(January 27, 2006) — “He left me a comment, and I thought it was one of those ‘I propped you so prop me back’ things so I just ignored it, but then he was like ‘let’s meet up, we have so much in common.’ I said ‘I don’t think so’ and then he moved onto one of my friends,” sophomore Julia Song said, referring to her experience when an unknown twelve year-old Xangan “made a move” on her. Unfortunately, Xanga, a virtual community where people customize their own online journals to their style and join blogrings that suit their own interests, has been used to harass people like Song. However, others have found a beneficial use of it. “It’s a place to express my concerns and emotions sometimes to just get a point across to as many people as I can. Realistically, most people use it to complain and whine, or to tell someone they suck, without really hurting their feelings, or to the desperate a way to hook up,” Song said. “You can even leave comments and e-props. Plus it’s darn fun to see what interesting things people write about their days,” junior Nick Lee said. However, Xanga members can rate a Xanga members’ entry or the website design by the use of e-props. The more e-props given to a Xanga entry means the person’s Xanga is more popular. For Lee, Xanga is a place where he can counsel others when they’re having a difficult time going through life. “Sometimes, I leave a comment of encouragement on the comments system, other times I talk to them via AIM or when I see them,” Lee said. Xanga has enhanced the way people communicate by letting those unheard voices in society be heard by millions of Internet surfers and even receive comments of encouragement from people like Lee. However, there seem to be minor annoyances to Xanga. “I don’t like the subscriptions! I’d rather not get an e-mail every day sending me someone’s new xanga entry. If I were interested in reading their entry, I’d go to their xanga,” senior Nick Scepanovic said. However, something Scepanovic didn’t know of is Xanga’s option to block e-mail updates. For programming-savvy Lee, the html editor on Xanga seems to be a problem as it isn’t as simple to customize your Xanga web page as other blogs, such as Myspace. However, Xanga’s most serious problem is the problem of stalkers. Lee mentions that one of his friends had this problem and had to change her Xanga to avoid it. “After that one incident with the twelve year-old kid, I decided to disable the comments ability on my Xanga,” Song said. “I suppose that shows you that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I didn’t think it was my best work, the cats or the house, but I was proven wrong. Art is what the viewer sees, not necessarily what you see.”