Category: HentaiMcToonboob

All Posts from Xanga blog: HentaiMcToonboob

HM – There is a Reason I Keep this Stupid Thing

And its not just to post pictures of CDs I’ve purchased.

 

No, the reason is that, for years and year, Xanga was my home on the internet. Funny, really, now it could be considered that, given the fact that the entirety of the web is so vast and huge. But maybe thats why it worked; the world itself is vast and we all find our homes. But this was more than just a home. It was a place to pour everything I had in me, day in and day out, until feelings, thoughts, dreams, and fears could be put to word and left behind, waiting for me to come back, view my old worries and joys, and reflect upon where I’ve gone since then.

Back when I’d started using Xanga, it was mainly as a resource to talk to my friends, family members, and to just say random things. But new connectivity within the web has made such a practice obsolete. I mean, take the overwhelming example of Facebook and examine how huge that monstrosity is. There really is no better source for being connected than FB, and that sickens me to a point, but also saddens me because it spelled the untimely demise of my desire to blog as reverently as I once did. I used to make posts two, three times a day. Never about anything, mind you… typically just one-sentence do-bobs about school, women, some movie, my writing, what have you.

But then, here we are, with a site made for one-sentence posts; Twitter. Now, I don’t use that service, but that’s because the aforementioned Facebook provides a basic Twitter feed within its own programming: the status update. Now that you can put whatever you want in there without fear of the dreaded “is” blocking 90% of the things you could type (while still maintaining grammatical correctness, mind you), we are all free to simply place, behind our names, whatever we feel. “Skyler Bartels I really do love the taste of bacon in the morning. There I said it” is so acceptable that having a Twitter account is pointless.

So now I’m left with this Xanga, with its hundreds of entries all chronicling the adventures (and misadventures) of a younger Skyler Bartels, as he prepares for days I’ve seen him take, already. He really is a different sort of fellow, this young SB, but a distinctly familiar one, all the same. And I can’t help but feel that, the older he got, the more in depth or involved his posts became. Less and less about turkey sandwiches, you see, and more and more about his life, in general. I feel like that’s the thing that’s missing for me, these days, is that I don’t have that same place to put all these… things. And maybe not having that place is better, maybe it allows me to reflect upon them internally rather than in a public space. But, at the same time, I feel as though its perhaps the wrong way to deal with this stuff. As a writer (so called), I tend to do better – even in the moment of writing – with dealing with stuff if I am forced to say it aloud, even if “aloud” translates into “typing it into words.”

Now I’m left with this unending desire to start up making meaningful posts, but isn’t the point of it all to simply have these things be seen? I few months back I typed up a much more down-trodden post on my LJ account about how the places we hide ourselves online, these journals and blogs, are really only ways to be seen, to be heard, either by the masses or by our close few friends. I’d said:
“But, of course, people find and read these outlets, the roads to take often being either apparent or broadcast. Despite the fact that I – and everyone else in the world – want to have private spaces to bury these inner workings, the ultimate failing is that we also want people to know them.”
The thing I try to get at, here, is that we hide these things in places where light can shine on them with ease. Earlier in the same post I make the statement that, even in the age of today we struggle with “the fear of being seen” and how it is of equal value (as far as living, daily horrors is concerned) with “the fear of being invisible.”

If this is the case, why even bother? By now I’m sure we all know that we never present ourselves “as we truly are” to anyone, anywhere. The idea of a blog is significant because it produces the possibility of immediate anonymity, that is to say – we can present ourselves with no fear of integral scrutiny, aside from that which we do unto ourselves. But who really keeps a blog in public without the constant fear of those they know seeing it? Its all too easy to find your friends of Live Journal, Xanga, or My Space. Facebook is equally simple. And sometimes we want these things to be seen, by specific people. So, either we have to worry that random people we know will see our darker, more real sides, or that we’ll reveal too much to those that we want to have see those sides. As such, the wall is put up, the face put on, and the presentation of our “self” produced for all to see.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that, through the years – especially when reading back through older posts from a younger, more carefree Skyler Bartels – I’ve found that the blog is no less true and most definitely no less private than simply talking to friends about things. But if there are things we need to work through, things we don’t want friends to see, then where do we go with those demons, those troubles? Do we abandon them? Or simply let them fester? Do we just shrug our shoulder at them and carry on? Or do we continue to search for a viable location to bury them all, to unearth later and hope against hope we have gained enough experience to really, finally tackle the issues that have bothered us for so many years?

 

I keep on the lookout for a place that I can dump these monsters and forget them until such a time as I am capable of slaying them all. But if the place should never present itself, am I doomed to leave them in other places? Like Tokka and Rahzar*, have I unleashed them into the public? Will they cause damage? Will they link back to me, showcasing for any and all who see them some darker part of me they shouldn’t see? Or do I hold on to them and hope I can tame them?

For now, I don’t know. I just know that I love the search and I love the places its taken me. Being able to review the journey in all its forms is a blessing and one that no other source of hiding one’s filthy inner-workings can provide (while a diary or journal can the ease of it all being online, with no space taken up, with password protection, and with all of the information backed up and “permanent” destroys its pen-and-paper competition in a heartbeat).

In the end, the fear of being seen vs the fear of being invisible is inconsequential – I feel – the fear of simply being. Its a curse we all have to deal with, and one which has direct impact upon everyone we know, and everyone else as well. Learning to deal with simply living is the number one thing I struggle with on a daily basis and the only thing that keeps me going is the hopes that I can stumble through it all enough to get to some answers.

 

Anyhow, with regards,
-Skyler Bartels

 

*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze reference

Added August 22, 2016
This is the most well thought out and succinct version of my stance on having and keeping an online “home” and it includes a Ninja Turtles reference, so take that as you will.
The title of this post is absolutely the most on-the-nose description of this very archive that there will ever likely be. I still think of Xanga as my primary home and, even though that site is dead and the content is here, its the content that I find the most “home-y” overall, so there is nothing but warm feelings when reading through these posts.
I don’t think I have many more answers, today, than Young Skyler did half a decade ago, but I will keep searching, I promise you that.
Keep searching with me, won’t you?