Though I'd heard this XOXO festival would be the last one, many people I spoke to seemed not to believe it. I was told by previous attendees that festival organizers Andy Baio and Andy McMillan - affectionately called "the Andys" - "always say that." But from the festival's beginning, it also seemed clear that the Andys didn't plan to do this forever.
XOXO began in 2012, born on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, where Baio worked. The basic idea was to celebrate "disruptive creativity" - that is, to take all the artists who make a living online and bring them together with technologists.
Ten years after Casey's visit, I attended for the first time. The festival, held at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, appeared to have been stripped to the minimum viable product. It was shorter than previous iterations, and the murals, rental drones, rock concerts, and other goodies from a decade ago were nowhere to be seen.
There just became a greater and greater understanding over time that platforms are not your friend.
Collection
[
|
...
]