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Revolt against 'rich parasites' at Burning Man Festival
- 11thEarlOfMar 10y agoAny sufficiently large group will eventually develop sub-groups. Those sub-groups may become sufficiently polarized to generate conflict among them. Reading about this Burning Man dilemma, I'm reminded of the People's Front of Judea battling the Campaign for a Free Galilee to the death over who first conceived of the plot to kidnap Pontius Pilate's wife [0]. Human beings will fight over anything. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian
- WalterSear 10y agoThis is more complex.
- bcook 10y agoMore complex than what, exactly?
- WalterSear 10y agoThan the parent's depiction of this situation as simplya case of fraternal squabbling.
- torkable 10y agoyea idiots in the desert fighting over how you should set up camp and how much money you spend doing it (you spent more money than us so we have the moral high ground) sounds like a really complex issue lol They're idiots, in the desert, fighting over stupid shit. Not to mention all the other shit that goes on there. From what I've heard, most of those dumb hippies just dump all their trash on the ground and pretty much just pack up and leave it, and other's come by after its all over and clean it all up. Radical self reliance lol.
- tpeo 10y agoI don't recall where, but I once read that the largest number of people that can be gathered in a group without splitting into factions is something like 7. Quite a harrowing thought.
- norswap 10y agoFor once, I find myself agreeing with the write-up. They really were parasites (without the quotes) and the others really were hooligans. None of them seemed to understand the spirit of the event. About jet-setters at least, there is little that can be done. Fork the event?
- WalterSear 10y agoBurning man has been too big for about a decade. It's subsumed much of indie festival culture, and replaced it with something 'too big too fail', with all the trappings of main stream accessibility that the vandals in this article are reacting poorly too.
- bigiain 10y agoFWIW, the first time I went a bunch of long-term burner friends were all "Man, this all gotten too big and has sold out! You should have been here 5 years ago!". There were about 7,000 people there that year, 1998...
- cmurf 10y agoRepeatibility is hard. I'm in the same mountain town, two summers in a row, and it's a completely different experience. Many things are identical, in fact I'm surrounded by it. But the experience I'm having is very different. I think sometimes there's too much attachment to replicating things of the past.
- xkcd-sucks 10y agoAttend your local Rainbow Gathering until Vice starts writing about it?
- bigiain 10y agoFork the event and then do not talk about Fight Club! (He said, hypocritically, having first gone to Burningman as a result of the '96 Wired article on it...)
- 10y ago
- smb06 10y agoI have never been to burning man but heard about it from friends who have been going for years. They say that people who are used to having closed boundaries around them, for example the Paris Hiltons of the world, have impacted on the bohemian nature of the event.
- jondubois 10y agoWell the rich need that extra protection. This incident reinforces that fact. If anything, this shows that the wealthy should build fences with barbed wire on top. Or maybe increase the BM entry fee so that fewer of these hooligans can afford to come.
- cpncrunch 10y ago>Or maybe increase the BM entry fee so that fewer of these hooligans can afford to come. Or perhaps someone should create a new festival that is more exclusive (but exclusive based on personality rather than how rich you are). No boring people who shut themselves in, no pretentious twats, no hooligans. Only creative, interesting people would be invited, and it would be completely free and very relaxed.
- torkable 10y agowill you be sending out the personality and moral purity tests?
- acconrad 10y agoOr you could be rich and just, you know, camp out like everyone else. I think part of the problem is that they want to "rough it" like the traditional Burning Man culture without actually having to rough it, and keeping people out, which is anathema to the people who go there for the inclusion and unity.
- xkcd-sucks 10y agoOh, but banning paid private event staff is uninclusive towards people with limited outdoors experience!
- codecamper 10y ago$390 + $80 vehicle pass + fees. Get real, they are ALL jet-setters & rich kids. It's the red hats vs the blue hats. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684186/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684186/ The haves vs the have mores. Yes I'm a little bit down on the whole burning man thing. You want peace & love? Have a solar panel installation party. Plant trees party. Pick up sea trash party. Not a check out my dreads, tattoo & flashy bicycle party.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- namlem 10y agoOh yeah, because being able to afford $470 is a sign of decadent wealth.
- oh_sigh 10y agoAnd getting there, and preparing everything, and taking time off of whatever work you have to do. It certainly isn't decadent wealth but it's probably more money than a lot of people can responsibly spend, especially if you aren't within, say, 500 miles of black rock
- contingencies 10y agoIIRC it's cheaper if you apply earlier .. the oldschool/regular attendees therefore get super cheap admission .. latecomer hipster types pay extra :)
- mmanfrin 10y agoYou want peace & love? Have a solar panel installation party. Plant trees party. Pick up sea trash party. Not a check out my dreads, tattoo & flashy bicycle party. You have zero idea what burning man is. If you think it is a 'hippie' festival, then you are severely mistaken. I am absolutely amazed that a critical and entirely inaccurate comment such as this is first.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
- Overtonwindow 10y agoI went to Burning Man in 2012 and had a blast, but there was definitely an air of "us and them". The poor nerds in a 99' camper bus versus the wealthy in their camps, with air conditioning, food, drugs, and women. I'm sad that the vandalism occurred, but happy the conversation has started. These people are parasites, and they're trying to recreate Burning Man in their own image of wealth and decadence. It's time for a change and I really hope the organizers listen.
- Bud 10y agoIt's only the wealthy that have women or drugs or food at Burning Man? Whatever. Pretty sure everyone has drugs, for starters, and "women", leaving aside you considering them a commodity, don't exactly seem scarce either.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoOP is most likely referring to camps flying in models, in which case women are quite literally being treated as a commodity.
