How and Not Why

Went to re:publica in Berlin. Fourth time. Took Malte, Paulchen, Sara—three days of finally seeing faces attached to Twitter handles, mostly just trying not to think about how circular the whole thing was.

First day had the usual talks. Someone explaining how to monetize a blog audience. Panels about TV and internet culture. The kind of discussions where everyone in the room already knows the answer but keeps asking the question. We wandered around Friedrichstadtpalast, grabbed beers, made jokes about recruiting fashion bloggers. Normal opening day stuff.

Day two was a wash. Bad food choices left me feeling wrecked. Almost fell asleep during a WikiLeaks talk. The whole thing had this exhausting tone—endless conversation about monetization and impact and changing the world through social media. Some guy gave a talk about something actually important and showed one of my favorite videos, and that was the only real moment. Otherwise I just felt sick and crashed hard after.

Third day was cleaner. Schnitzel, beers, ending at Kalkscheune with everyone loose and dancing. Sara got drunk—walked her home, made spicy noodles at two in the morning, put on Friends until we passed out.

But yeah, the whole thing kept confirming what I already knew: we’re all obsessed with HOW. How to use these tools, how to monetize them, how to optimize. Nobody’s asking why or where we’re actually going. Just mechanism after mechanism, stacked on top of nothing.