Some thoughts on my first day of SXSW Interactive (or SXSWi, as the cool kids say).

This is an overwhelming clusterfuck of humanity. I’ve never ridden on an escalator so jammed with people that a second’s hesitation by one person in getting off at the bottom could almost cause a rather catastrophic dogpile. Fortunately, you might have noticed I said “almost.” I doubt whoever it was even realized the extent of the chaos they almost caused.

I should probably note at this point, in case you’re looking at the photos (not stock photos, I might add) that if you plan on uploading pictures from your mobile phone to Flickr and have them come out looking right, you need to hold your phone sideways when taking the picture. There’s nothing you can do to fix that once it’s online, short of downloading it, rotating it in a program like Paint Shop, and uploading it again. Here endeth the lesson.

Registration was, I thought at the time, a long and difficult process of waiting in line. In all, I must have spent half an hour in that line! I would later realize that arriving at the Convention Center at 8:30 a.m. was wise (thank you, girlfriend with an actual day job, for the ride!) for the line stretched all the way around the Convention Center by mid-day, and it seemed to only grow longer. I suspect people were getting their badges for all the festivals (film, music, etc.) and not just Interactive. Should you ever find yourself in attendance here, I highly recommend not sleeping late the first day.

Having obtained my badge by 9:30 a.m., I noticed that panels did not start until 2:00 p.m. Actualy, I already knew that, but it sounds more dramatic this way. I spent a bit of time trying to do actual work, to no avail, wandered a bit, soaked in the all-encompassing hugeness of the event, and then mooched free food off the aforementioned girlfriend.

By around 1:00, it was time to make a decision. I opted to brave the elements and make my way from the Convention Center to the Driskill Hotel, a hike of only a few blocks, but one involving a steady spray of nature’s ball sweat from the sky. The presentation at the Driskill was the intriguingly-titled “Sex on the Web: The Sabotage of Relationships?” (#SXWebSex on Twitter). It was originally going to be a solo presentation by someone who was probably going to take a staunchly anti-porn position. The substitute presenters, Julie Gillis, Mia Martina, Rosie Q, and Sadie Smythe, all of whom are producers of the local stage show “Bedpost Confessions,” assured us they were not anti-porn.

I actually took notes at this panel, something I do not do often. The overall theme was the effect that the easy availability of sex-type stuff on the internet has on relationships. It goes beyond just surreptitious porn watching. The internet is full of erotic blogs, chat rooms, and so on. They brought up quite a few points that merit far greater discussion in society. This is paraphrased from my notes. If I know for a fact I am quoting someone directly, I used quotes. Everything else is ased off my recollection of what was said:

• The internet has allowed people to discover kinks they didn’t know they had.
• It also allows isolated people to find others like them (e.g. gay teenagers)
• The decrease in marriage rates over the past few decades, along with the rise in cohabitation, might compel people to start talking to each other about what they really want in their relationship (lack of communication being one of the greatest problems in relationships).
• As many as 3/4 of divorces cite Facebook in some way. Lack of communication beforehand is what really caused the divorce, most likely. The internet is a symptom of lack of connection in your real life.
• The internet lets us discover new parts of ourselves, and we may find we want different things. Divorce doesn’t mean a marriage failed, just that people change.
• “Our web history is the new porn stash.”
• More straight people need to “come out” as allies to LGBTQ people, and as sex-positives.
• Raise the stakes on talking about sex (treat it with respect) and lower the stakes at the same time.

Someone asked a question about Ashley Madison, the affair-based dating site. Rosie Q stressed that “none of us are pro-cheating; we’re pro-communication.” They noted that a site like that could be an example of how the web could be destructive to relationships. It gives people a save haven to get laid, but not to communicate in their marriages. Also, they asked rather rhetorically, what does it really mean to “save” a marriage?

I braved the elements to return to the Convention Center, and decided to check out the Samsung Bloggers’ Lounge. Lots of tables, but not much in the way of real “lounging.” Which was a shame, because I was tired, dammit. The major high point of that part of the day was the announcement, with a remarkable amount of fanfare, of the impending release of “Angry Birds: Space” from whomever makes “Angry Birds.” I had the choice between waiting in a line for a free Angry Birds t-shirt or sitting and finishing my blog post on Leslie Cochran. I’m sure the t-shirt I could have gotten will make someone else very happy.

For the last panel of the day, I went to “Iranian Outlaws: Satire vs. Censorship” (#SXOutlaws on Twitter). This was by an Iranian filmmaker who uses humor to fight the regime. His show is called “Parazit,” and it has been compared to “The Daily Show,” I hear. They use pictures sent in by Iranian kids and Photoshop them to make them funny. I missed a lot of the presentation, in part because I was late and in additional part because I was really freaking tired by then. He says that traffic dies out in Tehran on Fridays when their show is on. They became so popular that the Iranian government sent commandos to rooftops via helicopter to smash satellite dishes (he showed us pictures). They’ve developed a bigger project that looks pretty phenomenal, called Weapons of Mouse Destruction. There was apparently also a t-shirt involved in this presentation.

At this point, it was 6:00 p.m., and I had been downtown for almost 10 hours. But it was only two hours until TechKaraoke! I have been singularly unexcited about most nighttime SXSW activities, except this one. I just needed to kill some time.

I attempted to go to some tech-lawyer-themed party that ran from 5 to 7. After walking 6 blocks in frogod drizzle, I arrived at the bar at 6:30 to learn that, rather than ending in 30 minutes, the event ended 30 minutes earlier. I did not receive that memo.

And that is how I came to be standing in a doorway on 6th Street to shelter myself from the rain while eating a bratwurst.

But my tale does not end there. Finding myself momentarily without shelter or much of anything to do, I opted to show up to the bar hosting TechKaraoke early. They were busy. So I continued down the street. The good people of El Sol y la Luna were kind enough to take me in, let me sit at the bar, type most of this blog post, and sell me food at full price. I salute your Tex-Mex awesomeness.

After that, I went to TechKaraoke. After listening to two songs, I realized I was very tired and my back hurt from carrying a backpack around all day, so I went home. See all you geeks and hipsters tomorrow.