I’ve long said that one of the most powerful things you can say to someone is: you are not alone; XOXO Festival has been (and continues to be, via the slack community) a space where we say that to each other. (From a previous piece I wrote on XOXO.)
10 years after the first XOXO I attended was the last XOXO, held on August 22-24, 2024 at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. I’ve talked previously (here and here) about how XOXO reflects the importance of community and in being heard and seen, as a creator who lives entirely too much online. Another common thread is the tension between the desire to connect and the hostility of many of the spaces on the internet where we seek that connection. This year’s XOXO, befitting the final one, felt even more focused on that tension.
It was also a space all too rare these days, one that acknowledged that we are still in a global pandemic, that gathering in person carries its own set of risks, significant and sometimes life altering. We are also all changed now by the experience of that pandemic. Whatever our own personal lessons and challenges have been, we’ve all experienced a collective trauma, loss and grief a constant undercurrent, whether we are able to express or even acknowledge it or not.
One of the things that so moved me about that first XOXO was being in a space that stood apart for recognizing that the wave of harassment and toxicity hitting my industry was real, and serious, and that speaking up about it mattered. This time, the realities we were collectively acknowledging are so much larger – the pandemic, the waves of transphobia and anti-trans and anti-LGBT legislation in the US, and the genocides happening in so many places (Gaza, Ukraine, Tigray).
I’ve done some therapy work around my CPTSD, and one of the things I’ve learned about what makes a trauma into a disorder is that trauma going unrecognized, being surrounded by people who want to deny that it is happening. And the difference between PTSD and CPTSD (‘C’ for ‘complex’) is the difference between a single traumatic event and an extended period of sustained trauma over the course of a childhood or a job or a several years long pandemic.
I don’t think one conference can counteract the impact of the constant gaslighting and denial we’ve been surrounded by, just like I don’t think one slack community can counter the challenges of surviving on a rapidly self-destructing internet run by fascist mega billionaires. But even a small panacea is worth something. It’s worth a lot to me.
I’ve had the incredible privilege of acting as a slack moderator for the XOXO slack community. It’s not usually very challenging, even when we’ve had some very challenging and emotional conversations within that community in response to the intensely challenging and emotional realities of the world we all live in. That isn’t to say it has always been easy, either; no work of building community, and working to create a safer space for the members of that community is ever going to be without its difficult and fraught moments. But it has also been another part of that panacea, a space where we don’t pretend the world is “back to normal” (whatever normal means, and however much that so-called normal was already pretty terrible), where we talk about the things that matter frankly and with vulnerability.
Being a slack moderator has also given me the opportunity to see how much the Andys care, about each other, and about the world, and about this community and the potential of the internet and the creative folks whose work lives online. Of course all of that was very apparent to me from that first XOXO ten years ago; supporting them as a slack moderator has just been witnessing that care reiterated over and over again with every new challenge that comes up in the space.
I met two of my best friends at XOXO in 2015, and now I live upstairs from them. They didn’t attend this year for a variety of reasons, but as one of them said “I got what I wanted out of it”, gesturing to me and her partner sitting on the back porch together, eating a cake that I made, as has become our Sunday afternoon ritual since I moved to Chicago. And I feel that in my bones, even though I am still getting things from it, and got many more things out of attending it this final time. My chosen family came out of XOXO, drawn by a space that had that shared ethos. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
As I said on Bluesky, almost everything good in my life now I can trace back to XOXO – my chosen family, my lovely apartment, my life in Chicago.
I’ve also evolved as a creator a lot since that first one. I started out attending XOXO as an indie game dev. My game Final Girls came out a few months before XOXO 2015 (the same one where I met my people) to some minor acclaim. In 2020, in the midst of the early pandemic and one of the only work crunches I’ve experienced at my current employer, I wrote my first book, a horror novella. I might go back to making games eventually, but this year my badge said “horror writer” on it. This is how I see myself now.
I’m working on my fourth book now, the first book in a trilogy that I hope will be the work that first establishes my place on people’s bookshelves. There’s still a lot of work to do between now and getting there, but I have gained so much expertise and confidence in what it means to be a creator in this era that I feel certain I will get there. Eventually. As Darius Kazemi said in his 2014 talk, all I can do is keep buying lottery tickets. I’m going to keep writing and putting my writing out there and continue to build connection and community around me, both online and irl.
Charlie Jane Anders’ talk wrapped up the conference, and it was a rallying cry that will stick with me for a long time. She talked about the challenges of writing books in a country where both your books and your body are banned in many places, as well as the importance of community and joy and silliness. (Her book, Never Say You Can’t Survive, one of my favorite books on writing, has a similar message.)
I had already been planning to learn more about comedy writing to make sure that my horror had enough of that leavening, and her words only underlined the importance of honing that more. Horror is comforting to me, and what I find in it and what I hope to offer to others with it is that comfort in being seen, in someone saying “this is hard and bad and wrong” instead of trying to pretend it all away. I write horror where the wins are a result of the relationships and the community the characters are able to find for themselves in the face of terrible things. There also need to be moments of joy and silliness, a time to sit together in a hotel room and eat pizza before going back to fight the monsters, moments of shared connection that remind us why we’re here and what we’re fighting for.
This may have been the last XOXO but the community and family I have found through it will endure and sustain me for the rest of my life. Every time one of the Andys thanks me for moderating, I tell them it’s my pleasure, and it’s true, but one part of that pleasure is being able to give back to something that has transformed my life in ways I could never have imagined.
Thank you XOXO. I will carry you with me, always.