Greetings from the front lines- Musings from South by Southwest, Austin in 2018
By Ray Brimble, March 19, 2018
I go every year. I am the oldest dude in the room no matter what highfalutin lecture, tech demo, or start-up pitch I attend.
Those of you who know me know I like it that way. When it comes to technology and social innovation who wants to be hanging with folks my age? I like being around all of that young, hipster energy, trying to learn about stuff I can only vaguely understand. You should have seen me last Wednesday sitting through the quantum computing convergence keynote by famous tech guru William Hurley (aka "Whurley Hurley"), where he said, "In quantum computing, a one is a one and a zero is a zero, except when they are not". Well… okay?
I go every year because my eyes and my mind are opened, each year in different way, which is part of the charm of the entire to-do. I feel blessed that the river carrying all of this knowledge and vision now flows by my home in Austin. Moreover, SXSW never fails to put on a show for the ages. Who knew science, technology, cutting-edge social issues, and the like could be so much fun? These tech dudes and dudettes are really party animals, and it appears they have the money to make it happen in an increasingly flashy and outrageous way every year. Now, on top of the original music festival and the now well-established "interactive" (i.e. tech) festival, here comes the film and new media folks just itching to market the hell out of whatever their latest show is. Hollywood is in the room! Last year, Hulu rolled out their TV adaptation of “The Handmaid's Tale” by marching one hundred young ladies clad in red capes and white bonnets through town while staring blankly in the distance and carrying vaguely religious sayings. We honestly thought it was the real deal: Austin had been invaded by a cult. Naturally, around here, that's just par for the course. Keep Austin Weird!
This year, SXSW has been dominated by Spielberg and his new release, "Ready Player One." In typical SXSW carnival-barker fashion there are plenty of robot-like, 1980's styled, crazed-looking bad actors roaming around the streets hoping to create an atmosphere supposed to make you want to see the movie—or at least visit their hospitality area, which has plenty of free food and drinks. Did I mention the drinks? And that they are free? SXSW is well-lubricated and jet-fueled. It’s all good fun, in the most over-the-top kind of way.
But it’s not all fun and games. It’s the lines that get me. Every place, every event, all functions require you to stand in a line, wait, and wither. This is an Austin thing. Most restaurants here don't take reservations because they think line waiting creates some sort of virtuous buzz. So it’s no surprise that SXSW also involves epic line-standing. However, for a conference featuring technology that glories access and abhors “friction” (such as anything that takes more time, money, and access, keeping the tech creators separated from their market and money), it’s curious that the conference organizers go to great and very dramatic lengths to choreograph massive undulating bands of humanity, winding around corners, down streets, even up and down many flights of stairs, before each and every major keynote, concert, movie, or whatever is the feature of the moment. God forbid we access the same sort of inexpensive working technology which reserves our rides, movies, hotel rooms, dentist visits, even event seats at these very venues downtown a few days later.
But no. After all, even when serving up money- and time-saving technology solutions, the show must go on and shows require drama. Lines imply drama. So many people, so little room. You better stop what you are doing… literally… and stand in this line so you can see what all of these other five thousand people have deemed so important as to stop what they are doing as well. SXSW is fueled by FOMO—the fear of missing out—as much as it is free booze.
I can’t help but wonder where this all ends, or if it does at all. There is a famous song around these parts: "The Road Goes On Forever, and the Party Never Ends." SXSW is a near-perfect reflection of who we are, and where our heads are at, here in March, 2018, in Austin, Texas. We design, create, and project visions and things of true wonder. We build computers which depend on physics, whose experts readily describe them as a "bit of black magic" because they can see that the devices work, but cannot exactly explain how. We tackle social issues, hobknob with the best and the brightest, and imagine that we might actually have it figured out. Then another tweet twitters and flitters and announces the newest set of quitters. Multiple bombs explode, downtown barricades spring up like WWI fortifications on the front line. Google culturally expropriates a low-rider Chevy, and places it in a predominantly Hispanic part of town struggling with gentrification. Yet blocks away from these front lines, lines form again and we, the people, stand and wait to get on the road that goes on forever and the party that never ends.
Ray Brimble, at South By Southwest in Austin, TX March, 2018