There’s always a lesson. I took a bit of a risk today and it paid off, but it was REALLY down to the wire and the line was split between “risk that pays off big” and “complete waste of time.” But first…

Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer from Broad City

YES. These girls are top of the heap great comedy these days. It was a treat to see them speak about their creative process, production life, and other projects. Did you know Abbi makes coloring books? Fact. I laughed a lot in this panel.

Ellen Page and Ian Daniel: Film Keynote

Ellen Page…you know, Juno. Granted, she’s done a bunch of other amazing projects since but…Juno. They talked about their new project “Gaycation” – a travel show – and the risks involved in producing the project. Another panel I didn’t take many notes in, but enjoyable.

Making Epic Sh*t

This panel was a talk by Regina Dugan, the former Director of DARPA…like…Department of Defense crazy science level stuff. It was packed. She was a good speaker. I was 15 minutes in and realized my Vlogging Inspiration and Hero (TM) Casey Neistat (watch a vlog of his Austin adventure here) was going to speak at the Samsung House down the street in 1.5 hours and I probably had to get there early. So I bailed. I’ll get notes from the archived talk later.

Samsung…and CASEY NEISTAT!

I got there really early. This talk wasn’t promoted much until the day of, and I was loitering in the Samsung House Lounge where the talk would be. I struck up a good conversation with a couple of folks from Belgium who are also big Casey fans, so we were enjoying the hang. Then Samsung decided to clear the lounge and we had to go stand in line. We needed wristbands. We did not have them. They were not sure if they were letting anyone else in. The panel had started. At this point I had already skipped a panel and was missing the Brene Brown keynote (which would have been cool). I was on the sidewalk WILLING them to discover some more wristbands and…it happened. I got to go in. Casey was talking about VR and 360 cameras (WANT) and it was awesome to see the guy I watch every day online in the flesh. He’s just like he is in his vlog, which makes sense, because it’s hard to be fake on film every day for a year.

THEN HE TOOK SELFIES. He took about 7 of them on my phone, which is smart, because…what if the first 6 were bad? Lots to pick from. Glorious.

By this point I was so jazzed on life and trying out 360 degree cameras and almost convinced enough by the shiny glow of Samsung that I would have dropped $2000 on a new phone and VR camera if

a) I had $2000 and
b) If the 360 camera was even on the market yet. We were playing with prototypes.

I decided to wrap up on a responsible note and head to one last panel from 5 – 6 PM:

The Linguistic Secrets Found in Billions of Emoji

This panel was interesting, namely because the presenter, Gretchen McCulloch, is very passionate about her topic. Emoji use has grown exponentially in the last decade, obviously…switching from the first widely used emoticons : ) ; ) :/ to the more graphics based emoji. Here are the most used emoji across the globe:

The main question was “Is Emoji A Language?” The answer came down to the thought that no…it’s not. It is a language supplement. Emoji use has its own rules and norms which is a lot LIKE a language, but it generally still just supplements text.

And then we ate dinner and I tried to edit my vlog and then I slept and then I woke up and then I kept editing my vlog and then we drove into Austin again and now it’s Day 3. Bring it.