15 ms·

The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

168 points by devy 8y ago

checkyoursudo 8y ago
Nothing last forever. Ideal, and idyllic, things often seem to be ruined by popularity (and the commercial or other exploitation popularity brings?). See "overtourism" as another example (and somewhat related).
jdp23 8y ago
The main focus of the story is actually on the "No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man" art exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-man https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-man
acconrad 8y ago
I've always toyed with the idea of going to Burning Man but I'm turned off by how popular (read: the big, comfy trailers and the stratification of attendees) it has become. Is there a retreat that still is all about art / society-in-a-box?
- chrisgat 8y ago
  I'm not a burner, but I've worked with several. There seems to be local community burner gatherings that are less well known unless you are part of the community and probably have the vibe are you seeking.
- jvagner 8y ago
  I don't go to BM, but my teenage son does (with his mother). His mother and her BM crew make some of the big art you see pictures of every year. They think it's still great.
- acomjean 8y ago
  I never been to either, but the burners in my area also go to firefly. There also are a variety of burning man associated events at other times. https://www.fireflyartscollective.org https://www.fireflyartscollective.org
- egypturnash 8y ago
  type "[your state] burn" into your favorite search engine, you'll find smaller events with a decent chunk of crossover with the people who are serious about Black Rock City.
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Mediterraneo10 8y ago
Having participated in a lot of countercultural gatherings, I was initially intrigued about Burning Man. But if you hear about an event from the mass media, instead of through word of mouth in your own small countercultural community, chances are that the event is already past its prime. After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s, and then hearing more recent attendees describe their experiences, I have long since got the feeling that BM is now as played out as, say, Goa was after 1972, or Nimbin after about 1980.
- gammateam 8y ago
  > After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite the criticism The founding members weren't serious about "radical self reliance" as their congregation now repeats without practicing Its also more of a heroin hit for these people, the second hits will never be as good as the first, but its still the first hit for everyone else. The expense also invites the criticism, it is ironic and funny. Wage workers can't take a week and a half off for burning AND have another vacation somewhere else that year, and thats if they can rationalize the cost to begin with. So it invites quirky tech CEOs and socialites and DJs, along side the actual counterculture people who barely have a social security number. For a festival in an inhospitable environment that prides itself on decommodification, it is ALWAYS going to have criticism. SEE YA THERE! :D
  - timr 8y ago
    "But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite the criticism" And so is this reply. Essentially any event that has substantially changed from its original form/intent has this conversational pattern: Old participant: "$event is past it's prime now." New participant: "Everyone says that, but $event is still popular, and I like it, so they're wrong." Of the two opinions, only the one from the old participant carries information about how things have changed. Whether this is relevant to a new participant is debatable, but it's certainly relevant to conversations where people try to sell a mass-market event as a niche experience.
newnewpdro 8y ago
"Leaving no trace" What is the carbon footprint of this festival? They should rephrase that to "Leaving no visible trace"
- astura 8y ago
  "Leave No Trace" is a term of art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace It's not without criticism.
  - burntrelish1273 8y ago
    There's a similar festival in Norway where they climb up 30m to burn a tower of wooden pallets. And another in Ireland IIRC. The unique aspect of Burning Man is the self-assembling, temporary community/world diaspora.
notananthem 8y ago
Burning Man is a made up history of what used to go on in the 90's- namely everyone brought guns and got fucked up, under the misdirection of situationist artists. My friend who went to early ones and said his role was "armed postal worker" said they were pretty boring because lots of business people tried to make it a scalable festival quickly, and that the only fun part of it was Mutant Fest, which happened the week before Burning Man opened (at least, historically, I think it still exists). Mutant Fest was just people driving around in fucked up cars shooting guns playing heavy metal.
tjr225 8y ago
As an outsider with little interest in ever attending burning man, it appears to me to be little else other than a social media spectacle, these days (but perhaps that's everything).
- ironrabbit 8y ago
  Could it be that, with no interest in ever attending burning man, the only perception you have of the event is through social media?
  - tjr225 8y ago
    That's a great point!
wwweston 8y ago
I've been precisely once, and only in the last few years, so I am far from an expert on the trajectory of the event or any community surrounding it. But my observations were: * Any single characterization of an event that is partly defined by its city-sized number of participants is going to be incomplete. * There's a variety of different experiences to be found there. Chances are good you can find an experience to your liking. * There's better chance that you can bring an experience to your liking, and as in other situations, a lot of what you get out of it related to what you put in. If I go back, I'm mostly likely to do so as part of a camp that's doing something I'm excited about. The blank-canvas aspect of it might be the most interesting part. * Among other things, it's a pop-up art festival in the middle of a particularly dusty lake bed with lots of interesting pieces, some of building-sized scale. No matter what else is going on, if you're into art, chances are good you will like this (unless you also hate camping and don't prepare for that). * To whatever extent specific norms and stated values are different than mainstream, people are still people. You can expect to see some of the best on display and some things that are disappointing. Is it still "in its prime" or is it "over"? Have the values been commodified or sold out? I don't know. I think the questions that matter to the average person thinking of going are whether it's still interesting to you, and what values you're going to try to bring to it. I don't know if I brought enough to the time I went, but I'm glad I did it, and under the right circumstances, I'd do it again.
