A Series of Vignettes that All End in Their Protagonists Tweeting, "Ugh, I Hate SXSW"

One of the curious things about South by Southwest is that everyone seems to hate it. God-fearing men and women travel from all over the world, soaking themselves in free beer and free food, watching every band in the universe desperately flirt for their attention, only for them to cast off the entire experience with a simple, “Ugh, I hate SXSW.” If you follow a lot of ungrateful music industry people on Twitter, you will see a lot of these sentiments next week. This is strange, because for the most part SXSW is a pretty good time.

But maybe I’m wrong, maybe there is something innately demoralizing about SXSW, maybe it is the monotonous, frustrating slog that so many of my contemporaries seem to believe. I decided to compose a few vignettes in which someone would tweet the simple phrase “Ugh, I hate sxsw.” Maybe then we’ll have a better understanding of what exactly is wrong with us.

Sarah was at the Mohawk watching Mac Demarco play. She had tried to talk to him a few hours before the show, but Demarco had totally blown her off. He was probably on pills. Mac Demarco played “Ode to Viceroy,” and Sarah twisted back and forth in her gingham dress. They didn’t book shows like this back in Waco. Sarah was a 19-year old Communication Studies major at Baylor, and she had finally made it. Sarah walked outside to try and buy a beer but the line was too long. It was hot. Sarah took out her phone and tweeted “Ugh, I hate SXSW.”

All Brian wanted to do was eat tacos. He has traveled far and wide across Austin, Texas to eat as many tacos as possible. The guys at Beerland were handing out free tacos to everyone who came early. Brian asked for ten tacos and pretended he was getting them for his friends who had come with him. No friends came with Brian. Brian doesn’t have any friends. Brian pretended his imaginary friends challenged him to eat ten tacos in ten minutes. So Brian sat outside hungrily stuffing tacos into his face like he was some sort of deranged taco addict. His emerging breasts and belly pushed against the inside of his Sonic Youth shirt. His mottled rosy cheeks were full of taco debris. Brian was now 70% taco. He pulled out his phone and tweeted “Ugh, I hate SXSW.”

Danica was the Arts Editor of the Daily Texan. Danica wore her official SXSW press badge proudly. Danica was on top of the world. She was going to show all those motherfuckers who was the boss. Danica was the boss. The boss was Danica. Danica was at a showcase. Merchandise was playing; this was heaven. Danica swayed from side to side in a way that was both noncommittal and effortlessly badass. Danica thought she saw Dan Weiss in the front row. She thought about saying hi, but that wouldn’t be cool. She had to play it cool around Dan Weiss. What if they got married. Then her name would be Danica Weiss. Danica had made it, she climbed through blogspot trash to reach SXSW treasure. She even got a post on Thought Catalog last month. Now she was chilling with the real VIPs, lording over the pithy 99 percent. Danica took out her phone and tweeted “Ugh, I hate SXSW.”

James was at a Nike day-show watching Baauer, who was his new favorite producer. James made a “Harlem Shake” video with his friends that got 7 likes and 5 dislikes. He thought it was really funny and his mom did too. Everyone was going crazy; Baauer confidently stared out into the audience, took a swig of his Mountain Dew Code Red, and dropped the bass. At this precise moment over one billion bees resting dormant in James’ heart erupted into life. All at once, a countless angry swarm of bees erupted from his every orifice. James became a blur of yellow and black, his skin pulpy from the constant barrage of stingers. His eyes slowly dissolving because of the newfound poison pumping through what was left of his veins. His tongue a chortled, bumpy mess. The torrid mass of blotchy red bumps that had become his body was barely human, and slowly, he started to collapse in on itself—the sheer weight of the pain too great for his spirit to bear. James was blind, deaf, and dumb, and as he began to sink into a pile of eroded guts, he tweeted “Ugh, I hate SXSW.”

Ashley had spent the entirety of her time at SXSW standing around the Fader Fort. Her skin had become a charred, saggy bag – less of a body, more of a vessel to carry around an increasing number of Vodka/Pepsi Max cocktails. Sun Wekong, the Monkey Trickster God, was unpleased with her abject hedonism, and cast a lightning bolt from Monkey Heaven and deep into the heart of Austin. A massive earthquake ruptured under Ashley’s feet, as she fell thousands of miles deep into the Earth’s crust, followed by the entire city of Austin. As the city tumbled further into the deep and into the sizzling magma of divine fury, Ashley tweeted “Ugh, I hate SXSW.”

Find Luke Winkie tweeting "Ugh, I hate SXSW." - @luke_winkie