Xanga has now been around for a decade, a full ten years, and my own personal 10th anniversary here is upcoming, on December 23rd.

I often wondered, back in those early days, if it would still be around in 2010, and if so, what it would look like, and how it would have changed.

Some things have not changed, but others have. Xanga is obviously far bigger now, but it still remains under the radar, not famous as a blogging platform nor as a social-networking service, though it has (unwisely, I think) tried to be both.

The content, site-wide, is more vapid than ever. The popularity contest is more rampant than ever. In early 2001, a dozen comments on a post was impressive. Fifty would mean you were phenomenally popular. Now you’ll see hundreds, even over a thousand comments on posts about nothing. Xanga has become the Seinfeld of blogging communities.

But I keep coming back here. It’s the only place where I know that, after all these years, I can find some people who will read me. Dang it, I paid for that Lifetime Premium so long ago (it was a cool $100)– I should be getting my money’s worth. 

My need to write has been disquietly subjugated by all the other travails of life far too long.