In 2024, SXSW was supersponsored by the US Army and hosted dozens of military contractors, tying SXSW directly to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response, activists disrupted SXSW events and over 100 artists dropped out, with some joining DIY and SmashX events. Facing mass pressure and fallout, SXSW claimed they would no longer have military contractors present at SXSW.
Two years later, as the US government opens a new phase of war abroad against Venezuela, Cuba, and most recently Iran while intensifying its domestic war against immigrants, SXSW has given backdoor access to the weapons contractors and tech companies that build the infrastructure for war, surveillance, genocide, and deportation. Military and hard tech conferences like the Deep Tech Expo and Capital Factory House openly use SXSW branding and SXSW badgeholders get into Capital Factory House’s Startup Crawl for free.
Compare this to how SXSW treats artists, activists, and the grassroots that it accuses of “copyright infringement.”
Threatening artists who play “unofficial” showcases in addition to official ones with visa revocation and deportation
Threatening legal action against the 2024 “War Profiteers out of SXSW” campaign
Reporting and taking down SmashXSmashWest posts
This is no surprise from a festival whose owning family, the Penske’s, are massive Trump donors. Last April, the Penske’s secured a controlling interest (over 51% stake) in SXSW and ousted its former leadership. Over the last few years the Penske’s have pressured SXSW staff to generate more profit and feature more conservative speakers. So it’s no accident that they would let the warmongers back in–but in secrecy, to avoid opposition.
SXSW want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to present themselves as the progressive-minded platform for discussions on ethics, equity, and good governance in tech while also staying entangled with the military, ICE, and authoritarian regime. Culture, equity, and “community engagement” are how SXSW rebuilds its brand legitimacy and launders its entanglement in death. At SXSW, a Google Gemini product manager goes from a talk on “responsible AI” to a Capital Factory networking event with the Department of War to a local BIPOC artists showcase all in one night.
SXSW is a masterclass in how corporate co-optation & military counterinsurgency work. Destructive forces offer money, platforms, and integration to the communities that might resist their destructive efforts, to buy off resistance and make those communities dependent on the same forces destroying them. In the military this is called counterinsurgency, and its focused on winning the hearts and minds of the population to prevent resistance to occupation and genocide. Once the the population and its leaders are pacified, anyone who does try to resist is easily isolated and targeted for incarceration or elimination.
SouthBy’s seemingly progressive collaborations with community organizations, abortion access nonprofits, local artists, and QTBIPOC community leaders are all part of this strategy. This is why oil companies throw money at arts and schools in the coastal towns they sacrifice, why Shell and Chevron used to sponsor “Black Lives Matter” events, and why the US military historically supported and controlled philanthropic efforts globally. If you control the opposition you will never lose.
All this is to say that when you collaborate with SouthBy, you are the product. That is why artists, activists, and all people of conscience must divest from SXSW and cancel capital factory house. If you are participating in SXSW, consider these options:
- Participate in Cancel Capital Factory‘s week of action, either by attending an event or organizing your own event and disruption of Capital Factory House!
- Drop your collaboration with SXSW! They need you more than you need them. You can make your event a DIY or SmashXSmashWest event instead, and move it to a local venue–a library, a park, or some other non-SXSW venue. Reach out to us at smashbysmashwest@protonmail.com if you want recommendations or assistance in connecting to other venues.
- If you are organizing events that are “unofficial” sxsw, use “south by” in the title, or use the #sxsw tags, change your event to anti-sxsw, smashx/smashby/smashxsmashwest, “spring break,” or simply anything that does not reference sxsw. Stop giving them free advertising and clout!
- If you have access to resources in SXSW, leverage them for disruption and strategic reappropriation. Use your platform to speak on SouthBy’s complicity and promote the autonomous organizing and shows happening at SmashX and Cancel Capital Factory. If you get SXSW badges or guest passes, give them to rebels to fight in the belly of the beast.
- If you can’t drop SXSW or need that check, then consider doing a SmashX event in addition to your sxsw event. If you can spare some of that check, consider donating it to a local organization like Cancel Capital Factory, the Data Center Action Coalition, one of the many DIY venues hosting SmashX events, or the Prarieland Defendants. If you’re not getting paid or badge access…then why are you even doing SXSW in the first place?