Not the connection she wanted

THE annual South by Southwest Music festival was (from what I can recall) rock ‘n’ roll, and drugs, and sex, in that order. SXSW Interactive -- well, it’s more like band camp.

Ten years ago I went to Austin, Texas, for SXSW when it was only about music. I was in my 20s, wrote for a ‘zine and had punk rock hair. Four friends and I barreled around the city in a teeny white rental car -- the Egg, we called it -- had beer for breakfast and threw a party that was so good it ended in a riot. I had crazy fun, and it wasn’t just me. “Everyone gets laid at SXSW,� one attendee told me.

So when I headed to SXSW Interactive in March, I have to admit that getting lucky crossed my mind. I’m single, in my 30s and still have punk rock hair. How hard could it be?

It was a return to that place where I’d had such a great time, where everyone had a hall pass to be their best rock-star selves: funny and debauched and talented and a little nuts in just the right way. I didn’t realize that that place wasn’t Austin; I should have known it wasn’t a place at all -- it was a moment. Trying to resurrect that moment, even an updated version of it, was valiant, perhaps. But foolhardy.

This SXSW environment was an entirely new zoo. I wasn’t canoodling; I was in the desert studying an exotic new breed of conference-goers. Whereas tumbleweeds could have blown across the wide-open spaces of the 1996 conference sessions, SXSW Interactive panels were packed. Showered, tidily dressed people popped open their laptops attentively; many sessions were standing-room only. There was even a tool that let you plan your schedule online, then download it to your iPod or BlackBerry.

As cool as that was, I wanted to make real human connections in Austin, particularly because so much of my L.A. life is online. These hordes of people with laptops at the ready -- it was enough to drive me to drink.

So I tried a fashionable party. A handsome Austinite brought me glasses of Red Bull and vodka. Gah! I don’t drink like a twentysomething, I drink like a Rat Packer (bourbon, martinis). A partygoer ogled a group of youngish women nearby. “They’re cute,� he said. “Their skin is so soft and smooth.� Hmm, maybe I should drink like a twentysomething. Then I bumped into a guy who was text messaging madly. He told me he was flirting -- with someone who was nowhere near the party. Even out on the town, being wired was key.

As a group of us finished lunch, we realized we had an hour to kill before the next session. “Where should we go for a beer?� I asked, standing up. They looked at me blankly. One checked his watch (it was 2:15 p.m.). “Come on, it’s SXSW!� I urged, not realizing I was barking up the wrong network cable. Everyone demurred, preferring to get back to the conference hall, they said, to get connected to the Internet again.

And those people with their laptops? Turned out they were online, not taking notes. I saw attendees reading other people’s blogs, checking the news, answering e-mail. Here the temptations weren’t drugs and sex: They were websites and wi-fi.

In 10 years, the meaning of “connecting� had changed. At SXSW Interactive, being connected means sitting in a row on the floor, everyone tapping away at their own keyboards. Blogging, commenting on other blogs and instant messaging are all more real than being together. LOL is better than a laugh. Or maybe it’s not a laugh until it’s been memorialized as an LOL somewhere. I understand. After observing them, I realize that I’m becoming one of them, another band-camp nerd with a laptop at the ready.

But I just can’t shake the (fuzzy) memories of cramming into sweaty clubs, listening to great bands, drinking to excess and complaining about wicked hangovers together. We’ll never be entirely offline like that again.

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Carolyn Kellogg is the editor of LAist.com and the host of the podcast Pinky’s Paperhaus. She may be reached at [email protected].