2009-2012 was the peak of my social media activity. Loneliness (or the urge to connect with people) drove me to pour my heart out to my Xanga. Same with Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and various forums. 4 years later, I'm dispassionate and rarely make updates. At least, not as consistent as I used to.
Maybe it's the death of Xanga. The community aspect propelled Xangans. Still, the mass exodus happened before 2009. Remaining members interacted through top blogs. Those who never visited the front page of the site (like me, prior to 2007-2008) had no idea of the larger groups. Xanga 2.0 did nothing. I don't think it was necessarily a rip-off, but it was definitely false advertisement. The old Xanga platform was ripe for hackers and spammers to exploit. Most of the community didn't know it. Moving to another platform (Wordpress-powered Xanga 2.0) distanced the owners from the liabilities the old platform brought them. I guess it, too, distanced and divided its members.
Maybe something died inside me. A lot can happen in 4 years. Hopping from job to job, financial responsibilities, death in the family, online drama... dejection.
Maybe social media is saturated. Back in the Usenet group and IRC chat days (I guess AOL Instant Messenger is now part of that), it felt like you were in this secret online gathering. It felt special. What once was a niche gathering of like minded people is taken over by corporations monitoring your online activity, blasting ads up the wazoo catered to your browsing habits. It's still a gathering of like minded people, except everyone knows about it. Currently, social media is like the big city: crowded, noisy, and never sleeps.
Maybe it's all of them.
I'm done.
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