- bigiain 10y agoJumps Hey - look down there! Check out the sharks! Cool!
- noonespecial 10y agoI've always had the notion that a festival that you arrived at and departed completely naked, carrying nothing just as you do in the world would be awesome. Burning man became more about what you could shlep into the desert to show off than anything. And as a poor kid growing up, nothing pissed me off in quite the unique and wonderful way as "show and tell" at school.
- c22 10y ago> I've always had the notion that a festival that you arrived at and departed completely naked, carrying nothing just as you do in the world would be awesome. Some people do this at Burning Man, but it's a good thing they're in the minority. The alternative would not be "awesome" but a horrifying week of crises as naked people died en masse in the dust.
- noonespecial 10y agoEyyahh. Not really suggesting you show up to Burning Man naked. This is a bad idea. I was thinking perhaps of a hypothetical festival where you show up naked but the festival itself provides everything to everyone equally. Walk in the door and there's 53' trailers full of goodwill-like clothing, tons of raw food ingredients for the cooking, hand tools and wood for building etc. In short, everyone arrives in a new "world" as equals and makes of it what they can. Bonus points for not allowing real names or talk of who you were on the "outside". Oh crap. I'm kind of describing prison. So umm... like jail but not so sucky.
- quantumhobbit 10y ago>like jail but not so sucky Maybe that's the whole point. It is the intentions of the participants that define the experience. After all monestaries are just like prison with spartan conditions and rigid routines, but completely different in how the participants experience it. Voluntary vs. Involuntary. Searching for an experience vs. Counting down the days. Etc.
- i386 10y ago
- jondubois 10y agoI don't understand why this is a problem. Wealthy people should just build an electric fence around their section, install security cameras and hire guards to patrol the perimeter. Problem solved.
- mullen 10y agoNo, that is the problem. Esplanade camps are suppose to be open to everyone, not just camp members. If you don't like that, then you don't camp on Esplanade, you camp farther back.
- mullen 10y agoLet me see if I can explain all of this, as someone who has been 9 times since 2004. There is a huge debate if rich people and their rich people only camps are a good addition to Burning Man. The rule is, your camp can not be closed and if you camp on the main street, Esplanade, you are definitely not a closed camp. Meaning, that anyone can walk in and hangout and you can make new friends or share alcohol and all that. You are suppose to have regular event that welcome outsiders. Esplanade spots are coveted locations and some camps spend years at semi-coveted locations off the Esplanade trying to prove to the Burning Man Org they good enough to be a Esplanade camp. The problems with rich people camps like White Ocean (The camp that was vandalized) is they tend to be closed, they pay others to cook for them, they did not shop for their food, the camps are full of large RV's, they flew in, they did not build anything and they don't welcome outsiders into their camp. White Ocean pays people to do all their dirty work, include constructing their camp art. Some of the rich people camps are also for profit camps, which is completely against the rules (Not saying White Ocean is). What makes it worse is there are plenty of stories of people walking by a rich camp while they are having a party and walking in and then bouncers tossing them out. That runs against every thing that Burning Man is and stands for. You can't not have private parties with bouncers and you should not even have bouncers for your camp. There are also a number of stories of people who signed up for work at Burning Man then not getting paid. Which not only is working at Burning Man illegal, so is not paying people who do. On the flip side of the coin, a lot of the large art projects and major sound camps are sponsored by rich folks since the art project and sound camps can have budgets that are upwards to a million dollars. Ya, no joke. The ugly truth of Burning Man is that it needs rich people but it does not want its culture. Let me just add, celebrities going to Burning Man is a non-issue. No one gives a fuck who you are off the Playa. No one does. Plus, all of the celebrities wear masks, so you don't even know they are there. You could be standing next to Katy Parry in the coffee line in Center Camp and not even know it. The only issue I see is that someone like Paris Hilton did nothing to get there. She got her assistant to buy a ticket off Stubhub and then flew in on a private jet or helicopter. She did not setup her camp, buy her food or sit in line. She just showed up and she won't add anything to Burning Man. Edited: $390 + $80 is still cheap considering you are there for 7 - 9 days and you can't see what you see at Burning Man when you are not at Burning Man.
- 10y ago
- Lidador 10y ago"The Burning Man Festival" has reached "The People's Front of Judea" phase. Funny stuff, or why we need a World War for people to get real.
- pbae 10y agoSeems like a microcosm of the gentrification controversy. I'd like to see BM fork, just to see a social experiment play out, as it might be instructive for other issues that are not so conducive to experimentation. Have a BM2 where the original ethos is more strictly enforced, and see if all the rich people now find BM1 too phony and want to move to BM2 where they can get a more "authentic" experience, then proceed to ruin that with their money for the "artistic class". Or maybe everyone just prefers nicer things. Honestly curious.
- 3327 10y agoHere are some facts: -Is whiteocean a plug and play elitist camp - yes absolutely. -are they inclusive? No they are not. -Is burning man's mantra radical inclusion? - Yes. The jist is burning man has a mantra to radical inclusion and even if white ocean is a plug and play camp or elitist they have to be included. So by logic the act is wrong and I say this as someone who despises them.
- aikah 10y agoAny festival that becomes an institution will be invaded by wealthy parasites more concerned about tweeting and posting photos on Instagram than being there. Burning Man has become a place where you need to show off, just like Coachella, yeah remember when Coachella was "underground" and was a reaction against commercial festivals and ticketmaster ? lol ...