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- rednerrus 8y ago
  Isn't one of the issues that many of the people who come now don't bring their own experiences? Are they there to consume experience rather than creating it?
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    Is that an issue?
    - 8y ago
iamleppert 8y ago
I’m turned off from going by the fact that it seems the only friends I know that go are a narrow demographic of your typical techie. They plan their entire year around it and act like it’s their sole purpose in life. Honestly I don’t want to end up like that, thinking that the real world offers no thrill or spectacle or surprises such that I need to reduce my life down into a few weeks in the desert at the end of the year.
- zasz 8y ago
  I went in 2010 and one of the first people I met there was an advertising exec who said this event was the only time she felt alive. It was really sad.
  - forgottenpass 8y ago
    Hey, at least she has one in her life. That's one more per year than most people. I'm not trying to pick an argument, or imply most people are emotionally dead inside, but _come on_. You really gotta take an expression about enjoying an escaping from the humdrum of day-to-day life and use it to snark about a person's entire existence?
    - zasz 8y ago
      It wasn't intended to be snark. She was very clear that this one week was IT for her. She was a leader in an established Burning Man camp that hands out free stuff for women's health, and she said she really enjoyed the recognition she got for doing something nice for other people. At the time I thought she should look into doing volunteer work with some worthy organization the rest of the year, but now, I see that finding a satisfying community to give value to isn't so easy. What's sad is that for all the technological progress this society has made, it has failed to provide people with consistent opportunities to feel that they are doing psychologically meaningful work.
  - com2kid 8y ago
    Why is that sad? She found something she enjoys doing. Better than someone who has yet to find that spark that gives life meaning. Is everyone in the advertising business supposed to love making adverts? I certainly feel more alive camping with friends than I do debugging JavaScript. I'm lucky enough to have a life where I can go on 2 or 3 major vacations a year with friends and family with another couple smaller trips spread throughout the year. For people with a busier schedule, I can see them taking great pleasure in the one time a year they get to escape. Especially since so many people never get to escape. I know plenty of people who never have had a vacation, and may very well die without ever having a day off from work and life and stress.
Haul4ss 8y ago
Earlier this year there was a good EconTalk episode[1] with the CEO of the Burning Man Project. I've never been to the festival, but I'm fascinated by the economic and logistical challenges of keeping the thing going (in contrast to something like Woodstock, whose 30th anniversary event in 1999 was a train wreck). [1] http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-man/ http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-man/
radley 8y ago
Straight from the BM blog: A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man. (TLDR: nobody). https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/ https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...
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aaroninsf 8y ago
Not going this year; have gone maybe 20 times starting in 95. There was IMO and experience genuinely something special (I won't say unique, but probably... unique) there, which is now vestigial. Still discoverable but at a time, in some strata of the event, all but axiomatic. I would describe that special thing as an emergent aspirational culture of techno-utopianism made possible by expending profound resources in the service of simulating (creating if you like, temporarily) an environment best described as "plenty." Much about our culture is defined by axiomatic scarcity, from which competition emerges. The thing that made me keep going back was the recurring experience of an inverted order, in which a uniquely large scale collaborative game was being played, in which the rules were changed. Lots of rules. This created open social space and possibility. Guards went down and spontanaeity blossomed. Altruism and kindness and generosity were, quite often, emergent. This was of course highly imperfect in a very long list of ways. And there were of course as always, bad actors, bad experiences, and a shadow side. But that does not diminish the power of experiencing the potential of existing in a culture in which the competitive instinct can be harnessed to drive collective rather than individual benefit. Many aspects of the now ossified and largely ignored "precepts" attempted to define and explain the constituent aspects which made this emergent culture function. A fools' errand but an absolutely necessary one in the face of massive growth and the encroachment of the outside rules. Many (most all) cultures have some sort of time-out-of-time in which traditional norms are suspended. It's a pressure valve and a laboratory in which the culture can tinker. I consider myself unspeakably blessed to have lived in SF at a moment when my culture and generation experimented at this scale, thanks to the (at the time permanent-seeming) very temporary apex of the post-Cold War internet boom, when the Bay was still a meeting point between a lot of very creative, very iconoclastic people, and, suddenly, a f--k ton of money and resources. We still have the latter, and it shows in the preposterous scale of very cool vanity projects on the playa now. But we are in a much much darker moment historically and generally, the culture of the Bay is now within the event horizon of money and conventional rules of power. I still have fun when I go, and there is still idealism. But the safety, risk taking, collaborative play from a smaller city and the sense of fellow travelers who frankly were a lot more freakish and non-normal than attend now, lives on only in individual interactions and nooks and crannies. It's still the background radiation shows, and to the extent the "precepts" are pursued, still leads to magic. And it's still a great gathering of freaks, and celebration of potential. Still worth it IMO if you can find the right people. Never expect to see something ignite at that scale again in my lifetime. For a while Occupy had potential to be something more. Ah well.
alevskaya 8y ago
I started and ran a science-oriented theme camp out there for over a decade as an impoverished academic, and a lot of my friends in the Bay Area help build or manage the event. I’m neither rich nor a hippy. To me, the fundamental idea of the event is that we’ve become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation due to being enmeshed in a highly commodified, transactional society and that it’s worth trying to address that. Most people can’t use a torque-driver or recognize a turnbuckle. But people can learn, and when they get involved in build projects or camps out there they do. They start trying. It’s amateur art hour write very large, but the beauty of it is how many people start trying to make something of their own, sometimes with amazing results. The event is flawed as hell and always has been, but it remains an astounding expression of labor devoted to the amateur’s search for meaning through creation. It’s art will never appeal to the traditional critic who worries more about the statement of art than it’s artifact. They can look down their noses at the idealism of those who thought to try to make something for once, instead of leaving the important job of art to those who know better, who have the right ideals, the right politics, the right message. We’re going to continue to do carpentry, to make circuit boards, to write software, and to teach others to get involved in the art of trying.
- saganus 8y ago
  "The art of trying" sounds like a very interesting concept. Wouldn't mind reading an article on that, if you ever feel like writing it :)
- kiliantics 8y ago
  You may not be rich, but you are not poor. How can these projects be about civic participation if they're not inclusive to the kinds of people that can't afford to take time off work and trek across the country to go camping in the desert? There are lots of ways people try to address the problems of our "highly commodified, transactional society" within their own communities, where everyone is capable of participating. For some reason, however, many of the people I know that go to Burning Man, and many of the kinds of people that typically do go, are never involved in those kinds of local organising initiatives... It would be nice if these ideals about art were more commonly expressed and engaged with in the areas where they are really sorely needed, rather than in a remote place that people need to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get to and be in.
fipple 8y ago
Things change, whatever. Burning Man is now it's a luxury art and music maker festival where the rugged conditions are part of the appeal in the same way that they are for Mount Everest. If you want the old Burning Man you'll have to start a new thing.
originalsimba 8y ago
This story would have been relevant some years ago, today it's old news.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I recall reading an article a few years ago about how every year, people declare burning man “dead” or dying. People write articles about how it’s not how it used to be. How the message is lost. Every year. When I talk to people who go, most of them seem to suggest it’s still an amazing place. I guess it largely depends on who you are. I really dislike the society we’ve built. It feels too focused on work (I live in the Bay Area) and not enough on community. So burning man sounds ideal for me, it’s just been scheduling issues that have so far prevented me from going. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that apparently these articles come up every year. Take them with a grain of salt. Edit: here’s the article. https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/ https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...
- wavefunction 8y ago
  You can find much of what you might find at Burning Man in other places in the world. I think it's amazing primarily to people who've never been or aren't regularly exposed to those things.
CrankyBear 8y ago
Vanishing? Folks, it's been gone for years. It's now summer camp for well-off techies.
- jontas 8y ago
  I don't think you read the article.. it's about how the idealism of the artwork vanishes once it's left the playa. It has nothing to do with the changing nature of burning man.
  - burntrelish1273 8y ago
    Perhaps it's an idealism that shouldn't be temporary like "Earth Day." Live consistent to one's ideals, such as say going vegetarian, everyday rather than temporarily going on a The Purge sex and drugs bender.
modells 8y ago
There's a lot of people whom just go to Burning Man to get high and fuck.
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Animats 8y ago
The successor to Burning Man is probably Wasteland Weekend. Even that's getting commercial. It's turning into a music festival.
Theodores 8y ago
Burning Man's predecessor beach parties sound a lot like how events in the UK 'rave' scene happened. The commercial clubs took over what was once fun, spontaneous, non-hierarchical and free in the rave/festival scene. Having a spectacular, out of the world location was always important with 'rave', this could be the grandeur of the great outdoors or an illegally occupied premium site, e.g. the council's own offices rigged with 40K of sound with the place completely off limits for the authorities. To some degree, whether in town or in remote countryside there was always an aspect of squatting to a true 'rave' event. Even if a venue was legit, e.g. a farm with the farmer being in on the deal, there would be laws, neighbours and active policing with searches. Once inside the autonomous zone life was lived with a very different, trusting 'security model' of community. There was an alternative world there, the same thing Burning Man attendees go to seek but get a ritualised, pastiche of. In time the law banned 'repetitive beats' and people got old. The dance music that was a big part of 'rave' did live on in the commercialised club scene and with DJs doing legit concert style events, nowadays to fill stadiums. The 'rave' free party scene died along with the ability to temporarily live 'free' from a world of conventional law and order. Burning Man might not be ideal and far too American for the tastes of many however it offers the illusion of being able to live in that way the UK free party scene offered. Even if it is more akin to an organised festival you can at least pretend that you are living as a 'free man'. Maybe Burning Man can only ever offer a glimpse at the ideals that it is supposed to be about just because there has to be some organisation rather than it being utterly spontaneous. This matters not, Burning Man is established as its own thing and it has been that way since the end of the beach party scene it inherited.
warrenmiller 8y ago
Fuck Yer Burn!
wnmurphy 8y ago
I went 6 years in a row, and I haven't been since they screwed up the ticket system with a lottery, introducing scarcity that wasn't there before and encouraging people to over-buy tickets out of fear and game the lottery website. In my mind it's turned into a side gag from HBO's Silicon Valley, where entitled tech bros throw money at plug-and-play camps in the hopes of seeing world famous DJs play unannounced sets, so they can post selfies on Instagram. It's all of that and also none of that. It's the most exhausting vacation.
- lordalch 8y ago
  My understanding was that BLM limited the number of tickets they could sell, and they decided to make the tickets go by lottery rather than raise the price. If I were planning to go to Burning Man, I would just plan to buy the $1,200 ticket and skip the angst.
  - c22 8y ago
    If you become part of an established camp that contributes significant art or experiences back to the community BMorg also offers directed group sales allowing your key contributing members to skip the lottery at the regular price.
peterwwillis 8y ago
The only part of this article I find annoying is the artistic elitism. Burning Man is great because any asshole can create art and have lots of people see it and interact with it without it being judged by an art critic, or have to somehow get accepted into an art show or museum. The purpose of Burning Man, and a burn in general, is to participate. If you're not participating, there is no purpose to Burning Man. This creates a good deal of the confusion and indifference to the event by spectators, and the world at large.
abalone 8y ago
"Leave no trace" has always been a fake Burning Man ideal. Sure, they clean up after themselves, but hauling a mini city onto the desert and back (incl. water and sewage) leaves a relatively large per-attendee carbon footprint. That's a trace! Plus there's dumb stuff like straining water resources just to wash off all the dust. Usually when you bring this up they'll say "it's worth it" for all the other ideals. But irrefutably it's still a fake ideal, which calls into question the authenticity of all of them.
- bonniemuffin 8y ago
  LNT predates burning man, and has nothing to say about carbon footprint. Take it up with the National Park Service and the Sierra Club if you don't like it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace
rednerrus 8y ago
There are people in this world who have no creativity. They are desperate not to be living the lives they've chosen. Eventually, they are going to show up in your creative venture with their other, not creative friends. They are going to bring the money they made doing their not creative work. They are well-intentioned but they are going to ruin everything. They are trying so hard to escape the assholes that ruin things. They don't realize they are the assholes that ruin things.
jl2718 8y ago
All the idealism of burning man pretty much dies as soon as you realize that everybody’s on drugs. It’s a dark path. Some people do alright. On a long enough timeline, most don’t.
- c22 8y ago
  While there's definitely a larger percentage of the public "on drugs" than you find in day to day life (and a lot more people drunk on alcohol), there are still many sober people at the event. I'd posit at any given time the majority of participants are sober, with the exception, perhaps, of Friday and Saturday night.
- klank 8y ago
  On a long enough timeline, it's a dark path for everybody, everywhere.
Lichtenbat 8y ago
Burning Man was a once in a lifetime thing for me. I heard it was like a massive rave, and it was better than that! It definitely is a better fit for the party people than I thought. It’s a no fear environment that is generally safe. Plus it’s desert camping, so it’s logistically a blast as well. For people who don’t party, they get a chance to decompress and live at a different pace. As an old school massive promoter in SF/SoCal and CO, it’s great it comes back year after year! Time to one up the previous!
jimmywanger 8y ago
I know that Reno locals hate Burning Man and burners in general. Whenever Burning Man comes to town, a lot of canned food and bottled beverages are sold out, they don't spend much money in town, and on the way home, they're still in party mode, and spun out of their mind, and raise hell in local establishments.
thiswillis 8y ago
Our open-borders globalist world is built on the premise of "differences without distinction." Nothing about that inspires idealism in the long run. Burning Man is another example of a Leftist celebration that only really mattered to it's adherents when it was still exclusive. Hypocrites!

168 points by devy 8y ago

Nothing last forever. Ideal, and idyllic, things often seem to be ruined by popularity (and the commercial or other exploitation popularity brings?). See "overtourism" as another example (and somewhat related).

jdp23 8y ago

The main focus of the story is actually on the "No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man" art exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-man https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-man

acconrad 8y ago

I've always toyed with the idea of going to Burning Man but I'm turned off by how popular (read: the big, comfy trailers and the stratification of attendees) it has become. Is there a retreat that still is all about art / society-in-a-box?

chrisgat 8y ago
I'm not a burner, but I've worked with several. There seems to be local community burner gatherings that are less well known unless you are part of the community and probably have the vibe are you seeking.
jvagner 8y ago
I don't go to BM, but my teenage son does (with his mother). His mother and her BM crew make some of the big art you see pictures of every year. They think it's still great.
acomjean 8y ago
I never been to either, but the burners in my area also go to firefly. There also are a variety of burning man associated events at other times. https://www.fireflyartscollective.org https://www.fireflyartscollective.org
egypturnash 8y ago
type "[your state] burn" into your favorite search engine, you'll find smaller events with a decent chunk of crossover with the people who are serious about Black Rock City.

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Mediterraneo10 8y ago

Having participated in a lot of countercultural gatherings, I was initially intrigued about Burning Man. But if you hear about an event from the mass media, instead of through word of mouth in your own small countercultural community, chances are that the event is already past its prime. After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s, and then hearing more recent attendees describe their experiences, I have long since got the feeling that BM is now as played out as, say, Goa was after 1972, or Nimbin after about 1980.

gammateam 8y ago
> After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite the criticism The founding members weren't serious about "radical self reliance" as their congregation now repeats without practicing Its also more of a heroin hit for these people, the second hits will never be as good as the first, but its still the first hit for everyone else. The expense also invites the criticism, it is ironic and funny. Wage workers can't take a week and a half off for burning AND have another vacation somewhere else that year, and thats if they can rationalize the cost to begin with. So it invites quirky tech CEOs and socialites and DJs, along side the actual counterculture people who barely have a social security number. For a festival in an inhospitable environment that prides itself on decommodification, it is ALWAYS going to have criticism. SEE YA THERE! :D
- timr 8y ago
  "But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite the criticism" And so is this reply. Essentially any event that has substantially changed from its original form/intent has this conversational pattern: Old participant: "$event is past it's prime now." New participant: "Everyone says that, but $event is still popular, and I like it, so they're wrong." Of the two opinions, only the one from the old participant carries information about how things have changed. Whether this is relevant to a new participant is debatable, but it's certainly relevant to conversations where people try to sell a mass-market event as a niche experience.

newnewpdro 8y ago

"Leaving no trace" What is the carbon footprint of this festival? They should rephrase that to "Leaving no visible trace"

astura 8y ago
"Leave No Trace" is a term of art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace It's not without criticism.
- burntrelish1273 8y ago
  There's a similar festival in Norway where they climb up 30m to burn a tower of wooden pallets. And another in Ireland IIRC. The unique aspect of Burning Man is the self-assembling, temporary community/world diaspora.

notananthem 8y ago

Burning Man is a made up history of what used to go on in the 90's- namely everyone brought guns and got fucked up, under the misdirection of situationist artists. My friend who went to early ones and said his role was "armed postal worker" said they were pretty boring because lots of business people tried to make it a scalable festival quickly, and that the only fun part of it was Mutant Fest, which happened the week before Burning Man opened (at least, historically, I think it still exists). Mutant Fest was just people driving around in fucked up cars shooting guns playing heavy metal.

tjr225 8y ago

As an outsider with little interest in ever attending burning man, it appears to me to be little else other than a social media spectacle, these days (but perhaps that's everything).

ironrabbit 8y ago
Could it be that, with no interest in ever attending burning man, the only perception you have of the event is through social media?
- tjr225 8y ago
  That's a great point!

wwweston 8y ago

I've been precisely once, and only in the last few years, so I am far from an expert on the trajectory of the event or any community surrounding it. But my observations were: * Any single characterization of an event that is partly defined by its city-sized number of participants is going to be incomplete. * There's a variety of different experiences to be found there. Chances are good you can find an experience to your liking. * There's better chance that you can bring an experience to your liking, and as in other situations, a lot of what you get out of it related to what you put in. If I go back, I'm mostly likely to do so as part of a camp that's doing something I'm excited about. The blank-canvas aspect of it might be the most interesting part. * Among other things, it's a pop-up art festival in the middle of a particularly dusty lake bed with lots of interesting pieces, some of building-sized scale. No matter what else is going on, if you're into art, chances are good you will like this (unless you also hate camping and don't prepare for that). * To whatever extent specific norms and stated values are different than mainstream, people are still people. You can expect to see some of the best on display and some things that are disappointing. Is it still "in its prime" or is it "over"? Have the values been commodified or sold out? I don't know. I think the questions that matter to the average person thinking of going are whether it's still interesting to you, and what values you're going to try to bring to it. I don't know if I brought enough to the time I went, but I'm glad I did it, and under the right circumstances, I'd do it again.

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rednerrus 8y ago
Isn't one of the issues that many of the people who come now don't bring their own experiences? Are they there to consume experience rather than creating it?
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  Is that an issue?
  - 8y ago

iamleppert 8y ago

I’m turned off from going by the fact that it seems the only friends I know that go are a narrow demographic of your typical techie. They plan their entire year around it and act like it’s their sole purpose in life. Honestly I don’t want to end up like that, thinking that the real world offers no thrill or spectacle or surprises such that I need to reduce my life down into a few weeks in the desert at the end of the year.

zasz 8y ago
I went in 2010 and one of the first people I met there was an advertising exec who said this event was the only time she felt alive. It was really sad.
- forgottenpass 8y ago
  Hey, at least she has one in her life. That's one more per year than most people. I'm not trying to pick an argument, or imply most people are emotionally dead inside, but _come on_. You really gotta take an expression about enjoying an escaping from the humdrum of day-to-day life and use it to snark about a person's entire existence?
  - zasz 8y ago
    It wasn't intended to be snark. She was very clear that this one week was IT for her. She was a leader in an established Burning Man camp that hands out free stuff for women's health, and she said she really enjoyed the recognition she got for doing something nice for other people. At the time I thought she should look into doing volunteer work with some worthy organization the rest of the year, but now, I see that finding a satisfying community to give value to isn't so easy. What's sad is that for all the technological progress this society has made, it has failed to provide people with consistent opportunities to feel that they are doing psychologically meaningful work.
- com2kid 8y ago
  Why is that sad? She found something she enjoys doing. Better than someone who has yet to find that spark that gives life meaning. Is everyone in the advertising business supposed to love making adverts? I certainly feel more alive camping with friends than I do debugging JavaScript. I'm lucky enough to have a life where I can go on 2 or 3 major vacations a year with friends and family with another couple smaller trips spread throughout the year. For people with a busier schedule, I can see them taking great pleasure in the one time a year they get to escape. Especially since so many people never get to escape. I know plenty of people who never have had a vacation, and may very well die without ever having a day off from work and life and stress.

Haul4ss 8y ago

Earlier this year there was a good EconTalk episode[1] with the CEO of the Burning Man Project. I've never been to the festival, but I'm fascinated by the economic and logistical challenges of keeping the thing going (in contrast to something like Woodstock, whose 30th anniversary event in 1999 was a train wreck). [1] http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-man/ http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-man/

radley 8y ago

Straight from the BM blog: A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man. (TLDR: nobody). https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/ https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...

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aaroninsf 8y ago

Not going this year; have gone maybe 20 times starting in 95. There was IMO and experience genuinely something special (I won't say unique, but probably... unique) there, which is now vestigial. Still discoverable but at a time, in some strata of the event, all but axiomatic. I would describe that special thing as an emergent aspirational culture of techno-utopianism made possible by expending profound resources in the service of simulating (creating if you like, temporarily) an environment best described as "plenty." Much about our culture is defined by axiomatic scarcity, from which competition emerges. The thing that made me keep going back was the recurring experience of an inverted order, in which a uniquely large scale collaborative game was being played, in which the rules were changed. Lots of rules. This created open social space and possibility. Guards went down and spontanaeity blossomed. Altruism and kindness and generosity were, quite often, emergent. This was of course highly imperfect in a very long list of ways. And there were of course as always, bad actors, bad experiences, and a shadow side. But that does not diminish the power of experiencing the potential of existing in a culture in which the competitive instinct can be harnessed to drive collective rather than individual benefit. Many aspects of the now ossified and largely ignored "precepts" attempted to define and explain the constituent aspects which made this emergent culture function. A fools' errand but an absolutely necessary one in the face of massive growth and the encroachment of the outside rules. Many (most all) cultures have some sort of time-out-of-time in which traditional norms are suspended. It's a pressure valve and a laboratory in which the culture can tinker. I consider myself unspeakably blessed to have lived in SF at a moment when my culture and generation experimented at this scale, thanks to the (at the time permanent-seeming) very temporary apex of the post-Cold War internet boom, when the Bay was still a meeting point between a lot of very creative, very iconoclastic people, and, suddenly, a f--k ton of money and resources. We still have the latter, and it shows in the preposterous scale of very cool vanity projects on the playa now. But we are in a much much darker moment historically and generally, the culture of the Bay is now within the event horizon of money and conventional rules of power. I still have fun when I go, and there is still idealism. But the safety, risk taking, collaborative play from a smaller city and the sense of fellow travelers who frankly were a lot more freakish and non-normal than attend now, lives on only in individual interactions and nooks and crannies. It's still the background radiation shows, and to the extent the "precepts" are pursued, still leads to magic. And it's still a great gathering of freaks, and celebration of potential. Still worth it IMO if you can find the right people. Never expect to see something ignite at that scale again in my lifetime. For a while Occupy had potential to be something more. Ah well.

alevskaya 8y ago

I started and ran a science-oriented theme camp out there for over a decade as an impoverished academic, and a lot of my friends in the Bay Area help build or manage the event. I’m neither rich nor a hippy. To me, the fundamental idea of the event is that we’ve become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation due to being enmeshed in a highly commodified, transactional society and that it’s worth trying to address that. Most people can’t use a torque-driver or recognize a turnbuckle. But people can learn, and when they get involved in build projects or camps out there they do. They start trying. It’s amateur art hour write very large, but the beauty of it is how many people start trying to make something of their own, sometimes with amazing results. The event is flawed as hell and always has been, but it remains an astounding expression of labor devoted to the amateur’s search for meaning through creation. It’s art will never appeal to the traditional critic who worries more about the statement of art than it’s artifact. They can look down their noses at the idealism of those who thought to try to make something for once, instead of leaving the important job of art to those who know better, who have the right ideals, the right politics, the right message. We’re going to continue to do carpentry, to make circuit boards, to write software, and to teach others to get involved in the art of trying.

saganus 8y ago
"The art of trying" sounds like a very interesting concept. Wouldn't mind reading an article on that, if you ever feel like writing it :)
kiliantics 8y ago
You may not be rich, but you are not poor. How can these projects be about civic participation if they're not inclusive to the kinds of people that can't afford to take time off work and trek across the country to go camping in the desert? There are lots of ways people try to address the problems of our "highly commodified, transactional society" within their own communities, where everyone is capable of participating. For some reason, however, many of the people I know that go to Burning Man, and many of the kinds of people that typically do go, are never involved in those kinds of local organising initiatives... It would be nice if these ideals about art were more commonly expressed and engaged with in the areas where they are really sorely needed, rather than in a remote place that people need to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get to and be in.

fipple 8y ago

Things change, whatever. Burning Man is now it's a luxury art and music maker festival where the rugged conditions are part of the appeal in the same way that they are for Mount Everest. If you want the old Burning Man you'll have to start a new thing.

originalsimba 8y ago

This story would have been relevant some years ago, today it's old news.

TaylorAlexander 8y ago

I recall reading an article a few years ago about how every year, people declare burning man “dead” or dying. People write articles about how it’s not how it used to be. How the message is lost. Every year. When I talk to people who go, most of them seem to suggest it’s still an amazing place. I guess it largely depends on who you are. I really dislike the society we’ve built. It feels too focused on work (I live in the Bay Area) and not enough on community. So burning man sounds ideal for me, it’s just been scheduling issues that have so far prevented me from going. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that apparently these articles come up every year. Take them with a grain of salt. Edit: here’s the article. https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/ https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...

wavefunction 8y ago
You can find much of what you might find at Burning Man in other places in the world. I think it's amazing primarily to people who've never been or aren't regularly exposed to those things.

CrankyBear 8y ago

Vanishing? Folks, it's been gone for years. It's now summer camp for well-off techies.

jontas 8y ago
I don't think you read the article.. it's about how the idealism of the artwork vanishes once it's left the playa. It has nothing to do with the changing nature of burning man.
- burntrelish1273 8y ago
  Perhaps it's an idealism that shouldn't be temporary like "Earth Day." Live consistent to one's ideals, such as say going vegetarian, everyday rather than temporarily going on a The Purge sex and drugs bender.

modells 8y ago

There's a lot of people whom just go to Burning Man to get high and fuck.

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Animats 8y ago

The successor to Burning Man is probably Wasteland Weekend. Even that's getting commercial. It's turning into a music festival.

Theodores 8y ago

Burning Man's predecessor beach parties sound a lot like how events in the UK 'rave' scene happened. The commercial clubs took over what was once fun, spontaneous, non-hierarchical and free in the rave/festival scene. Having a spectacular, out of the world location was always important with 'rave', this could be the grandeur of the great outdoors or an illegally occupied premium site, e.g. the council's own offices rigged with 40K of sound with the place completely off limits for the authorities. To some degree, whether in town or in remote countryside there was always an aspect of squatting to a true 'rave' event. Even if a venue was legit, e.g. a farm with the farmer being in on the deal, there would be laws, neighbours and active policing with searches. Once inside the autonomous zone life was lived with a very different, trusting 'security model' of community. There was an alternative world there, the same thing Burning Man attendees go to seek but get a ritualised, pastiche of. In time the law banned 'repetitive beats' and people got old. The dance music that was a big part of 'rave' did live on in the commercialised club scene and with DJs doing legit concert style events, nowadays to fill stadiums. The 'rave' free party scene died along with the ability to temporarily live 'free' from a world of conventional law and order. Burning Man might not be ideal and far too American for the tastes of many however it offers the illusion of being able to live in that way the UK free party scene offered. Even if it is more akin to an organised festival you can at least pretend that you are living as a 'free man'. Maybe Burning Man can only ever offer a glimpse at the ideals that it is supposed to be about just because there has to be some organisation rather than it being utterly spontaneous. This matters not, Burning Man is established as its own thing and it has been that way since the end of the beach party scene it inherited.

warrenmiller 8y ago

Fuck Yer Burn!

wnmurphy 8y ago

I went 6 years in a row, and I haven't been since they screwed up the ticket system with a lottery, introducing scarcity that wasn't there before and encouraging people to over-buy tickets out of fear and game the lottery website. In my mind it's turned into a side gag from HBO's Silicon Valley, where entitled tech bros throw money at plug-and-play camps in the hopes of seeing world famous DJs play unannounced sets, so they can post selfies on Instagram. It's all of that and also none of that. It's the most exhausting vacation.

lordalch 8y ago
My understanding was that BLM limited the number of tickets they could sell, and they decided to make the tickets go by lottery rather than raise the price. If I were planning to go to Burning Man, I would just plan to buy the $1,200 ticket and skip the angst.
- c22 8y ago
  If you become part of an established camp that contributes significant art or experiences back to the community BMorg also offers directed group sales allowing your key contributing members to skip the lottery at the regular price.

peterwwillis 8y ago

The only part of this article I find annoying is the artistic elitism. Burning Man is great because any asshole can create art and have lots of people see it and interact with it without it being judged by an art critic, or have to somehow get accepted into an art show or museum. The purpose of Burning Man, and a burn in general, is to participate. If you're not participating, there is no purpose to Burning Man. This creates a good deal of the confusion and indifference to the event by spectators, and the world at large.

abalone 8y ago

"Leave no trace" has always been a fake Burning Man ideal. Sure, they clean up after themselves, but hauling a mini city onto the desert and back (incl. water and sewage) leaves a relatively large per-attendee carbon footprint. That's a trace! Plus there's dumb stuff like straining water resources just to wash off all the dust. Usually when you bring this up they'll say "it's worth it" for all the other ideals. But irrefutably it's still a fake ideal, which calls into question the authenticity of all of them.

bonniemuffin 8y ago
LNT predates burning man, and has nothing to say about carbon footprint. Take it up with the National Park Service and the Sierra Club if you don't like it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace

rednerrus 8y ago

There are people in this world who have no creativity. They are desperate not to be living the lives they've chosen. Eventually, they are going to show up in your creative venture with their other, not creative friends. They are going to bring the money they made doing their not creative work. They are well-intentioned but they are going to ruin everything. They are trying so hard to escape the assholes that ruin things. They don't realize they are the assholes that ruin things.

jl2718 8y ago

All the idealism of burning man pretty much dies as soon as you realize that everybody’s on drugs. It’s a dark path. Some people do alright. On a long enough timeline, most don’t.

c22 8y ago
While there's definitely a larger percentage of the public "on drugs" than you find in day to day life (and a lot more people drunk on alcohol), there are still many sober people at the event. I'd posit at any given time the majority of participants are sober, with the exception, perhaps, of Friday and Saturday night.
klank 8y ago
On a long enough timeline, it's a dark path for everybody, everywhere.

Lichtenbat 8y ago

Burning Man was a once in a lifetime thing for me. I heard it was like a massive rave, and it was better than that! It definitely is a better fit for the party people than I thought. It’s a no fear environment that is generally safe. Plus it’s desert camping, so it’s logistically a blast as well. For people who don’t party, they get a chance to decompress and live at a different pace. As an old school massive promoter in SF/SoCal and CO, it’s great it comes back year after year! Time to one up the previous!

jimmywanger 8y ago

I know that Reno locals hate Burning Man and burners in general. Whenever Burning Man comes to town, a lot of canned food and bottled beverages are sold out, they don't spend much money in town, and on the way home, they're still in party mode, and spun out of their mind, and raise hell in local establishments.

thiswillis 8y ago

Our open-borders globalist world is built on the premise of "differences without distinction." Nothing about that inspires idealism in the long run. Burning Man is another example of a Leftist celebration that only really mattered to it's adherents when it was still exclusive. Hypocrites!