Is That Andy?

The following is a collection of things I have noticed while cruising Grace College [but not limited to] blogs [primarily on xanga.] Things that get under my skin and make me want to scream. Well, maybe not scream. But things that make me a little uneasy. Please note that this is not a harsh letter directed at any specific subscriber and/or subscription of mine, just [as stated a few lines ago] a collection of things I have noticed in my usual rounds about xanga.
Beginning posts, and most sentences, with the word “so.” Why is it that majority of the posts to xanga start with the word so. “So, today was amazing,” or “So last night was the worst.” Is there really a need for this extra syllable? We can’t just get to the point? It’s like the majority of ‘xangans‘ feel the need to apologize for updating their blog.

Ridiculous abbreviations. It’s become common to abbreviate ‘laugh out loud’ by using ‘LOL.’ But abbreviating tomorrow by typing 2morrow? That only saves one keystroke! I’ve come to grips with using ‘lata’ to abbreviate ‘I will see you later, young fellow,’ but some things are absolutely ridiculous.

Highlight to read layouts. I have long been known to be the first to admit that I am not a very good graphic designer. Sure, I’m no Picasso of the mouse and keyboard. But I mean seriously, my blog is at the very least legible. I cruise the xanga and see blue text on a yellow background…or green text on a green image background…or just create the most off the wall color combinations and have the most ridiculous and busy backgrounds. I really don’t know how you can read your xanga without a mixture of scrolling and or highlighting.

I’m going to make my text 100 different colors and sizes. Reds and yellows and blues and greens. Sometimes I see a whole rainbow of colors over a single word. You’d think that these assortments of colors have a significance to the text, emphasizing key words or phrases that protean to the importance of the reading, but no. The user just makes random words different colors, leaving the reader in total disarray.

Talking to your blog. There is a reason we have phones and a reason we have blogs. A phone used for verbal communication between people. A blog, such as xanga or livejournal, on the other hand, is meant to be a typed medium. For those that have paid accounts, phone posts and voice posts are often available, but the mainstream form of communication via blog is typed, written word. Yet, some people feel the need to type common verbal expressions as if they are creating some type of dialogue with the everyday reader or subscriber. “Ugh.” “Sigh.”

Typos and Misspellings. Nothing can show that you are careless then to riddle your blog with absurd misspellings of simple words and phrases. It is not awesome to spell ‘cool’ ‘kool’ or even ending a word that has the suffix -ing with -in’ [ex singin’] and not using an apostrophe. It’s so simple and easy to do, yet so many people would rather be careless and leave the rest of the world to guess at how lazy they actually are.

But when it comes down to it, the thing to know is that everyone’s blog [or more commonly referred to as ‘xanga-site’ by Grace College students] is an expression of their own creativity, and I am most certainly not one to judge that.