micahsaul

Been back for a week now, and I’m just sort of starting to wrap my head around the whole insane mess that was SXSWi 2009. I’ll try to be posting more thoughts over the next few days, but I’m going to start with a couple stories about panels I sat in on and the hallway conversations that arose around them.

I bookended my trip with two conversations on how our social media enhanced public lives alter the way we deal with universal aspects of humanity, namely dating and death. A third conversation, in the absolute middle of the conference, dealt again with dating (with an emphasis on sex).

Brave New Dating

Hosted by new friend Ryan McMinn (a gentleman and a scholar) and slightly longer-time friend Ali Watkins (one of the best parts of SF, real talk!), the panel was described as follows:

The dating protocol as we know it has become outmoded. The web has changed the dynamics of our social circle. Just as courtship was replaced by dating, should we now redefine dating or move to a post-dating world? Discover a new approach focused on the outcome rather than the process.

The turnout was clearly far greater than the SXSWi organizers had anticipated—they had to move the wall to make room for late arrivals, and far more of the crowd was sitting on the floor than on the chairs. In a very participatory discussion, Ryan and Ali talked about the many problems with dating in the post-Facebook, post-Twitter, post-Flickr world. Stories, from them and the rest of the room, included anecdotes regarding FB relationship status, Twitter stalking your new crush, and whether or not to de-friend your ex. A couple highlights, from rather hazy memory:

1. What is the protocol for fucking and Facebook? Are you obligated to add the person you are seeing before you have sex? What about after? Are one night stands Facebook friend material?
2. Is unfriending the only way to deal with a break-up? When your ex is Twittering about the new guy she’s hanging out with or you see him in a picture on Flickr with some girl, can you deal with it? Or do you have to stop following them in all social media to keep your jealousy in check? Can you ever friend them again?
3. My favorite was a guy telling about an old ex of several years finding him on Facebook and requesting to add him. He was hesitant, as he was unsure how his current girlfriend would react. He expected bad repercussions and intense jealousy from her if he were to click “Approve”. In a fantastic monologue, the inimitable Tantek Çelik issued the following advice, which the panelists wisely allowed to close the conversation: “No fear! Be bold!”

Sex Lives of the Microfamous

This one was organized by Nick Douglas and Melissa Gira, and was described thusly:

What kind of person talks about their sex and dating life on the internet? Someone desperate for attention? Or someone who already has lots of it? For the microfamous, having a relationship in public is as much a potential career boost as it as a vulnerability.

It turned out to have a lot in common with Ali and Ryan’s talk, though there were a few new wrinkles thrown into the mix:

1. Apparently, many people have a no-Googling rule when it comes to their love interests… This makes a lot of sense to me, but jesus that’s got to be hard to resist.
2. Living a freely accessible, public life online can lead people to believe they know you very well before they even meet you. “I know all about you from your blog.” “Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
3. “You can either date me, or blog about me, but not both.” An ex once asked me if I wanted to be “the boy”, “M”, or “Micah” in her personal blog. I told her Micah was my name, so Micah was fine for the internets, as well… Now I wonder if that was a good idea.

And that’s really my main takeaway from this talk, and turned into a long conversation with Ryan on our way to the next talk. With social media, everyone has the potential to be the next Kevin Rose or Dooce or Julia Allison, and it is now our responsibility to manage our online identities and reputation ourselves. In the days of micro-celebrity, everyone needs to be their own PR firm. And that is incredibly weird.

Who Will Check My Email When I Die?

Organized by John Romano and Matt Ludwig, this conversation became incredibly heated and passionate very quickly. From the schedule:

Ever wondered what will happen to your digital existence after you die? E-mail, images, domain names, social networking content – do you want to leave it behind, “bequeath” it, or delete it? Come discuss legal, technical, and philosophical issues that will define your death and your digital afterlife.

Now, this one was a little close to home for me. Since Zane died, his MySpace page has remained active, with his old friends continuing to post notes to him… I do it myself. And I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it, about why we feel compelled to do this.

So, the basic gist is this: We have created massive amounts of content in the cloud. Our blog posts, Flickr uploads, Facebook pages, Twitter updates, etc. all add up to create a compelling picture of ourselves. But what happens to that content when we are no longer around? Do the rights revert to the company providing the service? To our next of kin? To anyone? Online identity is not legally considered an asset, so how can it be packaged such that it IS an asset and can be bequeathed. There were no answers to these questions, but it is vitally important that we consider them now.

And I guess, when it comes down to it, that was my thought on all three panels. There are no answers yet. This is all still too new (and love, sex, and death too old) for there to be any easy solutions. But the important part is that people are thinking about it. That I am thinking about it. And that, to me, is what SXSW should be all about.