Admittedly, this piece is a mess. People should tear this thing to smithereens. I should be called names, but, frankly, no one should care enough to even comment. And it is through this that I must now break some bad news to you; I am your personal savior. Because I’m the hero you deserve, but not the one you need right now. Because I can take it.

I guess it’s only fair that I explain that blatant rip off of an intro paragraph to you since you were kind (or naïve) enough to open this article. Here’s the deal:

I’m only here because Xanga is currently just a broken piece of shit.

By now most of you have moved on to more inspiring articles. That’s fine. If not, let me help. For the three of you that just suffered intense, ‘Nam flashbacks post-dropping of said X-bomb, I feel the need to apologize. I’m not going to, though, because, even though we may have more than an HTML Matrix code background in common, I don’t need you. I have friends and family, and a sweet ass dog. Honestly, I don’t need anyone. I’m shitty like that.

I just need Xanga back. Not that stupid “Xenga 2.0" Wordpress bullshit that’s up now. I want it how I remember it. I’ll never forget the day I first saw it. “What the hell is this?” I said to (you guessed it) my Asian buddy, Ed, with his Xanga page full-screened. “It’s a blog, bro!” Ed exclaimed, completely unaware of the ravaging he was doing to my psyche. “What the hell is a blog?” I confessed, dumbfounded. “A weblog. You know, like a journal, but other people can read it and comment.” “So anyone can see all of my shit?” I said, terrified by the potential access to my brain something like this would create. “Well yeah, but they need to have an account and they have to know your URL. It’s fine, dude. Just stop being a pussy and make one so you can follow me. I want to beat my sister.” Obviously, I obliged. And, like that, what began as a favor had now exploded like mercury fulminate in my temporal lobe.

It was great. It looked exactly how I wanted it to (Take a look). It worked exactly how I wanted it to (see: Coder’s Chernobyl). It was as visually distracting and arduous to navigate as I always dreamed it would be. And it was all predicated on one simple idea;

Not a SINGLE PERSON was to know that I share common interests with them.

That sort of thing adds too much pressure. Make sense, right? It’s not like the fact that I had a Xanga at all created that situation in the first place.

I loved telling people to follow my page, and yet, I made it a point to tell them to not read any of my posts. I wanted them to know I was evolved enough to also have a vault of deep thoughts. However, I didn’t want them to see how I decorated the inside. It was my id’s equivalent of keeping someone at distance by holding their forehead, only no one gave a fuck. It didn’t work well and I never my attention fix. This pushed me to start openly critiquing other Xanga pages (like I said, I’m shitty like that). In retrospect, this was my biggest regret. It was if I was impersonating Patrick Bateman by way of the Sad Keanu meme; comparing my choice of emotional safety deposit box to my colleagues in the most bizarre, flaccid-dick measuring contest that not even a pedo with a psych degree could dream up. But I didn’t care. It was my Xanga.

Alas, just as I convinced myself that I had achieved self-importance-Nirvana, the dream was t-boned by mild, racially instigated innovation. The website, MiGente.com (a blatantly-segregationist social network targeted at young Hispanics [Oh, what am I doing explaining this to you?!]) added a “Blog” page for users. I fought the urge for as long as I could. Unfortunately, I was raised below Paterson, NJ’s poverty line, which made “fitting in” my only source of utility and lil’ ol’ me no match for the peer pressure. I begrudgingly joined the site, and immediately regretted it. It was even more open than Xanga with much less options for customization (See: hiding). Making matter worse, only my least favorite people populated the site. I left MiGente after my ex-girlfriend, who lived a block from me, sent me a friend request. I tried to go back to my Xanga, but it was too late.

I had already peeked into another, newer dojo, so why not peek again? So I did, this time over at MySpace. Then Blogger. Then Twitter. And I continued to fall down the sewers of Social Media until I washed up on the shores of Facebook, like everyone else.

All I wanted was for people to find me interesting enough to not care about what wrote. Today, 13-year-old government contractors with Chromebooks penetratingly comb through my shit while simultaneously not giving a fuck who I am inside, so my cup runneth over on that front.

But why even start today? I’m even more out of touch now than I was then and exponentially more powerless to invasion of privacy. What would I have to gain? The hardened college graduate in me would say, “the pendulum has swung the other way and the age of the Micro-blog has returned.” The withering introvert in me knows better.

I have truly run out of shits to give regarding what people think of my more modern and risky opinions. I know, I know; everyone with a healthy stash of YOLO t-shirts says that. But, I mean it.

Time (and a healthy amount of soul-crushing rejections) has crushed my ego into a diamond; hardened, yet controlled in its availability.

I have true freedom now. Freedom from you. Freedom from me. I can finally express myself without filter, and yet I’m on solid enough ground to let you into my vault. Witnessing age-old “proven” ideologies crumble at the feet of others, most of whom weren’t even trying to disprove them in the first place, can give your inner monologue a sense of perspective. Moreover, I can finally admit that I just enjoy writing, as far from polished as I am. I wear not a single bias on my sleeve. I’m as open-minded as Hitler, giving his neuroscientists the go ahead for live trials, but I’m also as dumb as Hitler. I am the average of my highly intelligent peers, and yet I’m not worth a penny. I’m shitty, but I’m getting better. This world needs someone to run the literary gamut of narcissism and self-loathing, and I volunteer as tribute.

So, come in if you’d like. Or don’t. It’s fine. I’ll just be here, learning how to write good.