cute,” back in my early days of lawyering…you know, in a condescending, belittling way, ha. As in, “she’s really cute, but do you think she can perform in the courtroom?” Or, “she’s so cute, I bet she won’t last a year before she’s having a baby and quitting her job.” HA.

  He has a good, thorough interviewing style as well, lest you think “cute” means ineffective.

  I had to drive back and forth to my mother’s last night to drop my kids off, a round trip of three hours. Then when I got home (alone! hallelujah!) I had to clean out the hamster cage and clean the house and other busy-work tasks. All this by way of excuses for spending several more hours listening to Alex interview Xangans. Last night I heard:

  @Edlives, The Big Show (remember Big Show? I really enjoyed his writing), @TheBlackSpiderman, @TheTheologiansCafe, @Seedsower and @SaintVi.

  One thing no one has mentioned on the show or on any posts that I’ve seen: in the Relaunch Xanga post, our Xanga God said, “I’m willing to work for free.”

  My question is: why? I find that very troubling. To me, a person who is willing to work for free is thinking about that particular endeavor as a sideline or hobby or extremely risky gamble that might or might not pay off. You know, as in, “don’t quit your day job.” I work for free all the time, but that’s because I work full time taking care of 3 kids, and I’m trying to save some contacts and places for later. This leads me to wonder, is the Xanga Team made up of people who have all moved to other, full-time jobs? Is the Xanga Team in the weeds with new babies (good Lord, I know how that is)? 

  @SaintVi made a comment about her belief that @Edlives took a lot of pressure off the team in re: communication with users by stepping up as a spokesperson. It’s her feeling that the small team is working as hard as they can and we should give them a break. I hear that, I do. But I’ll say this, too: it takes me about 20 minutes every morning as soon as I get up to knock off a quick post like this one. After that I shuttle my kids around, write appeals for felons, run my household. It just seems like communication could be a series of short, quick, reassuring bursts. I’m skeptical that it’s just not possible for someone who wants to run a business like Xanga to take these twenty minutes each morning, or once a week.

  Listening to all these interviews back-to-back is fascinating. I know I said that yesterday. But the diversity of opinions and feelings and motivations is striking. Everyone has his/her own point of view about what Xanga is, what it should be and what the ideal social-networking/blogging/creative network would be.

  Big Show and @TheBlackSpiderman exchanged some interesting comments about whether long-form blogging is part of the past and micro-blogging is the future. I’m a long-form blogger, obviously. WordPress turns out to be good for that, as Big Show says. But if Xanga is primarily about community, and community is a euphemism for social-networking, than perhaps micro-blogging, apps, and more of a Tumblr atmosphere makes sense.

  My regret after listening to all these people is maintaining my privacy to such a degree that I haven’t met many Xangans. I’ve met one, in fact. My husband and I live our lives in controversial positions because of his work and even mine, to a lesser extent. I mean, for every criminal you represent, there’s an angry victim. For every person you prosecute, there’s a devastated family. For this reason, I haven’t been inclined to go public with my identity. Years ago I nearly showed up at a Houston Xanga meet. I kinda regret not doing that. Listening to @SaintVi and @Seedsower talk about their meet-ups, and Alex talk about his, they all sound enriched by the experience of meeting other Xangans.

  Hearing Xangans talk about what Xanga means to them (and even hearing @christao408 calling it Z-awn-ga) has brought home to me that there isn’t really a bell curve of Xanga. Interviewed Xangans want more features, no features, less features, the same number of features; they want traffic or they don’t care about traffic; they love the community, they love their own particular friends, or they love their -ish site support; they want more photo options they want more long-form content they want more twitter-like comments. Xangans see Xanga as a social-networking site, a writing site, a diary site. They are all ages. They have all kinds of jobs, interests, positions.

  The last of my trip is described on my wordpress account. A word about wordpress, if you will: I find it has many of the same features as Xanga, called something slightly different, and many of the features Xangans wish they could have (like a Like button, for example). It is ideal for long-form blogging, in my opinion. Not any more ideal than Xanga has been, but not necessarily any less, either. I have not found other wordpress users, strangers, non-Xangans, to be any less open to contacts or connections than Xangans have been. It is much bigger, and without private messaging and pulse and a Featured front page (as opposed to the Freshly Pressed, Top Blog model, based on traffic), it could be quite a bit harder to build an audience and/or make new close friends. But take heart, Xangans. There are places to settle even if $60,000 doesn’t translate into the Xanga experience we’ve all grown to love.

  I hope you’ll mark my new blog in your bookmarks. Wait. That’s so laptop. So middle-aged. I hope you’ll visit me on your wordpress app from your iPad. If they have an app. Hm. Maybe I should check into that.

  • 11:46 am
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