Hype? Us?

Over at Sound of the City, they've got a post called SXSW 2009: Here's Why You're Glad You're Not Going. One of the reasons You're (I'm?) Glad is: "Rampant twitter mania."

Really?

It seems that many blogs and music writing outlets do almost nothing during February and March but talk about SXSW, and that about forty percent of that talk is shot through with a strange kind of self-loathing: "SXSW will be GREAT, you guys, but god I just wish there weren't so much hype all the time."

What's strange is the idea, which all these blogs participate in, that there's any real difference between making hype and talking about or criticizing the process of making hype. There is no difference, and Sound of the City is playing an annoying kind of game by acting as though what they really want to be doing is watching March Madness instead of bouncing around the annual indie orgy for four days.

This kind of anxiety swirls around a lot of indie-rock discourse. There are a bunch of terrific pop music writers with blogs, but there are also thousands of bloggers pantomiming at criticism when they're actually extremely knowledgable fans. SXSW is entirely their making. It is for them.