XOXO and the Shimmering Distortion Field

My badge. I should have put “medium-sized deal” on it.

This has taken me a while to write, both because jet lag and day-to-day logistics got in the way, and because I needed to chew on it for a while. Or maybe the distortion field has started to fade, and only now can I decide what actually happened.

This is mostly personal reflections, because other people have written better summaries and reports of the actual contenty bits. If I started in on examples of things that were said on stage, or things I got to try, this would be twice as long – there were so many good talks and good soundbites and weird and important and fun experiences.

I’d never been to XOXO before. I’m sure I’d heard of it, but not to the extent that it was really in my consciousness when I saw the teaser video earlier this year. I can’t say what made me apply for a space in the lottery, but I’m so glad I did and that I got a spot.

So XOXO is a sort of conference-festival-gathering, in Portland, Oregon, for people who try to independently create things online.

Someone said that it’s like gathering a bunch of podcasts in a room, and half the people are in the audience and half are onstage, which I liked. Maybe the main thing was that it was people who talk and care about talking about creating things.

Then again, I think almost everyone there felt like a fraud in some way. Because they made money, because they didn’t make money, because they had many or few followers, because it was their first or sixth XOXO.

Anyway. Caring earnestly doesn’t just stop with the things we make. There is earnest care taken by the organizers to make sure people are and feel welcomed and comfortable.

Pronoun pins, content warnings, a very thorough code of conduct, live captioning – and a living ongoing conversation where adjustments were made as well as was possible.

There’s a lot of ongoing complaining about bubbles, but there is something to be said for them sometimes. It’s nice to get to inflate a little shimmery temporary forcefield where the rules are slightly different for just a while.

XOXO has evolved since the first couple of go-rounds, when it seems to have been more tech-flavored. Art and softer making and ideas seem to have been given an increasingly bigger space.

The attendees, too. Everyone just seemed so happy to get to be there, to meet people and play games and listen and think and know that it was OK to not be on, networking, successful, hungry.

The one concept I kept coming back to was summer camp, but mostly the good bits. You connect quickly because it’s this totally separate space from your everyday life, because maybe you have things in common.

Many people were saying on the way out that they didn’t want it to end, and I agree.

Some (even more) personal notes

I don’t know how my experience was affected by having P with me. I do know that I’m very glad that the application process lets you link yourself with someone, so that you can both go if one of you is selected.

The social experiences, though, were so lovely and intense. Several times someone in a group would realize that they followed someone else and liked what they did, but just as often people just clicked and slotted in.

Coming home, I felt like I was both still in that sense of elation, the distortion field of XOXO’s shimmery reality, and in a simultaneous cynical state where I was questioning if it was real and if I was going to do anything with that energy.

I’ve had kind of a shit year, work-wise, health-wise, world-wise, and it was good for the soul to be reminded of the fact that people can be good, people can do good things, and sometimes very small things can make a big difference to someone else.

And some of the things I do matter to someone else.

I still have little flutters of anxiety, weeks later, about having been too much, about not deserving to be there and talking too much and taking up space and all the fun things that my brain does to me. But I think I’m OK.

And I think I want to go again next year.

Random bonus thoughts:

• A good selection of free non-alcoholic drinks
• Churros!
• This was definitely a good place to wear and show off hand-made dresses.
• The amazing sneak peek arcade with fun, weird, gorgeous games.
• The chill room!
• Lizzo was GOOD AS HELL.
• The karaoke!
• 400-odd subsidized, meaning free, passes.