(the RFK autism video is from more than a year ago and the discourse on here got problematic last time; here we go again, I guess)
That's my answer too. I'm still friends with some of the people I met on there back in the day!
My budget spreadsheet puts conferences and concerts in the same bucket ("events and travel"), and I can *feel* it showing me where my true priorities are. I skipped AMS 2024 at the last minute, and I didn't use the flight credit for AMS 2025, I used it to see one of my favorite bands in NC. 🤷♀️
And the thing about online musicology conferences is that as someone outside academia, I don't know how to network at them because you're mostly just watching papers on Zoom or whatever, so even though a registration fee is cheaper than registration + travel + hotel, it doesn't seem worth it.
“Specifically, the water is more or less the color of a sour apple Jolly Rancher now. It looks like they're brewing Yodas in there. It is so uncannily green and visibly slimy that it feels inevitable that video will soon surface of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. splashing around in it with jeans on.”
I feel like I should still try to go to musicology conferences when I can so that potential clients remember I exist, but I have to self-fund all of it, so "when I can" = not often. For that and editing/indexing conferences, I now basically only consider going if it's local or I can take the train.
It's just online - no in-person conference this year.
