This Will All End In Tears
There won’t be a short story on this one, the whole thing is kind of a story. Basically I’m blogging, be afraid
I first went to XOXO in 2015. I had heard about it the year before; I was trying to do the whole startup thing, run my own business, be independent, blah blah blah, so I had a Square business account. For whatever reason, that meant I was told about a little after-party thing Square had set up during XOXO 2014. This was my early Portland era, when I was going to tons of tech meetups. Eating free food, I mean. So yeah, I’ll weasel my way into Rogue Brewery for some free food and socializing with random people.
I think that was the first place I met cortex, aka Josh Millard. He was one of the moderators (and later owners) of MetaFilter. You can sometimes spot its shorthand name, MeFi, in the background of the Mythbusters shop. To some folks, he’s kind of a big deal. He’s somebody. To me, who’s never even been good at being a nerd, he’s a cool guy I played some PUBG with.
Haven’t seen him in years. I finally met him again this past weekend, at The Final XOXO. A decade since I first found the community. Josh was one of the first people I chatted with at the event. And, one of the few.
I didn’t chat with enough people at this XOXO. I didn’t even chat with all the folks I knew from previous events, let alone make new friends. Somewhere along the way—okay, it was because COVID, of course it was COVID—I lost what little ability I had to socialize. I was always awkward at it, but I could at least do it. I can’t seem to do it anymore.
XOXO 2024 was a reflection. An epilogue. A denouement. It had me reflecting on what’s changed since 2014, both in the world and in my life. We’re all slogging through trauma and pain, dealing with it in different ways. Mine, it seems, has been turning into a hermit. Shutting away from the world. Losing connections. Losing friends.
I’m not a fan.
The thing I’m going to miss about XOXO, above all else, is the serendipity. The little personal interactions that don’t get saved in the videos.
Handing the controller to the next person in line, Brian David Gilbert.
Talking shop with musician Brad Sucks or Salon founder Scott Rosenberg.
Finding out that I own the same purse as Zoe Quinn.
Cheering and dancing along to karaoke, standing between Tom Lum (who was very much dancing) and Phil Fish (who was very much not).
People who are famous, even if it’s just in a quirky corner of the internet, just being people. Mingling and interacting across platforms and formats with people who have done cool stuff and also people like me.
If this all sounds like a bit of name-dropping, that’s because… it is. I fully admit it. It’s kinda all I’ve got.
One bit of characterization I have for Kell, in Vapormage, is how despite everything—being a community elder’s child, becoming a capable leader themself, being maybe the strongest magic user in the world—they deeply feel like they’re nobody. That is very much me being autobiographical with my writing. I am not Kell (I’ve learned my lesson about making a character who’s too close to myself). But, in this way, Kell is me. I’m nobody.
But XOXO meant that even a nobody like me could interact with people who touched some part of their life. I could be around people who had an impact. It’s one of those things we used to love about Twitter, back when people loved things about Twitter. It’s something that feels completely gone now.
I think my biggest anxiety in life, overall, is not mattering. Going through life, and going to the grave, and nobody gives a shit. Sure, on a cosmic scale nothing matters (this is even a major plot point of the Vapormage sequel), but on a smaller level. It’s been a fear and anxiety that I’ve had for most of my life, that I’ll never matter.
Which… the XOXO solution is, make things! Put stuff out there, buy the lottery tickets. That’s what I was doing a decade ago. That was RCRDList, that was The Latte Segment, that was a bunch of things that nobody cared about.
Or, well, not enough people cared about them for me. Some folks did, a dozen or two, but it was never enough. I know it’s a bad look to be desperate for attention, to be desperate for affection. But honestly? I am.
I’m constantly torn between wanting to be recognized and have an impact, and knowing what that can do to a person. I’m afraid of being nobody, and I’m afraid to be somebody.
I know it’s all bollocks. Being “nobody”, being “somebody”. So many speakers, so many XOXO attendees that I consider “somebody”, just happened to do the thing that lifted them out of nobody-hood, if only for a brief moment. In the right context, even that person who had a huge impact on your life is just a rando. A “high-quality rando” as Erin Kissane put it, perhaps, but randos nonetheless. Maybe we’re all nobody.
But we’re humans. We’re not rational creatures. We know XOXO is over, but in our hearts, we’re wondering when it’ll come back. I know The Latte Segment affected people, both positively and negatively, but it still feels like nobody cared. Maybe, no matter what I do, I’ll never feel like somebody.
It’s probably no surprise, then, that I’ve become such a hermit. That my fursona is a rabbit. That I’m so goddamn lonely.
I wish I had a good dismount for all this self-loathing. Seriously. But this has been my XOXO experience for the last decade: feeling deeply inadequate from all the people I’m around, taking a stab at feeling worthy of their company, and falling short.
Which probably sounds terrible to experience over and over. But I mean it when I say: being in those spaces, meeting people like Josh? Best experiences of my life. My life would be worse without XOXO.
…Hey, you don’t get out of an XOXO thing without being brutally vulnerable. And you don’t get out of XOXO without tears.
I’m gonna miss that fact. I’m gonna miss that a lot.
Look at these things
If you haven’t been, some good XOXO talks from over the years:
Currently reading: Because Internet, by Gretchen McCulloch. I’ve heard about this many a time and figured I should finally check it out. You get around to things, y’know.
Currently listening: Standstill, by Disasterpeace. There’s a lot of composers I’ve found through one video game and never really follow up on their body of work. Been a long time since Fez, for sure.
Currently playing: Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers. We’re in the era of Balatro-likes! Hooray / oh no!