Paul Carr at Techcrunch nails it: why I will never go to Austin in March and pity the fools who do. Brace yourselves for a tidal wave of NMDB tweets. Read this, stay home, and thank your lucky stars.
“Tip One: Don’t go to South by Southwest Interactive.
“I’m serious. It sucked last year, and it’s going to suck again this year. You’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise. The idea that SXSWi is a conference – or even a festival – for people doing interesting and useful things in technology is a fallacy. In reality, it’s just a non-stop orgy of bullshit fanboyism – a chance for people with stickers on their laptops to go and add more stickers to their laptops; an opportunity for sweaty dorks in Diggnation t-shirts to line up for two hours in the hope of getting Alex Albrecht to – I dunno – sign their laptop, I suppose, or maybe give them another freaking sticker…
via SXSW Interactive: Because hell doesn’t have enough promotional stickers.
Sounds awful — let’s savor some clams casino instead.
Paul Carr’s column is pretty funny and is almost verbatim what I’ve been told by countless friends in bands and/or working for record labels ever since SXSW went from being a pleasant niche-fest in the mid-’90s to the cluster-f**k it is today. My closets have no more room for bad swag, and the herd aspect sounds every bit as fun as rush hour on your local freeway.
Which is to say, I wish I was there.