Nim Daghlian summarizes what they took away from XOXO (again, driving my RAHMO). I particularly appreciated this particular bit from Darius Kazemi about the definition of “indie.”
Darius Kazemi says “Indie is just an economic descriptor” in his funny, insightful talk about the highs and lows of trying to make it building independent projects and communities on the internet, in part as a followup to his 2014 talk “How I Won The Lottery” This was to say that it’s a way of existing in the market, rather than a coherent aesthetic or a value system, and it can be liberating or fuck you up in equal measures.
And I also liked this:
I feel like all these conversations and calls to action I hear have this in common; they’re calling for an active and critical engagement with the internet – what we put on it, how we build it, and how we use it to connect with other people. For some people that means writing your own CMS from scratch and federating all your posts to multiple services. For others it might mean making a mutual aid Facebook group. Or maybe just starting a text thread with friends.
Both of these snippets are refreshing in their “different strokes for different folks” vibes. Because there is no one right way to internet.