For many of its existence, Burning Man, the week-long desert expertise that’s half utopian efficiency, half survival quest, and half drug journey, has dodged critical cultural pushback, past eye rolls or wry jokes. Maybe that’s as a result of its followers have zealously proselytized it as the transformative expertise in an age of transformative experiences, a vibe so highly effective it’s been the topic of tutorial analysis. Maybe it’s as a result of its longstanding ties to highly effective tech bros — and their cash — have made its mythos troublesome to puncture. (“Burning Man is Silicon Valley,” Elon Musk informed Recode in 2014. “For those who haven’t been, you simply don’t get it.”) Or maybe it’s as a result of particular person tales from Black Rock Metropolis, the non permanent Nevadan metropolis constructed yearly to accommodate the competition’s 80,000 “burners,” usually make the fest really feel like a Hunter Thompson novel come to life. Even when it’s a punchline, there’s been one thing untouchable about these days within the desert.
However Burning Man’s repute collapsed quicker than a tent in a mudslide after this yr’s annual gathering started with a controversial local weather protest that blocked passage into the house and ended early with a dramatic rainfall that blocked passage out of it.
The rains turned Black Rock Metropolis and the encircling desert, or the playa, right into a sludgy wasteland and left tens of 1000’s of rich sojourners actually caught within the mud. On Friday, September 1, after many of the scheduled occasions and reside performances have been canceled because of the climate, Burning Man organizers closed routes out and in of the world, forcing attendees to remain behind and ration their meals, or else discover alternate routes out. Some, like Diplo and Chris Rock, hitched rides with strangers to make it out, however many others have been compelled to attend till the primary street opened on Monday. Through the days-long chaos, wild rumors unfold of Ebola contagion (false) and dust that gave attendees chemical burns (true; it’s referred to as “playa foot” and it outcomes from the alkaline soil touching pores and skin).
On the competition, many attendees stored their spirits excessive and continued to have time regardless of the climate. However throughout social media, onlookers reacted with glee on the considered a bunch of desert glampers who’d paid between $200 and $2,800 a ticket having to tough it.
All these wealthy individuals stranded in the midst of a desert made comparisons to Fyre Fest really feel inevitable. However the aftermath of Burning Man ’23 is more durable to snicker at. One particular person died on account of a suspected drug overdose whereas on the fest, and the New York Occasions reported on Tuesday that attendees, in defiance of the organizing rules of the occasion, had left behind large quantities of waste, together with belongings and deserted autos, all of which organizers might be liable for eradicating. With the local weather protesters who kicked the entire week off objecting to the occasion’s dangerous environmental influence, it’s exhausting to see the fest via its preliminary rose-colored glasses.
Has Burning Man lastly misplaced its glamour?
Burning Man has at all times been about utopian idealism, however that ethos has gotten more durable to maintain. Famously, Burning Man is meant to be about simplicity, discount, a stripped-down way of life that places one in contact with nature, the self, and group. The 10 rules embody “radical self-reliance,” “communal effort,” and “civic duty.” It’s all very utopian and anti-capitalist in principle, however in observe, it’s as techno-libertarian because the Silicon Valley crowd that populates the playa yearly. Reportedly idealistic philosophies end up to cowl ruthless scammers with alarming frequency, and Burning Man’s ethos often obscures what a large number of waste and extra the occasion is. Like a number of issues with the Valley, good(ish) intentions change completely at cash and scale.
When its founders first burned a person in effigy on a San Francisco seaside in 1986, Burning Man could have been about getting again to fundamentals, however through the years, the fact of the occasion has shifted from the well-kept secret of artists and adventurers, to a frivolous gathering of ultra-rich tech bros and their pals, to a gone-mainstream clusterfuck overrun by new burners in search of new experiences. Although Burning Man actually hasn’t grown as quick as different comparable outsized cultural initiatives, the inhabitants of Black Rock Metropolis has ballooned since its first forays into the general public consciousness, from 80 individuals at its first Black Rock Metropolis outing in 1990 to 35,000 individuals in 2004 to 80,000 in 2023.
And the price of that gathering is gigantic. In 2014, journalist Nick Bilton described luxurious campsites springing as much as home 100 individuals at the price of $25,000 a spot, and that was practically a decade in the past. In 2019, the competition lastly banned one ostentatious campsite that charged attendees $100,000 for entry to a two-bedroom air-conditioned suite with a minibar. Though commerce on the occasion is banned and organizers preserve they’ve not often damaged even as a result of prices are so excessive, Burning Man is a money cow; the nonprofit group that runs the fest claimed $46 million in annual income in 2019. After canceling the competition in 2020 and 2021, the occasion has struggled to return to pre-pandemic income, however the financial system round it has continued to develop. Some estimates have claimed the fest generates upward of $60 million for the native financial system.
However the draw back of that financial enhance is a local weather nightmare: a staggering 100,000 tons of carbon emissions yearly, to not point out a rising noise air pollution downside and an more and more obnoxious variety of personal jets that ratchet the carbon footprint ever larger. Then there’s the large cleanup afterward, which continues to require extra assets because the occasion strays additional and farther from its “go away no hint” mantra.
The competition’s relationship to the indigenous lands on which it resides additional complicates all of this. Black Rock Metropolis sits in the midst of the Pyramid Lake Paiute reservation; earlier this yr, whereas emphasizing his tribe’s pleasant relationship to the fest, chairman James Phoenix of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe described annoyances like trash and particles left behind for the locals to cope with, plane dipping into the lake and off-limits wilderness areas, and an ever-increasing inflow of visitors into the world.
Mockingly, the Pyramid Lake tribal police have been those to disperse the local weather protesters who blocked the roadway into the competition final week, with one ranger now below investigation after he was caught on video ramming the blockade and pulling a weapon on a protester. One of many activist teams that organized the protest, Seven Circles, responded by observing that the actions of the police “serve to keep up the established order for these in energy.” Members of one other organizing group, Rave Revolution, identified to the Guardian that Burning Man’s whole id helps hold that establishment intact by luring in “privileged technocrats” who suppose their sustainable life within the “default world” are sufficient to offset the surplus of the competition.
The entire thing is, as Wired put it, “an ideological minefield.”
Nonetheless, this yr’s competition may need gone off with out a hitch had it not been for the rain — and an additional serving to of schadenfreude.
This yr’s rains opened the floodgates for Burning Man criticism
Burning Man 2023 kicked off on Sunday, August 27, and was scheduled to run via Labor Day. Nevertheless, Sunday’s festivities have been hampered by the protest blockade and its subsequent shutdown by native authorities. All through the week, attendees loved the occasion’s common (bizarre) lineup — till Friday afternoon, when roughly a half-inch of rain turned the playa right into a sea of mud and shut down visitors out and in of the occasion. Authorities shipped in cell towers — Burning Man is normally a tech-free house — and urged burners to shelter in place till the rains cleared out. However the mud created extra issues as attendees struggled to un-mire their autos and slog via the muck. The roads remained closed from Friday night time till Monday, although many attendees didn’t go away till Tuesday. All through the weekend, some members of the group rationed meals and shared assets to muddle via, whereas others hitchhiked, off-roaded, or discovered different methods off web site.
Ever for the reason that deep-sea submersible implosion in June, the general public’s criticism of luxurious billionaire adventures has elevated. The optics of elite glampers who intentionally hunt down dangerous adventures couldn’t be worse, particularly when these adventures result in tragedy — or, as with Burning Man, flip a few of them into entitled crybabies. It doesn’t assist these optics that Burning Man attendees are overwhelmingly white, with all of the incumbent privilege that implies, or that Burning Man has lengthy been one thing of a cultural joke because the sandbox of the pretentious.
Being trapped at Burning Man appears nearly as dangerous as being trapped in a dialog with somebody who went to Burning Man
— Sam Morril (@sammorril) September 3, 2023
Furthermore, as with the dialog surrounding the submersible tragedy, many have been fast to level out that the plight of rich attendees having to increase their port-a-potty utilization obscures actual emergencies and social considerations. “I’d argue that actual ‘radical self-reliance’ is what’s occurring within the excessive desert of the Antelope Valley, the place meals and water have to be conserved year-round, and the place, with out a working generator, the closest supply of electrical energy is a half-hour stroll away,” Erika Smith wrote for the LA Occasions relating to homeless encampments established within the wake of Hurricane Hilary.
“I’m undecided I’ll ever perceive why persons are keen to pay to basically expertise what tens of 1000’s of unhoused Californians expertise each single day.”
In her memoir, author Clemantine Wamariya recounted the expertise of attending Burning Man and experiencing PTSD as a survivor of genocide whereas there. She cannily summed up the paradox of what the fest has turn out to be: “That is the place individuals went to expertise ecstasy but in addition to get nearer to struggling — elective, luxurious struggling.” It’s that idea — elective luxurious struggling — that makes it troublesome for many individuals to really feel sympathy for Burning Man attendees. As revenue disparities develop extra excessive, our persistence with the frivolity of the elite has dwindled. With rising rates of interest, fluctuations within the job market, and the ongoing inflation disaster, high quality of life has worsened for many individuals, and Individuals’ views on the rich have trended sharply unfavourable, particularly for the reason that pandemic.
A lot of that dissatisfaction finds a straightforward goal within the type of high-profile Burning Man followers like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — the identical billionaires who, maybe relatedly, could or will not be planning a cage match. It’s the form of brazen, tone-deaf wastefulness that invitations jeering from the web popcorn gallery, very like spending 1000’s of {dollars} to wind up caught within the mud within the desert for every week.
Furthering the impression that Burning Man is much less a transformative expertise than a wealthy man’s foible is that investigations have discovered proof of abusive labor situations and a poisonous work setting, in addition to sexual assault, amongst Burning Man staff and volunteers. Lots of these affected are liable for cleansing up the campsite after the partygoers have departed — an expertise that’s prone to be markedly worse this yr contemplating the horrible situations at this yr’s web site and the reportedly massive amount of particles left behind.
Nonetheless, some have been sympathetic; Emily Nussbaum identified that the social media noise had obscured the lack of Burning Man’s inventive expressivity. “The ppl I do know [who attend] make artwork initiatives & deal with it as an intense once-a-year retreat with pals within the wilderness— they’ve gone for years, they plan forward, it isn’t a fly-by-night factor,” she tweeted.
However that concern simply raises bigger questions on the way forward for Burning Man. This isn’t the primary time the competition has had dangerous climate; in 2014, rain and dust delayed the occasion opening, and even at the perfect of instances, “playa mud” creates horrible air high quality for attendees. “Burning Man will get dirtier earlier than it will get cleaner — and can miss its personal purpose of being internet unfavourable on emissions by 2030 — except the Org makes massive modifications,” Wired reported final yr relating to Burning Man’s sustainability efforts. In the meantime, local weather change continues to hazard out of doors festivals because of the rising threat of warmth publicity; for a competition that banks on the unconventional attract of roughing it within the desert warmth, that enormous wood Man gained’t be the one one burning.
