Should those at the Burning Man really be torched into oblivion?
Asked by
msh (
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)
September 6th, 2016
from iPhone
It has been a rather odd ritual that has been growing in attendance since it’s inception 30 years ago. This year’s Burning Man desert-minute metropolis and party pyres drew in an estimated 70,000 people to Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
It takes all kinds and they’re all there. A question comes to mind. Does anyone else see this as turning into a giant toxic cloud as is released into the atmosphere? A ruined dessert area which has borne a marked decline in some of the area’s environment – not to mention some of the irreversible damage being done to the areas used to get to, and exit from the event? People who missed out the musical party in Upstate New York trying to keep a pyre burning in the window? Millennials haven’t a clue as to it’s history, nor do most of the crashers care. This year, some serious vandalism was done to the Plug and Play areas- for the wealthiest version of getting dirty without having to rough-it, areas. (Much resented.) So even more police were needed. More crowd control for the stupid and high bent on fights and destruction. When is someone going to pop the singed ozone from this pyromaniacs dream vacation? Has it gotten out of hand and become shudderingly trendy over it’s once being totally, like, rad? What next? Tickets and fencing? Or a swan-song?
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5 Answers
There’s a more fundamental issue with Burning Man.. When it began, it was an almost anarchic get together in the desert for music and whatever; it was comparatively small and it was ‘cool’ in the sense that it was something that a small number of people got into.
It evolved to be commercialized (sponsorships, booths, demo dollies, part of a marketing strategy for corporations) and it stopped being a place for cool people.
It seems like in ‘jumped the shark’ 10 years ago.
Burning Man has gone the way of Christmas and many other sacred events…a commercialized shadow of it former glory.
The original burners I know stopped going when it got covered in the paper (th San Francisco Chronicle). Even then, they were lamenting that it had left its original home on Baker Beach.
As an arts festival, it was still interesting and challenging until about 2010, when tickets had to be sold to limit access. Then it was time to die.
(I don’t even know what it is.)
Well. Here in my town there was an event called Boxcar that went on for many years. It started as a graduation party by some seniors in the late 80’s, and evolved, through word of mouth, into a local, annual event.
You have to be invited by someone. You couldn’t just go. This was in 97, ad a coworker invited me.
It just got bigger and bigger every year. Live music, people camping. On the next to the last day there would be a pot luck, with the hosts providing the meat.
It was casual, it was fun, it was reminiscent of the peace movement in the 60’s.
The last time I went, in 2003, there were, probably, 300 people there. With that many people, and with the shift in society, bad stuff started happening. Fist fights, someone even pulled a gun. Episodes of violence started happening, and people no longer felt safe.
That was the last year they held it. :(
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