SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/250660
A Post-Modern Epidemic: How to Cope With the FOMO Blues by Neal Pollack B ack when I was in my 20s and I actually left the house to do something other than go to the dentist or drive carpool for my kids, I was constantly plagued with the feeling that something cool was going on, and that I wasn't there. Now there is a name for this: "Fear Of Missing Out," or FOMO. As of this writing, that acronym isn't quite as annoying as YOLO, but it could get there. For now, though, FOMO is an actual psychological syndrome that affects many people. But long ago, in the 1990s, it just felt like my highly individualized neurosis. Here's how it manifested: On Thursday afternoons, I'd look through the listings of the local alternative weekly. I circled it all: art openings, rock shows, plays, lectures, comedy nights, book readings, poetry slams and restaurant openings. Then I made a flowchart for the week, adding in various other things that wouldn't have been in the listings, like parties and yard sales and baseball games. Because I worked as a reporter, I knew a lot about political demonstrations that were happening. Those were good for the chart, because the demonstrations usually went down during the day, when there wasn't as much competition with other events, so I had available slots for them. Movie openings and film festivals made the list, and I often moved them to the top. On an average evening, I'd have dinner early, then hit an opening, and then a play or a movie, and end up at a rock show late, staying out until the bars closed. I didn't have time to talk or to ponder. There were always places to be and things to experience, and I did this whether I had friends along or not. Weekends were the same, but longer, often starting at noon and going deep into the night. If you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to end up on a date with me, they would be marathon affairs that often encompassed lunch and dinner, with a half-dozen stops in a half-dozen neighborhoods, often accessed by bus or train because I didn't have a car. I was every girl's dream. Of course, I missed almost everything, and many of the things I went to weren't very good. I spent half of my youth sitting through bad folk performances and pretentious spoken-word nights when I easily could have been elsewhere and probably would have been better off at my apartment reading a book. And this was just in Chicago, which, 38 SXSWORLD / FEBRUARY 2014 in the mid-'90s, had plenty going on, but it was hardly the only place on Earth. When I traveled, the situation repeated itself. It wasn't enough to visit New York, or Amsterdam, or Paris; I had to do everything once I got there. Part of this, you could just chalk up to the exuberance of youth: At the time, I was still actually excited to be alive, and I wanted to drink up the world. Now, having done much in my life, I realize that most things sound like a good idea but actually aren't worth doing, and I'm better off eating frozen yogurt on the couch with my wife while watching televised cooking competitions. But I feel for the exuberant youth of today, whose FOMO must be so much worse than mine was. With social media, you're missing everything, all the time. At my FOMO prime, there were no smartphones, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat. I couldn't see what someone was eating for dinner in Hong Kong in real time. If a friend went to Art Basel in Miami, or a minor-league ballgame in Wilkes-Barre, or anything other than the exact thing I was doing at that moment, I'd hear about it in passing, maybe, six months later. With social media, you're missing everything, all the time. You're constantly aware of what's happening to other people. And SXSW is the worst place to suffer from the FOMO. As a fellow sufferer, and an Austin resident, I know. SXSW encompasses 10 days of missing parties, bands, stand-up routines, film premieres, lectures, free cocktails, Bill Murray sightings, something, often happening concurrently. Everything feels close, yet so far away, and there's no way to keep up with the deluge. This turns out to be one of the rare moments where it's true: You actually are missing out. That said, I love SXSW time, because it's liberating. You realize, as you're caught in the vast crowded slipstream, that almost no one has a plan, or a clue, and that it doesn't matter if you're missing anything. This realization often comes after the day's third cocktail. All you really have is your own experience of reality, and if that means you're seeing bands and movies in Austin in March, then that reality is pretty good. Once you have that realization, you can send it out into the cloud, on all the social media you can muster. I guarantee that you'll make somebody FOMO. n