Life and Work
Jardin was born in Richmond, Virginia, on August 5, 1970. Her father, artist Glenn B. Hamm Jr., died in August 1980 of ALS. She left home at age 14, but remained in school in Richmond. Her brother, Carl M. Hamm, retained their family name, and is a Richmond, Virginia-based disc jockey, who performs under the stage name "DJ Carlito". Meanwhile, Jardin prefers the name "Xeni Jardin" over her given name, for personal reasons. "Xeni" is short for "Xeniflores," a word with origins in Guatemala's native culture, meaning "protector of flowers," while "jardin" is the Spanish and French word for "garden." Prior to becoming a journalist, she was site editor for travel agency Traveltrust, then Supervisor of Enterprise Web Technology for Latham & Watkins before working at Quaartz, an internet calendaring startup.
Her career as a journalist began in 1999 when she was associated with Jason Calacanis's Silicon Alley Reporter, first as a contributing editor, and later as Vice President of Silicon Alley's parent company, Rising Tide Studios. In 2001 she became a freelance writer for Wired and other magazines, and in 2002 she began contributing to Boing Boing after Mark Frauenfelder met her at a party and invited her to be a co-editor. Jardin has also written op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. She has also been the main source of an article in The Age talking about the cultural relevance of Wikipedia articles, and the source for a New York Times article discussing Boing Boing's part in the creation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster internet meme.
Jardin is also involved in television and radio work. In 2003, she began contributing the "Xeni Tech" segment for NPR's show Day to Day, and has appeared as a guest on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer to discuss the Washington Post's decision to remove their comments section (a step Boing Boing had also taken). She has also made appearances on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and ABC World News Tonight. and featured on the BBC Radio 5 show Pods and Blogs discussing her work at Boing Boing.
Her work at Boing Boing has provoked some critical response. In March 2005, Jesse Andrews created a script for GreaseMonkey that filters out Boing Boing posts by Jardin. In March 2006, Matthew N. Sharp created XeniSucks.com, which criticizes and parodies Jardin's posts on Boing Boing. Jardin posted a link to the site on Boing Boing and described it as "a total hoot" (the link is now removed). A June 2008 controversy over Jardin's deletion from public view all posts and links associated with sex blogger Violet Blue in the wake of a falling-out led to discussions about journalism ethics and standards and media transparency.
On December 1, 2011, she live-blogged her first mammogram, which returned a positive diagnosis of breast cancer.
Read more about this topic: Xeni Jardin
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