Hi, Baratunde here, back in your inbox.

Earlier this week I shared my thoughts on the tragic lessons of Will Smith’s violent outburst at the Academy Awards, what it means for how we define love and protection, what ideals of masculinity we model, and how we all handle our traumas. 

Meanwhile, I’ve also been working to digest and synthesize my biggest takeaways from this year’s SXSW festival, in Austin. It’s been three years since I attended SXSW in person, and it was a delight to be back. The future is always arriving, but these days it feels like it’s moving faster and faster. Below, my biggest takeaways about the pace of change, new narratives in the metaverse, and how web3 is taking over, well, everything.

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See You in the Metaverse

My recent trip to Austin for SXSW offered a number of startling realizations. First off, web3 is going to be bigger than we ever imagined. It may also, finally, be the internet platform that makes the world a better place.

I spent last week in Austin at the first South by Southwest festival to occur in-person since 2019. I’ll admit that I had missed the frenetic energy of the weeklong multimedia event, which has become a part of my annual routine. I started attending SXSW in 2006 and have attended almost every year since. In 2016, in fact, I was inducted into the SXSW Hall of Fame, so I’m a certified fanboy. This year, I drank all the agave-based spirits, ate all the permutations of meat on tacos, rode all the electric scooters, and got a taste of a high-tech future that we increasingly recognize doesn’t simply happen but must be consciously shaped. 

There were three unmistakable themes that animated this year’s event. And they explicate, more than anything else, that future that we are collectively building.

The Pace of Change Is Accelerating

(And Our Memories are More Important than Ever)

I’ve heard this mantra for more than 20 years, to the point where it becomes hollow pablum, but I really feel the truth of it when I immerse myself in future-oriented gatherings like SXSW. Austin, itself, provides a dramatic example of this point. As a nearly-annual visitor to this city since 2006, I’ve had the benefit of a 16-year timelapse perspective on its changes. 

First, I noticed the traffic. So much more of it. I guess all the people who fled L.A. for Austin also brought their cars. Then the skyline started to fill in. There’s all the signs of high-velocity development, including the ubiquity of cranes and work crews, fancy coffee shops, and visibly unhoused and displaced people. During my visit to a barbershop in East Austin, I learned about the positive and negative effects of what tends to be swept under the rug as “gentrification.” My barber, an Austin native, said that he appreciated the booming business opportunities. But he also said that he had no prospects for being able to afford a house for his wife and two young children. 

All that was on my mind as I followed the official SXSW programming, listening to a series of futurists describe a fast-approaching future that already feels like our recent past...

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT