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XOXO 2024
I expected to cry in Portland. I fully expected that when the Andys would take the stage for the final time at XOXO 2024 I would start quietly sobbing in my seat. The fact that I left the tent to join the afterparty with my eyes slightly damp but not fully flooding surprised the hell out of me. So I’m going to do three things in this post.
- I’m going to explain what XOXO is, to me
- I’m going to explain why I expected to cry my eyes out
- I’m going to try to explain why I think I didn’t
I last wrote about XOXO in 2014. There needs to be a word for the kind of time collapse so many of us seem to experience around the most important events of our lives, some way of describing the time dilation that happens at both ends. XOXO seems like its been part of my life forever, and also seems like the fastest possible decade. Reading back, I’m pleasantly surprised how much of my writing about XOXO a decade ago still holds up. I still agree with basically everything I wrote there, which is hard to say about any writing a decade on.
XOXO is a conference and festival celebrating what it’s like to make art on the internet, in whatever form that entails. One of the reasons it’s hard to talk describe XOXO to others is the dual nature of the event: conference AND festival.
On the festival side, XOXO is where you can go to see artists and creators present the very best the internet has to offer, whether that’s videogames, live podcasts, short films, music, tabletop games, zines, books, or anything else you can think of that your favorite creators are making. On the conference side, XOXO is a platform for these artists and creators to tell real stories, to talk about what it’s actually like to put themselves and their art out there day after day after day.
It has always been true that at least one project I discover at a given XOXO is going to send my life in a new creative direction. It has always been true that at least one talk at XOXO is going to make me reconsider what it means to be an artist. XOXO has consistently been where I reconnect with the side of myself that wants to create, that wants to put things out into the world that have never been seen before, and hopefully inspire others along the way.
The thought of losing what XOXO was, of this being the last time I would get that fire relit inside me, is why I expected that the closing remarks this year would turn me into a weeping mess. I expected some combination of gratitude and grief would knock me to the floor.
The reason I think that didn’t happen is due to the third half of XOXO, which is to say: the people. Andy and Andy do an incredible job curating the best the internet has to offer and putting it all in one place for us to enjoy, but the most important curation that happens is the self-selection of who attends XOXO. Consistently, every year, the collection of people who show up at XOXO make it not just a special event, they make it a home.
The reason I didn’t bawl my eyes out at the end of this year’s XOXO is that I could feel, stronger than ever, the sense of community shared with every other person I have met at every XOXO. We were all there, together, thinking hard about how to not let the spirit of XOXO end here, thinking about how to take that creative fire out into the world.
For me, and I hope for others, XOXO 2024 was not an ending, it was a graduation. It was the Andys saying, in the selection of every talk and project:
Go. Go out into the world and take XOXO with you. We have spent a decade showing you a better world is possible, and it’s now your turn to build it. Appreciate everything endlessly. Be kind, because we’re all in this together.
Make us proud.
