I was intending to write this article a month ago, around the 13th anniversary of this sites founding, but given how much chaos last month was it got delayed while I worked on some other more critical tasks. Today, to finish off this week I figured now would be as good a time as ever to touch on this subject as in the past year I’ve noticed a slight bit of a pattern in some people who come across this site not understanding what it is, why it is, or how it operates. Both literally, as I swear some people online don’t comprehend what a hyperlink actually is or does, but more specifically here how I go about doing what I do.
Let’s get to it.
Xadara is a personal blog, oriented towards my hobbies and interests. This includes, most heavily; gaming, technology, space and rocketry, history, science, and a massive helping of social commentary thrown into all of the above categories. I’ve got a multitude of hobbies and interests and love to write about them, share details, personal annecdotes, some how-to guides or other firsthand accounts of related interest and the like for whomever may find them of interest or value.
That being said, I also don’t “hold back” on what I think, and will, if I feel the urge, call out things I don’t like that are connected to hobbies and interests of mine. This can include personal pet peeves that may be quite minor but still are something that “gets at me” We all have these things which can quite heavily annoy us that others may find insignificant, and I feel my best when I let loose with my feelings, again, for whatever value they may have to a reader. Some people have found my thoughts provoking enough to make them think more on the subject in question, and in some cases people have come back and begun to agree with me on whatever the subject is. I don’t make it a goal to do this — I’m not out to change people’s minds directly, as so many have accused me of; only to propose a thought which the reader may not have considered on a given subject with the best reasoning and supporting logic I can muster at the time of writing.
Back on to when I write about subjects I enjoy and happier topics within those categories, I do genuinely have fun sharing what I like. My long-running Angry Video Game Nerd review series is an example of this — over 100 episodes reviewed over a 3 year period and I still quite love doing it for the sake of how absurd it all is! That’s what makes it fun, and many readers have appreciated that — they get the irony in it all, how meta it is that I’m satirically reviewing a satirical review show — especially writing blog entries to review a video series, and how backwards even that is!
I do the site for enjoyment. It is somewhat of a stress relief as well but make no mistake – I do take it seriously in so far as I try to create material of value in most cases – we’re talking over 95 percent the material here has some value, either as a snapshot of thoughts at that time or going forward in a long lasting capacity. I don’t make disposable “top 10 thongs in gaming” lists like some people (I haven’t looked that up, please tell me that’s not an actual thing, by the way.) No, my focus is on more personal interests, again, and if I do write a top whatever list, as those continue to be somewhat popular, know it comes from the heart and not for the never ending quest for the almighty dollar.
That’s another thing to consider about my work – I don’t do it for money, I do it for love. While yes, I’d love to earn enough to be able to pay for server and hosting costs each year without tapping into personal funds the fact remains I do pay personally for the hosting, the domain, and devote time most days of the week to creating some kind of meaningful entry to my site. I don’t do this because I have bills to pay — I don’t sell myself out to make money, or follow every single trend out there so I can cash in on popularity. Far from it, actually, as while I enjoy when people agree with me on a topic, or they like my creative works, I also know that if I’m not upsetting someone with an opinion that I know some should disagree with, then I’m not speaking with a “strong enough voice.” — that is to say, I’m not reaching those who most need to know someone may not agree with them. Again, I don’t do this either because I “want attention” or because I feel some kind of need to be heard and acknowledged; certainly not to any degree more than any other human on the internet sharing their thoughts, opinions, and ideas.
No, I simply do what I do because I feel the thoughts have value and are valid. I feel what I have to say is well thought out and structured in the best way I can at the time of writing to get the meaning across. This also means this is far from a “commercial” site as opposed to, let’s say, Kotaku, and one will find the thoughts and opinions expressed here don’t fall in to any agenda, or advertisers sway. Every word typed is completely honest, be it high praise, intense scorn, or anything in between; if I feel it, I write it, to put it simply. One could I have no master but myself, which is true, barring the agreement with the hosting provider of course.
Passion would be the word used for how I approach Xadara and thus my creative works on it. The site is truly a passion project and an extension of myself. While yes, I “ham it up” some for the internet, and my online alias of Kurisu Yamato is a character based on my real self more than who I actually am (such is the nature of being on the internet, after all) the fact remains there’s a true genuineness at the root of everything here — a desire to show what I like, critique what I don’t like, stress where I think something can be better or point out an obvious flaw which could easily be fixed, it doesn’t quite matter the way I go about it; at the end of the day I simply want things to be better than they were when the day started. I may have a roundabout way of pushing for such change, but again, I never try to “force” anything — I simply share my thoughts and people in the world can take them or leave them. It doesn’t bother me, but I welcome those whom find a resonance with something I say here, or elsewhere on the internet; no matter how mundane the subject matter may be.
Wow, that got really philosophical. That’s how it goes here sometime. The point is this — it’s my website. That’s all. You’re going to get what I think about things, and information I want to share. If that’s something you think you’d like, awesome. If not, then why are you reading this? Go do something else, like click another link on this site and read something different.